As a translation, the Bible can often seem difficult to appreciate as a literary expression of a faith community's journey. In the Greek and Hebrew, however, the Hebrew Scriptures and the Koine of the New Testament are a vibrant expression of creativity and art. It is always important to realise that every translation - from the academic to the 'vulgate' (if you will) - is a set of compromises that will never fully impart the depth of rhythm and meter, the intense use of rhetoric and the overwhelming efficiency of language that passionately describes the struggles of trying to vision and myth-make who and what God is in history for the Judeo-Christian experience. It is a dangerous precedent to make conclusions as to the literary merit when what one has - albeit an intentional attempt to transmit the original - is merely a shadow of that which is only accessible in the original language. Furthermore, the nuances in the Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew is often glossed over when people are tempted to misrepresent Scripture out of context from not only the socio-historic realities, but the characteristics by which language transmits myth and truth.