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II. Influence and significance
1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL IMPORTANCE
1) In Judaism.
2) In Christianity.
2. MAJOR THEMES AND CHARACTERISTICS
3. INFLUENCES
1) On Western civilization.
2) On the modern secular age.
After the kingdoms of Israel and
Judah had fallen, in 722 BCE (before the Common Era, equivalent to BC) and
587/586 BCE, respectively, the Hebrew people outlived defeat, captivity,
and the loss of their national independence, largely because they
possessed writings that preserved their history and traditions. Many of
them did not return to Palestine after their exile. Those who did return
did so to rebuild a temple and reconstruct a society that was more nearly
a religious community than an independent nation. The religion found
expression in the books of the Old Testament: books of the Law (Torah),
history, prophecy, and poetry. The survival of the Jewish religion and its
subsequent incalculable influence in the history of Western culture are
difficult to explain without acknowledgment of the importance of the
biblical writings.
When the Temple in Jerusalem was
destroyed in 70 CE (Common Era, equivalent to AD), the historical,
priestly sacrificial worship centred in it came to an end and was never
resumed. But the religion of the Jewish people had by then gone with them
into many lands, where it retained its character and vitality because it
still drew its nurture from biblical literature. The Bible was with them
in their synagogues, where it was read, prayed, and taught. It preserved
their identity as a people, inspired their worship, arranged their
calendar, permeated their family lives; it shaped their ideals, sustained
them in persecution, and touched their intellects. Whatever Jewish talent
and genius have contributed to Western civilization is due in no small
degree to the influence of the Bible. (see also Index: Jerusalem, Temple of)
The Hebrew Bible is as basic to
Christianity as it is to Judaism. Without the Old Testament, the New
Testament could not have been written and there could have been no man
like Jesus; Christianity could not have been what it became. This has to
do with cultural values, basic human values, as much as with religious
beliefs. The Genesis stories of prehistoric events and people are a
conspicuous example. The Hebrew myths of creation have superseded the
racial mythologies of Latin, Germanic, Slavonic, and all other Western
peoples. This is not because they contain historically factual information
or scientifically adequate accounts of the universe, the beginning of
life, or any other subject of knowledge, but because they furnish a
profoundly theological interpretation of the universe and human existence,
an intellectual framework of reality large enough to make room for
developing philosophies and sciences. (see also Index: creation myth)
This biblical structure of ideas
is shared by Jews and Christians. It centres in the one and only God, the
Creator of all that exists. All things have their place in this structure
of ideas. All mankind is viewed as a unity, with no race existing for
itself alone. The Covenant people (i.e.,
the Hebrews in the Old Testament and Christians in the New Testament)
are chosen not to enjoy special privileges but to serve God's will toward
all nations. The individual's sacred rights condemn his abuse,
exploitation, or neglect by the rich and powerful or by society itself.
Widows, orphans, the stranger, the friendless, and the helpless have a
special claim. God's will and purpose are viewed as just, loving, and
ultimately prevailing. The future is God's, when his rule will be fully
established.
The Bible went with the Christian
Church into every land in Europe, bearing its witness to God. The church,
driven in part by the power of biblical themes, called men to ethical and
social responsibility, to a life answerable to God, to love for all men,
to sonship in the family of God, and to citizenship in a kingdom yet to be
revealed. The Bible thus points to a way of life never yet perfectly
embodied in any society in history. Weighing every existing kingdom,
government, church, party, and organization, it finds them wanting in that
justice, mercy, and love for which they were intended.
The Bible is the literature of
faith, not of scientific observation or historical demonstration. God's
existence as a speculative problem has no interest for the biblical
writers. What is problematical for them is the human condition and destiny
before God.
The great biblical themes are
about God, his revealed works of creation, provision, judgment,
deliverance, his covenant, and his promises. The Bible sees what happens
to mankind in the light of God's nature, righteousness, faithfulness,
mercy, and love. The major themes about mankind relate to man's rebellion,
his estrangement and perversion. Man's redemption, forgiveness,
reconciliation, the gifts of grace, the new life, the coming kingdom, and
the final consummation of man's hope are all viewed as the gracious works
of God.
The Old Testament contains several
types of literature: there are narratives combined with rules and
instructions (Torah, or Pentateuch) and anecdotes of Hebrew persons,
prophets, priests, kings, and their women (Former Prophets). There is an
antiracist love story (Ruth), the story of a woman playing a dangerous
game (Esther), and one of a preacher who succeeded too well (Jonah). There
is a collection of epigrams and prudential wisdom (Proverbs) and a
philosophic view of existence with pessimism and poise (Ecclesiastes).
There is poetry of the first rank,
devotional poetry in the Psalms, and erotic poetry in the Song of Songs.
Lamentations is a poetic elegy, mourning over fallen Jerusalem. Job is
dramatic theological dialogue. The books of the great prophets consist
mainly of oral addresses in poetic form.
The New Testament also consists of
a variety of literary forms. Acts is historical narrative, actually a
second volume following Luke. A Gospel is
not a history in the ordinary sense but an arrangement of remembered acts
and sayings of Jesus retold to win faith in him. There is one apocalypse,
Revelation (a work describing the intervention of God in history). But the
largest class of New Testament writings is epistolary, consisting of the
letters of Paul and other Apostles. Originally written to local groups of
Christians, the letters were preserved in the New Testament and were given
the status of doctrinal and ethical treatises.
The Bible brought its view of God,
the universe, and mankind into all the leading Western languages and thus
into the intellectual processes of Western man. The Greek translation of
the Old Testament made it accessible in the Hellenistic period (c. 300 BCE-c. 300 CE) and
provided a language for the New Testament and for the Christian liturgy
and theology of the first three centuries. The Bible in Latin shaped the
thought and life of Western people for a thousand years. Bible translation
led to the study and literary development of many languages. Luther's
translation of the Bible in the 16th century has been called the beginning
of modern German. The Authorized Version (English) of 1611 (King James
Version) and the others that preceded it caught the English language at
the blooming of its first maturity. Since the invention of printing
(mid-15th century), the Bible has become more than the translation of an
ancient Oriental literature. It has not seemed a foreign book, and it has
been the most available, familiar, and dependable source and arbiter of
intellectual, moral, and spiritual ideals in the West.
Millions of modern people who do
not think of themselves as religious live nevertheless with basic
presuppositions that underlie the biblical literature. It would be
impossible to calculate the effect of such presuppositions on the changing
ideas and attitudes of Western people with regard to the nature and
purpose of government, social institutions, and economic theories.
Theories and ideals usually rest on prior moral assumptions--i.e.,
on basic judgments of value. In theory, the West has moved from the
divine right of kings to the divinely given rights of every citizen, from
slavery through serfdom to the intrinsic worth of every person, from
freedom to own property to freedom for everyone from the penalties of
hopeless poverty. Though there is a wide difference between the ideal and
the actual, biblical literature continues to pronounce its judgment and
assert that what ought to be can still be.
The assumption of many people is
that the Bible has lost much of its importance in a secularized world;
that is implied whenever the modern period is called the
post-Judeo-Christian era. In most ways the label is appropriate. The
modern period seems to be a time in which unprecedented numbers of people
have discarded traditional beliefs and practices of both Judaism and
Christianity. But the influence of biblical literature neither began nor
ended with doctrinal propositions or codes of behaviour. Its importance
lies not merely in its overtly religious influence but also, and perhaps
more decisively, in its pervasive effect on the thinking and feeling
processes, the attitudes and sense of values that, whether recognized as
biblical or not, still help to make people what they are.
The deepest influence of biblical
literature may be found in the arts of Western people, their music and,
especially, in their best poetry, drama, and creative fiction. Many of the
most moving and illuminating interpretations of biblical
material--stories, themes, and characters--are made today by novelists,
playwrights, and poets who write simply as human beings, not as adherents
of any religion. There are two views of the human condition that scholars
have attributed to biblical influence and that have become dominant in
Western literature.
The first of these is the view
that the mystery of existence and destiny is implicit in every man and
woman. In contrast to the canons of classical tragedy, a person of any
rank or station may experience the extremes of happiness or misery,
exaltation or tragedy. An aged Jew of Rembrandt's paintings or an
illiterate black woman of Faulkner's novels can reach the height of human
dignity. The arts also put down the mighty from their seats and exalt
those of low degree. Any man may be Everyman, the symbol of all human
possibility.
The second view of the human
condition is that the time of encountering all reality is now, and the
place is here, in man's workaday activities and contingencies, whatever
they may be. To be human is to know one short life in mortal flesh, in
which the past and future are dimensions of the present. It is now or
never that the choice is made, the offer of the gift of life accepted or
declined. Any kingdom there is must be entered at once or lost forever. It
is here in the actual situation of work and play, of love and need, and
not in some far-off better time and place, that the crisis is reached and
passed, the issue settled, and the record closed.
These views, though here stated in
language that has theological overtones, are not confined to adherents of
Judaism or Christianity. They are characteristically Western views of the
human condition. That they can be put in words reminiscent of the Bible
indicates that the representation of man in Western literature is indeed
conditioned by biblical literature. |
