The Influence of the Bible on Civilisation: How Scripture Shaped Western Culture, Ethics, Law, Education, and Public Imagination

The Influence of the Bible on Civilisation examines Scripture not merely as a sacred text, but as a formative cultural force shaping moral imagination, social institutions, language, education, law, art, and political ideals. Written in a clear, historically minded prose characteristic of early twentieth-century Protestant scholarship, the book places the Bible within the broader literary and intellectual history of the West, tracing how its narratives, commandments, prophecies, and spiritual vocabulary entered public life and private conscience. Ernst von Dobschütz was a distinguished German theologian, New Testament scholar, and church historian whose work combined textual learning with an interest in Christianity's historical effects. His expertise in biblical transmission and early Christian culture equipped him to see the Bible as both document and living inheritance. Writing from within a scholarly Protestant milieu, he sought to explain how biblical ideas endured beyond ecclesiastical boundaries. This book is recommended to readers interested in the intersection of religion, history, and culture. It will especially reward students of biblical reception, intellectual history, and Christian civilisation, offering a concise yet learned account of how Scripture helped furnish the ethical and imaginative architecture of the modern world.