It is a truism that the West was formed by Athens and Jerusalem—meaning the rational thinking introduced by Greece and the moral and religious thought introduced by Israel.
Of the two, Jerusalem’s contribution was the more enduring. Relatively few Westerners read Aristotle and Plato. Virtually every citizen of the West—even the illiterate—until the last generation or two, was familiar with the Bible. Europe was Westernized by the Catholic Church in the name of the Bible, not Homer.
Were it not for the Jews and their Bible, there would be no Christianity—and therefore no Western civilization. The abolition of slavery was led by Bible-believing Christians. The Bible, not Aristotle, was their moral inspiration.
With regard to America, its Founders, even the less religious ones, were rooted in biblical morality. Two of the least religious, Thomas Jefferson and…
