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More Wisdom: The Bible or Aesop's Fables?

Kilgore Trout

Kilgore Trout

Misanthropic Humanist
With all this talk of the bible containing wisdom-filled parables, it made me start thinking about Aesop's Fables, and which book has more useful parabolic wisdom to offer.

Personally, I've found a clear, useful, identifiable lesson in nearly each of Aesop's several dozen fables. In comparison, the bible's lessons seem abstruse and less applicable to daily life and the human condition.

What does everyone else think? Which book's parables contain more wisdom?
 
lunamoth

lunamoth

Will to love
There's wisdom in Aesop's fables, but it tends to be more like the conventional wisdom of Proverbs, sort of 'you reap what you sow' and get what you deserve. I think the Bible, in additional to this helpful conventional wisdom also tells us about unconventional wisdom, loving your enemy, the last shall be first, the meek shall inherit the earth, and bad things happen to good people.

So, I'll go with the Bible for being more comprehensive.
 
Storm

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
It's kinda apples and oranges. Aesop's fables are pat, moral stories for children. The Bible is grander, more complicated, and requires a bit more work.
 
logician

logician

Well-Known Member
The golden rule was around in many cultures, really nothing original about it in Christianity. Some of the Christian bible's teachings are suspect at best.
 
sojourner

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
atotalstranger said:
With all this talk of the bible containing wisdom-filled parables, it made me start thinking about Aesop's Fables, and which book has more useful parabolic wisdom to offer.

Personally, I've found a clear, useful, identifiable lesson in nearly each of Aesop's several dozen fables. In comparison, the bible's lessons seem abstruse and less applicable to daily life and the human condition.

What does everyone else think? Which book's parables contain more wisdom?
Click to expand...
Aesop is fundamentally different from the gospel parables in very important aspect: The fables present us with conventional, "head" wisdom that "makes sense" to us. "Don't count your chickens before they hatch" type of stuff. However, the parables present us with wisdom that is not conventional; that is, they present us with a reversal of conventional wisdom, that appeals, not to our heads, but to our gut. "The kingdom of God is like leaven that a woman hid in a lump of dough." Leaven was a poison. What conventional baker would put poison in something for human consumption? But when we understand that the God's kingdom is about God "getting dirty" with humanity, in order to reconcile us to God, it reverses our concept. Instead of being concerned with our purity, as in "keeping the Law," we become more concerned with God's impurity, as in the Incarnation that brings about grace.

You're trying to compare apples with oranges here.
 
Kilgore Trout

Kilgore Trout

Misanthropic Humanist
Storm said:
No, you changed the question. The Bible's parables are very useful. There's no good answer to whether they're MORE useful than the fables'.
Click to expand...

So what makes the bible's parables grander, more complicated, and more sophisticated, and, if they are, then what is the net positive result of this grandosity, complicatedness, and sophistication?
 
Storm

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
atotalstranger said:
So what makes the bible's parables grander, more complicated, and more sophisticated,
Click to expand...
The structure, symbolism, layers of meaning, concepts addressed....

and, if they are, then what is the net positive result of this grandosity, complicatedness, and sophistication?
Click to expand...
What an odd question. The fables are for children, the Bible more advanced. It's like comparing a kid's fingerpainting to Picasso. It's not really fair.
 
linwood

linwood

Well-Known Member
Storm said:
What an odd question. The fables are for children, the Bible more advanced. It's like comparing a kid's fingerpainting to Picasso. It's not really fair.
Click to expand...

Actually Picasso implied his maturity as an artist was an obstruction to his art.

He seemed to consider every child a "pure" artist while age and maturity were inhibitors of creativity.

Just another point of view.
 
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