"Inspired' Literature

From The Mailbag:

One may believe that if the Bible is divinely inspired than it really can't be compared to literature that is not divinely inspired, but...

If it "couldn't be compared" then it would be of an entirely different order of thing. But it isn't. It's sentimental and pious to say "The Bible is not at all like literature," but of course it's exactly "like" literature. In fact, among many other things, that's exactly what it is.

Just as it obeys certain grammatical and linguistic rules, so it behaves just as literature behaves.  It cannot do otherwise and be a "book."