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Comment by vicmanster | Hacker News Reader

I second that. For a book that's the foundation of our entire Western Civilization it's amazing that so few read it these days. No wonder our civilization is breaking down. Not to mention how mythologies in so many cultures have embedded remnants of its first book, Genesis. Also the inspiration of countless masterpieces of literature like the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (1989), mentioned at the top of this list.

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> For a book that's the foundation of our entire Western Civilization

That might be putting it a bit strongly. "western civilization" derives from ancient greek society, which wasn't christian, but contained many concepts that are considered foundational to our society (such as democracy).

Actually learned persons in the west have considered democracy a terrible form of government that inevitably gives rise to tyranny for millenia. It's hardly foundational, rather it's a known anti-pattern. Republics were an attempt to harness the benefits of democracy without the drawbacks.

It may be putting it a bit strongly, but biblical references and allusions permeate the Western canon and Western culture pretty thoroughly. For the last 500 years it was the only book that nearly everyone had read. Before that it was for over a thousand years the only book everyone knew at least some of.

Few books have ever had such penetration of a culture. The Koran, the Analects, the Pali Canon are perhaps the only meaningful comparisons.

I think you're greatly overstating the literacy levels of Medieval Europe.

The 500 years figure I chose was not a coincidence. The printing press and the Reformation are connected. If a person in Europe or the New World could read, they would have read some or all of it.

Before that familiarity came from weekly readings at Mass, which is why I talked about partial familiarity for the thousand years prior.

I'm an atheist, but there's a difference between dismissing the book's contents and dismissing the impact and influence of the book's contents.

Luckily some of the major narration lines, thanks to the modern art forms, are in the very accessible form:

http://www.thebricktestament.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Book-Genesis-Illustrated-R-Crumb/dp/0...

And there are also people who e.g. carefully count the details, so that we don't have to:

https://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2006/08/who-has-kil...

But of course always check the references. Use the work of textual critics to establish what is in which version of the original text, and compare.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_criticism#Bible

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