Parse with me

[radiantfracture]

If you were to read the following two sentences, the subject being Gilgamesh and its effect on the English literary tradition:

Into a canon based in the Bible and the Greek and Latin classics, a religious and a secular canon with a highly developed culture of reception and interpretation grown up around it, entered a new text that belonged, as it were, in both currents and in neither. It was millennia older than either, with elements in common with each, which unsettled our understanding and gave us a sense of the extending, shadowy backstories of our traditions. (Schmidt 4)

--would you say that "both currents" refers to the Bible and the Greek/Latin tradition?

{rf}

Comments

[hilarita]

I'd agree that the 2 currents are the Bible current and the Greek/Latin current, though I'd hesitate to call the latter secular.

I think, grammatically, we have
Into (a canon based in the Bible and the Greek and Latin classics,) a religious and a secular canon ... entered a new text that belonged ... in both currents and in neither.

(Parentheses added for clarity, plus ellipses for subordinate clauses that mean we lose track of whatever it was the sentence was about.)
It's not the clearest pair of sentences.