The Bible as a Great Book

Gary A. Anderson reviews Founding God’s Nation: Reading Exodus, by Leon R. Kass, at First Things.

"As in his volume on Genesis, Kass remains committed to reading the Bible as one of Western Civilization’s 'Great Books.' This means that the Jewish tradition can play no decisive role in determining what the text teaches. This is not to say that Kass has ignored the tradition. There are many references to premodern and modern interpreters, but they play no essential role in Kass’s discernment of the enduring value of the text."

See:
Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 54 Vol., 1952)

"Readers who are startled to find the Bible omitted from the set will be reassured to learn that this was done only because Bibles are already widely distributed, and it was felt unnecessary to bring another, by way of this set, into homes that had several already. References to the Bible are, however, included in both the King James and the Douai versions under the appropriate topics in the Syntopicon." (The Great Conversation, by Robert M. Hutchinsmm, volume 1, p. xvii). [Syntopicon is the title of the extensive topical index to the entire set.]

Great Books of the Western World (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990)

"References to Bible, when present, are always placed first. The Bible is not included as part of the set, since there is no definitive version acceptable to everyone." (vol. 1, p. xiv) in the second edition (60 volumes, 1990), Introduction to The Syntopicon (vol. 1, p. xiv)

See, also, What We Cannot Know unless We Know the Bible.