There seems to be some confusion on the site on the place of the Bible in the Western world. The feeling being that the Bible is either not important to understanding Western literature or that the Bible itself is not a fundamental part of the Western Canon. Two statements have made me want to write up this little essay. The first is "that the Greek and Roman pantheons beat out Christian mythology as a guide for understanding Western literature" and the second that "the Bible and Christian religion are Middle-Eastern in origin." I know, two commenters, out of 100,000 plus registered users, does not warrant this amount of work. But, it has been awhile since I’ve written anything so what else am I going to do on a Christmas night.
I suppose I should include a disclaimer before I start. I am in no way qualified to write any of this. I do have a BA in History, but then so does a million other people who couldn’t get a real degree. And I am an Atheist, so don’t actually believe any of the supernatural parts of the Bible. I think it should be taught in English classes and History classes, because I think it is necessary for understanding later historical events and the literature that was written in reference to the book.
What is Western civilization?
"For the Hebrews, how did their religion, which became so important in the development of Western civilization, compare to others?"
Western Civilization: Sources, Images, and Interpretations Vol1 p.3
Any general Western Civilization history textbook will always start in the same place: The Fertile Crescent. It is from here that civilization springs from that goes on to form the foundation of Western civilization. Yes, it is the Middle-East, but that is a 20th century concept. For the Greeks, it was just another area to conduct trade and conquer.
No civilization springs up out of the ether uninfluenced by other previous groups. The Greeks had trade and cross cultural influence with the people in the middle-east for hundreds of years before what we know of as Greek civilization was created. And the Romans were heavily influenced by the Greek and Hebrew cultures. The Roman empire which encompassed the area entirely that the New Testament was written, is early Western civilization.
The concept of what civilization is is a complex one. What the West is has varied considerably by the times and who is talking about it. Often, the concept involves excluding a less powerful group from the dominate one. So the Greeks would have excluded non-Greek speaking peoples from belonging to their civilization. As the romans would later. But does that mean that the Britons, the Germans, or the Scandinavians are not a part of the Western tradition?
Western literature refers to the literature of the Indo-European languages, as well as several languages geographically or historically related to the Indo-European languages
Wikipedia
Bible’s place in the Canon of Western Literature
"There are, I suppose, only a few works that seem even more essential to the Western Canon than Paradise Lost – Shakespeare’s major tragedies, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Dante’s Divine Comedy, the Torah, the Gospels, Cervantes Don Quixote, Homer’s epics."
The Western Canon, Harold Bloom p.26
Can there be any denying that each of those is a part of a collection of great works. And while the importance of Greek and Roman influence can not be denied, Paradise Lost, Canterbury Tales, and the Divine Comedy would all be impossible without the Bible being the foundation upon which the others were built.
What education there was in the Early and Middle Ages tended to be devoted to the study of the Bible. The church was the place that taught young men to read and write. Those not going into the priesthood largely remained illiterate. So a vast majority of the early writings of Western Civilization amounts to commentary on biblical themes. Not until the Late Middle Ages did literacy become common enough and printing cheap enough that a broader group of people had both the time and desire to branch out into other reading ideas. The new books were influenced by the old, however, so in subtle and not so subtle ways continued to explore ideas found in the Bible.
The Bible, of course, did not spring out of nothing itself. The story of the flood is directly inspired by the epic of Gilgamesh and the basic God hierarchy is heavily influenced, if not outright descended, from Zoroastrianism.
But even if the Bible were not to be considered as created by Western civilization, it certainly influenced to a large degree the direction of Western civilization. In the same sense that the Analects of Confucius, while important in the East, influenced the West not at all.
Here is a map of the Roman Empire at its height. Note that it includes Palestine, as well as all of North Africa. To deny the importance of that region of the world in the development of Western civilization and literature is at odds with reality.
I understand that there is a battle going on between the hard right fundamentalists Christians who wish to have the Bible be the only textbook taught in school as the literal truth and those who wish education to teach reality in Science classes, not religion. But, lets not let understanding of our history and literature become a casualty in that war.
Mostly, I used my own personal books to research this and sometimes got caught up reading more for pleasure than for research. A luxury that I can now indulge in with no paper deadlines looming. But I also used the internet a bit and Wikipedia somewhat, but that was not as useful as I was hoping it would be. Not nearly enough detail.
I apologize to Unitary Moonbat, mkfox, and the other teachers and writers of history for this. But, with any luck it will quickly scroll away and I will not be embarrassed too much by my continuing efforts at C work.