How come the Bible can be a weird or bad name for a book?
It is actually very logic, taking into account that "Bible" means "book".
It's as straightforward as Toothpaste as the name for a toothpaste, or Car as the model for a Car, e.g. Ford Car, instead of Ford Fiesta, would be a smash hit if allowed by intellectual property laws.
Now, from the marketing & branding point of view... perhaps it's not very clever.
Originally posted by Starrman On the contrary, in this particular instance it was not without purpose. The notion of calling a book 'book' is a pretty poor idea.
However, I do admit to usually scorning first and asking questions later...
What was this conspiratorial "purpose"?
Bible is what remained in English of the Latin biblia sacra, which means "holy books" in Latin (note the plural). It has nothing to do with it being The book, if that's what you're implying.
Originally posted by Palynka What was this conspiratorial "purpose"?
Bible is what remained in English of the Latin biblia sacra, which means "holy books" in Latin (note the plural). It has nothing to do with it being The book, if that's what you're implying.
There was nothing conspiratorial about it. I didn't know that it came from biblia sacra, I was equating it with biblos from the Greek.
Originally posted by Starrman There was nothing conspiratorial about it. I didn't know that it came from biblia sacra, I was equating it with biblos from the Greek.
Originally posted by Starrman Bosse was suggesting that I was posting to slate, but my purpose was to engage (although slightly brashly) with the thread title.
Presumably "biblia sacra" comes from "biblos", and it's still weird that that shortening occurred -- the fact that the Latin phrase includes a specification of which book (ie the holy one) indicates that there were "biblia [something else]"s, but among these, all were translated into English based on the [something else], and not the bookness. The Bible, being unique in this regard, is thus weirdly-titled.
Originally posted by ChronicLeaky the fact that the Latin phrase includes a specification of which book (ie the holy one) indicates that there were "biblia [something else]"s
Not necessarily. There could just be "books", with the adjective specifying the non-normality. Like black swans vs swans, for example.
Originally posted by Palynka Not necessarily. There could just be "books", with the adjective specifying the non-normality. Like black swans vs swans, for example.
Sure. So if there were just "biblia" and "biblia sacra", it's even weirder that the latter is the one whose name survives as "Bible", like using the term "swan" to refer only to black ones.
Originally posted by ChronicLeaky Sure. So if there were just "biblia" and "biblia sacra", it's even weirder that the latter is the one whose name survives as "Bible", like using the term "swan" to refer only to black ones.
Yes, but that's probably because Latin was used during mass long after common use of Latin disappeared. The words "biblia sacra" probably meant nothing to the common person beyond the label value. In that sense, that the label was adjusted to something more economical isn't that surprising.
Many people still use "Holy Book" or, in my language, "Biblia Sagrada".
Worst/Weirdest Book Titles
25 Mar '09 00:15
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