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More on the Bible as literature.
First of all I want to emphasize that my comments are not intended in any way to discuss the theology espoused in the Bible (although the poetry of Ecclesiastes 3, cited in my previous post, is nothing short of miraculous), but the Bible as an historical document, and in particular the King James version, which to quote Wikipedia has been called "the most celebrated book in the English-speaking world." Posters have expressed similar thoughts here (but not necessarily of the book as a whole).
The majesty and power of the King James version is all the more remarkable in that the initial translation from the Greek and Hebrew begun at the behest of James 1 in the early 1600's was the work of a committee of approximately 50. (I can't cite a source, but my memory tells me that whenever there was a dispute among the committee as to what the final text should be, it was settled by speaking the competing versions and choosing the one that sounded best to the ear.)
As Wikipedia notes, the version we have today was completed in 1769, and appears to have been largely the work of two men, Parris and Blaney, which reminded me of the Apostle Paul, who, as Crich points out, wrote a substantial portion of the New Testament, including the letters to the Corinthians from which two of the quotations in my previous post were taken.
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