Why are Ancient Greek books much clearer than the Bible?

by Jawatrader2000

I am reading Plato’s Dialogues for the first time and find that you can basically read them like modern essays, and yet some of them were written ~400 years before Christ. Then you look at the Bible, which can be lyrical, but stilted and archaic-sounding, and yet it was written centuries after these Ancient Greek treatises. Why is that? Is it just supposed to be more inscrutable and mysterious? It just feels like regression to me. Thank you!

hippomancy

I think the answer by /u/sunagainstgold in this thread gets at the same concept you’re asking about, even though it’s about medieval writing, rather than ancient.

I’d add two things to that response to make it more relevant here:

  • When we’re reading Plato or the Bible, unless you have good Ancient Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic skills, youre reading a translation. Translations are colored by their translator and can be influenced to evoke different moods for the reader. Translations of the bible play up some of its inscrutability while translations of Plato often want to make everything as readable as possible so students can access it.
  • While recent English text is certainly easier for us to read than centuries-old English text, history doesn’t generally progress from “difficult to read” towards “easy to read.” In some ways, Plato is more familiar to us because of how many later scholars read Plato and copied elements of his argumentative style. While the Bible has obviously been hugely influential on Western writing, it hasn’t influenced the way modern academics make arguments in the same way.