The wonderful poetry of the seventeenth century King James Authorised Bible has, like Shakespeare’s, penetrated deep into the discourse of English speaking people. Its beautiful phrases sum up thousands of human situations that could not be expressed better. So often, when considering where an idiom or a saying originated, guessing either Shakespeare or the Bible would give you a more or less 50/50 chance of being right. Both are full of profound thoughts and ideas and they originate at the same time in English history.
Novelists, poets, playwrights and other writers often use biblical phrases as titles for their works. Here are fifty novel titles taken from or inspired by Bible:
East of Eden
by John Steinback
The God Complex
by Chris Tutus
Absolem, Absolem
by William Faulkner
Song of Solomon
by Toni Morrison
From Potter’s Field
by Patricia Cornwell
The Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway
Exodus
by Leon Uris
The Skin of Our Teeth
by Thornton Wilder
Sarah
by Marek Halter
Go Down Moses
by William Faulkner
A Great Deliverance
by Elizabeth George
How Far to Bethlehem
by Norah Lofts
Bless This House
by Norah Lofts
The Violent Bear It Away
by Flannery O’Connor
A Virtuous Woman
by Kaye Gibbons
Moab is My Washpot
by Stephen Fry
Lamentation
by Matthew Shardlake
Sodom and Gomorrah
by Marcel Proust
Alas, Babylon
by Pat Frank
The Book of Ruth
by Jane Hamilton
The Book of Daniel
by E.L. Doctorow
The Testament
by John Grisham
Body and Bread
by Nan Cuba
Ruth
by Elizabeth Gaskell
Solomon’s Tale
by Sheila Jeffries
Esther
by Norah Lofts
Rachel and Leah
by Orson Scott Card
Daniel Deronda
by George Eliot
A Time to Kill
by John Grisham
Jonah
by Louis Stone
Revelation
by C.J. Sansom
Jude the Obscure
by Thomas Hardy
Noah’s Ark
by Jerry Pinkney
Noah and the Great Flood
by Mordicai Gertstein
The Seventh Commandment
by Lawrence Sanders
The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
The Mark of the Beast and other Horror Tales
by Rudyard Kipling
Comfort Me With Apples
by Pieter De Vries
Against the Day
by Thomas Pynchon
Cities of the Plain
by Cormack McCarthy
O Jerusalem
by Laurie R. King
Leaven of Malice
by Robertson Davies
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
by James Agee
Against the Day
by Thomas Pynchon
In the Beginning
by Chaim Potok
Through a Glass Darkly
by Donna Leon
A Time to Love
by Barbara Cameron
The Blood of the Lamb
by Pieter De Vries
Like a Lamb to Slaughter
by Lawrence Block
Any classic novels we’re missing from this title of Bible-inspired novel titles? Let us know in the comments section below.