that became the language of most East European Jews, Yiddish,rnis written in Hebrew characters, and 26 centuries afterrnNebuchadnezzar’s conquest of Jerusalem, the language of thernBible could once again become the language of a modern people.rn(Of course, the strictest Orthodox Jewish groups arc reluctantrnto use Hebrew for any but religious purposes.)rnIf the Jews preserved their Bible, they also kept it to themseKcs.rnThe New Testament was written in collociuial Greek,rnand when its authors quoted the Old, they generalK’ used therncurrent Greek translation, the Septuagint. Bv virtue of its availabilityrnin what was the most widely used language of the RomanrnEmpire, the completed Christian Bible, the Old and NewrnTestaments, became the founding document of a new culture.rnPitirim Sorokin’s work, The Crisis of Our Age, and mv recentrnbook. The Sensate Culture, both describe the sociocultural shiftrnfrom the late, degenerate sensate culture of the pagan Greco-rnRoman world to the new ideational culture of early Christianit)’.rnThis shift, which amounted to nothing less than the creationrnof a new or regenerated culture, of what we still callrn”Western civilization”—it is no accident that the current politicallyrncorrect denigration of Western civilization has followedrnby only a few years the increasing Supreme Court-mandatedrnexclusion of the Bible itself and the biblical heritage from thernpublic arena—was not coordinated on a governmental level; inrnfact, it ran counter to the established principles of the centralrnauthority. Nevertheless, it spread with surprising uniformityrnacross Europe and parts of Africa and West Asia, because itrngrew out of the message, the Christian Gospel, that remainedrncoherent because it constantly referred back to the book, thernBible. The emerging Christian culture survived the disintegrationrnof the Roman Empire in the West and brought new societiesrninto being in its place. The onlv com])eting power thatrncould effectively challenge the Christian empire and its successorrnkingdoms was also a culture based on a book, namely, thernKoran.rnAlthough the Bible was not widely available until the in entionrnof mo’able tpc in the 15th century, shortly beforernthe beginning of the Protestant Reformation, its words permeatedrnthe society of the day, constantly repeated in the liturgyrnand portrayed in religious art. At least most of the clergy andrnthe scholars of the day were well versed in major parts of its text.rnThe Protestant Reformation was ignited b the Bible, whichrnwas just becoming widely available in printed versions, both inrnthe original languages, in the Latin Vulgate, and in increasinglyrnadequate vernacular translations. Erasmus of Rotterdam, nornProtestant but a Christian humanist, edited the Greek text ofrnthe New Testament, and more and more Gentile scholarsrnlearned Hebrew.rnMartin Luther’s principles of the sufficiency and the perspicuityrnof Scripture, combined with the availability of Bibles,rnpermitted the growth of a host of “theologians” of variousrnstripes, ranging from the most reactionary and conservative tornthe most radical and fantastic. The eminent Reformationrnscholar Heiko Oberman, for example, sometimes speaks of thern”Catholic Reformation and the Protestant Counter-Reformation,”rnfor Protestantism was to some extent a reaction back tornScriptural simplicity, as the Reformers saw it, against what theyrnperceived to be Roman Catholic innovations. The overthrowrnof centralized papal authority in religious matters, togetherrnwith the concept of private interpretation, led, as might havernbeen predicted, to a host of changes. Private interpretation inrnthe modern American Protestant sense has its origins in part inrnAmerican democratic theory, and would have been as odious tornLuther and Calvin as to their Roman Catholic adversaries.rnEven movements no longer regarded as Christian, such as Unitarianism,rntook their point of departure from the Bible, and repudiatedrnthe doctrine of the Trinity because they could notrnfind it there. In more recent days, the Latter Day Saints, thernChristian Scientists, and even the Jehovah’s Witnesses, each ofrnthem differing in important points from traditional Christianit-,rnargue on the basis of the Bible, supplemented, it is true, byrnadditional claimed sources of inspiration. Nevertheless, despiternthe initial pandemonium, there remains a considerable core ofrnunity among the Christian groups that adhere to the Bible.rnConservative Roman Cathohcs, evangelical Protestants, andrnEastern Orthodox believers increasingly find that they havernmore in common with each other than with their coreligionistsrnwho no longer uphold the authority of the Bible. Among thernProtestants, there is always some ebb and flow in doctrinal matters,rnwith fundamentalists taking refuge in “EundamentalistsrnAnonymous,” and former liberals becoming born again Biblebelievers.rnThe significant thing that must be noted is thatrnChristians of varying pedigrees and tastes will keep returning tornthe same core Christian beliefs to the extent that the keeprnstudying and believing the Bible.rnThe Bible, or more specifically, the desire to bring the Englishrnchurch elearh under biblical authority, ultimately producedrna violent revolution under Oliver Cromwell, and whilernhis Commonwealth was short-li’ed, British monarchs abandonedrnthe idea of the divine right of kings. The American Warrnof Independence was not clearly biblical in its inspiration, butrnbiblical principles were important to many of the architects andrnthe citizens of the new republic. Both elected officials and appointedrnjustices continue to take an oath of office by swearingrnon the Bible, as do the witnesses being sworn in most courtrooms.rnAmerican jurisprudence, following its English commonrnlaw precedents, relied heaviU on biblical insights and even biblicalrntexts, until almost this very day. The massive abandonmentrnof biblical and natural law principles that has occurred inrnthe United States from the I96()’s on followed rapidly upon thernSupreme Court’s ejection of prayer and Bible reading from thernpublic schools. Although it would be too much to say that thernBible continued to be foundational for American political andrnlegal thought until the last third of the 20th century’, it is truernthat residual biblical principles formed a bulwark against radicalrnchanges in morals, and that the acceptance of abortion, nofaultrndivorce, condoms on demand, euthanasia, and ga rightsrncame in like a flood once the Bible, prayer, and even the Decaloguernwere svmbolieallv repudiated by our courts.rn”Hey, hey, ho, ho. Western Civ has got to go!” The battlecrvrnof Stanford University students, which alarmed so manyrntraditionalists when it was shouted in the 1980’s, was really superfluous.rnOnce the Bible was banished to the remainder tablernof history, “Western Civ” was on its way’ out. But lest this essavrnend on too despairing a note, let the reader remember thernwords of Isaiah, quoted earlier: “The grass withers, the flowerrnfades, but the word of our God stands forever.” The Book mayrnhave been banished from the schools and the courtrooms, butrnit still exists in tens of millions of copies, and its message stillrnburns in tens of millions of hearts. VVe may yet experience oncernmore what an earlv Nonconformist preacher promised; “Godrnhas still more truth to break forth from His holy Word.”rn22/CHRONICLESrnrnrn