The Most Influential Book Ever Written – Historians, Theologians, Philosophers & other Interested Parties Comment!

Wayne Grudem, Christian theologian said in a podcast I was listening to earlier:

‘hands down, no questions about it this is the most influential book in the history of the world’

Now my naturally skeptic and apologetic mind thought of what somebody, who did not care for the veracity of the Bible, may say in response:

“oh well it is the most influential book in the history of the world because those who were in power were the ones who yielded it”

But then (the dialogue between me myself and I continuing) I thought, no – wait a minute ‘Cory who does not believe the Bible’  let’s take the past 1000 years (as opposed to the 2000 years of Christian history) since that is more influential on our culture(s) as a context for this argument.

For the first 500 you had a Roman Catholic church which kept the Bible very much the preserve of the priests by not translating it out of Latin to the common tongue of the people and even much of the “clergy” were not well versed in what the Bible even said neither did they teach & preach it truly, much of the time.

Then you had the Reformation where you had the Protestant Reformers (who held the Bible in the highest regard and translated it into the language of the region where you were from Latin into English, German, French etc). So yes perhaps the argument could work there……..but only for 150 years/200 at a push.

By 1700 we entered into the so-called ‘Enlightenment Age’ where for the next 200 years or so through to what the philosophers call the time of ‘modernity’, the truth of the Bible was questioned and rejected by a sort of Richard Dawkins-on-steroids; enter David Hume! 

Now for the past 50 years we have been questioning whether there even is objective truth or not!

So my question for you historians, theologians…philosophers maybe, is this.

Considering my very quick run through of the past millennium and its seeming rebuff to the whole “it’s only influential because the power brokers believed it and passed it to the people who in turn received it” What would you say to this?

Please comment!! and correct me perhaps if my take on the past 1000 years is skewed to the wrong end?

P