两千年来,圣经在西方文化中始终是出类拔萃的著作。“作为文学的圣经”这个概念来自圣经本身,从圣经本身能看出它作为一部文学著作的性质。该概念出现于文艺复兴时代。18、19世纪对圣经的宗教性理解逐渐消减,相应地,圣经经常被仅仅视为文学著作。在20世纪文学中,圣经依然是被参引最频繁的书。对“作为文学的圣经”的学术研究肇始于20世纪初期,那场运动由英美文学教授们注入了活力,是他们发现了潜在的可能性,能把自身在文学课堂上常用的理论和方法运用于圣经研究。 For two thousand years, the Bible has always been an outstanding book in Western culture. The concept of bible as literature comes from the Bible itself, from which the Bible itself can see its nature as a literary book. The concept appeared in the Renaissance. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the religious understanding of the Bible gradually diminished. Accordingly, the Bible was often regarded as merely a literary work. In the 20th century literature, the Bible remains the most frequently cited book. The academic study of “The Bible as Literature” started in the early 20th century and the movement was infused with the Anglo-American literary professors by their potential that they could find their own common theory in literary classes and Methods used in Bible studies.