Based on a tendency for stupidity and fanaticism that would find alternative inspiration if it didn’t have access to a copy of the Bible. Besides, I doubt the average evangelical nutcrack has read all of the books in the Bible, let alone done so in a historical, comparative perspective (which was the whole point of my original comment).

As with any ideological extreme, it usually doesn’t come from reading too much. Make the Bible vanish (the dozens of books included in that plural, from the cosmology of the first books of the Old Testament to the philosophy of Ecclesiastes) and a dumbed down, alternative monotheistic pamphlet would take its place, with all the prejudice and none of the literary quality. If you think we are “too advanced” in “2023” to come up with something as stupid as the worst in the Bible, but also gray and prosaic, just look at the average enlightened netizen interpreting my original comment as “using Greek mythology to justify oppressing people”. As if the so much of the Bible didn’t share roots with Greek mythology, and so much of the New Testament wasn’t Greek philosophy recycled. 8th grade understanding of Ancient history.

If you don’t imagine how the author might separate what they portray and tell from what they endorse, and you can only stomach those stories which you can translate into literal ethical guidelines… Then, well, I guess you can read books about gardening

Trying to erase the Bible from world literature makes as much sense as doing away with “Greek mythology”. It’s a collection of many different books, spanning many different periods and ideas.

The thing with Lolita is that it’s a waste of time to argue with the puritans who mistake character portrayal with character endorsement. Reading any of its pages at random should be enough to make it obvious that it is incomparably well written and to put the petty moralistic controversy in the foot note where it belongs.

It’s also a shame that the “scandal” made it into Nabokov’s most famous, as, despite being a great book, it is far from his best work.

Thinking that the best way to disarm and censor the ideas in Mein Kampf is to burn the book would be quite the irony