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What all-encompassing (wholistic?) structuralists don't get is that what matters about a big book, or the Bible, or the Canon, is not its structure—the way its parts fit together—but rather the mere fact that all those parts are there, so that there is something for every reader.
It's like with the human body. You don't have two eyes, two ears, two kidneys, &c because they fit together beautifully or meaningfully. Having two is just better – safer – than having one. Quantity & variety are values in themselves, because they make things more antifragile.
To look for the "overall meaning" is to miss the point. Survival does not depend on what something "means" – it depends on what something can do.
The Bible has two creation narratives (and four gospels) for the same reason that the human body has two kidneys.
(Cf. Kaufmann: "Anyone who has ever written with any feeling for literary form must have felt a real regret at having to eliminate one of two inconsistent statements or passages, assuming that both were exceedingly well put & that each also said something worth saying.
A modern philosopher will generally feel that he must do something to eliminate the inconsistency . . . [but] the assumption that the author of Genesis should have felt any such constraint is downright fantastic.")
The obsession with "structure" only makes sense if one is studying architecture. But literature is not architecture. Great books are forests, not houses; else they wouldn't grow and prosper, but die of a slow death.
Literature is not like architecture. Religion is not like architecture. Culture is not like architecture. Life is not like architecture. Most things are not like architecture. Architecture is like architecture.
Taleb wisely distinguishes between robustness & antifragility. Robust things don't change through time; antifragile things get better with time. A well-structured book is robust: it doesn't change. A great book is a living organism: what makes it live on is what in it can change.
