Richard Dawkins Bemoans/Models Biblical/Cultural Illiteracy

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Today in Ken Sanders Rare Books I was browsing the religion section and came across Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (2006). Almost the first thing my eye fell upon when I opened it at random was a section in which Dawkins was decrying contemporary culture's biblical-illiteracy. In making his point he lists a number of words and phrases (pp. 383-85), after which he asserts that: 

"Every one of these idioms, phrases, or cliches comes directly from he King James Authorized Version of the Bible" (p. 385). 

 But in some cases that wasn't strictly true and in others it wasn't true at all. As to the first cases Dawkins included several idioms that don't appear in the King James Bible in the form he gives them, but derive generally from incidents described in the Bible. These include for, example, phrases like "A Daniel in the lions' den," "As old as Methuselah," "The mark of Cain." These don't "come directly from the King James Bible," as Dawkins claims. 

 As to the second sort of cases, there are words and phrases Dawkins lists whose origins are quite distinct from the King James Bible, and which also have very definite cultural resonances for the culturally literate. Indeed they might be said to be the sort words and phrases that mark out the person who thinks they come "directly from he King James Authorized Version of the Bible," as somewhat deficient in the realm of cultural literacy:

 (1) "Eyeless in Gaza." These words do not come from the King James Bible at all, but from John Milton's Samson Agonistes (1671). Milton was the celebrated author of Paradise Lost (1671). The words appear in a passage that reads: "Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves" (ll. 40-41).  Aldous Huxley wrote a novel entitled Eyeless in Gaza in 1936.


I find in an article in the 29 December 2010 New Statesman (here) what appears to be an acknowledgement of sorts by Dawkins of familiarity with the true source of "Eyeless in Gaza," when he says: "Some sort of ancient mill rumbled through my imagination, resonating with 'Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves' (no, that one's Milton, or at least via Milton)." One wonders what he means by "via Milton."

(2) "De Profundis." These Latin words don't come from the King James Bible, which was an English translation of the Bible published in 1611. Rather we find them in the Latin Vulgate Bible, which is much older. They comes, in fact, from the Latin version of Psalm 129:1,which reads: "De profundis clamavi ad te Domine" (Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord). De Profundis is also the name of an ancient prayer based on this Psalm used throughout the West for centuries before the publication of the King James Bible. Oscar Wilde also wrote a work of doleful reflections while in prison in the 1890s entitled De Profundis.


(3) "Quo vadis" These words do not come from the King James Bible, but from what is called the Quo Vadis Legend. It is found in its earliest form in a second or third century apocryphal work called the Acts of Peter (35). According to the legend, Peter leaves Rome during the fires of persecution only to encounter Jesus on the road going the opposite direction. Peter ask's the Lord where he is going (Quo Vadis?). Jesus answers that he is going to Rome to be crucified again. Hearing this Peter regains his courage, returns to Rome himself, where he is ultimately crucified upside down.

Annibale Carracci, Domine, Quo Vadis?

The Church of Santa Maria delle Piante on the Appian Way, also called the Church of Domine Quo Vadis, commemorates the story and even displays what are supposed to be the footprints of Jesus pointing toward Rome.




There is also the famous novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz entitled Quo Vadis (1896) which recounts the legend. A number of films have appeared based on the book including MGM's 1951 classic Quo Vadis.

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