ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the following questions: Who wrote the Bible? What were their aims? It explores three common answers to these questions. The chapter provides a multi-layered framework for understanding individual biblical texts within their larger contexts. It explains how these three answers have influenced literary history. The Bible chronicles the history of the rise and fall of Israel, followed by a spiritual restoration of the Israelite kingdom through Jesus. The chapter focuses on biblical depictions of God's transcendence while the next focuses on depictions of his immanence. The richness of the interplay between the two types of imagery becomes transcendent describes something beyond ordinary human experience and understanding. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness invokes the Bible in its depiction of British imperialism in Africa. Yet Conrad's opinion of that history seems far more ambiguous than William Faulkner's opinion of US history.
