Abstract
The paper explores the possibility of classifying the Bible as a work of fantasy, or as a work including fantastic elements. It looks into the unique status of Biblical fantasy and the challenges to such a classification, including its literary features and presumption of ontological realism. The paper defines fantasy as a literary work whose content is characterized by surfeit or deviation to which no extra-textual ontological pretension is attributed. However, the argument goes beyond the ontological theme to stress the significance of the transcendent in both religious literature and fantasy. The Bible is viewed as fantasy in this sense and in some additional senses already within some of its own parts (such as Lamentation and Job). The paper studies these texts in this context and in relation to the theory of fantasy.
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