George Caird

George Caird is Dean Ireland’s Professor of Exegesis of Holy Scripture at Oxford University. He is the author of many books on theology, including The Language and Imagery of the Bible, which won the Collins Religious Book Award earlier this year. He is currently at work on a book entitled New Testament Theology.

The Bible as Fiction

George Caird, 4 November 1982

When three distinguished literary figures are impelled to write about the Bible, it is clear that this strange library of books has lost nothing of its perennial fascination. All three grapple with the conundrum forcefully posed by Frye: ‘Why does this huge, sprawling, tactless book sit there inscrutably in the middle of our cultural heritage like the “great Boyg” or sphinx in Peer Gynt, frustrating all our efforts to walk around it?’ All three agree that it is fiction, but when we ask what they mean, we receive radically different answers.

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