What is the most important literary work of Western Civilization?

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do you really think that western civilization started hundreds of years after the bible was written

>>9483563
Most of us wouldn't be part of that civilization if it weren't for Christianity.

>>9483563
you can always make a continuous line of civilization, there are rarely straight edges to draw, where you can say one civ started _here_. but this is quite irrelevant, since the Bible was written outside of said civilization, the time dimension aside.

You said of and not from within.

It is undeniably the bible or KJV for English parts of Western Civilization. Western Civilization is heavily built upon the oral traditions of semitic goat herders

>>9483588

In Roman territories

>>9483600

In Greek tongue

>>9483550
You're right, it's clearly meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Also that is a dumb argument. Think about it if an alien book were found that gave us numerous scientific advances such as the cure for cancer, space faring ability it would be the most important work for mankind.

Why would its importance wane because it is alien to our planet?

Exhausitive list of books that actually mattered
>Republic
>Nicomachean Ethics
>Bible
>Quran
>Principia Mathematica
>On the Origin of Species
>The Communist Manifesto
thats it. Every other book ever written is superfluous and ultimately meaningless

It's clearly the bible, your argument for why it couldn't be doesn't strike me as sound

>>9483622
>no Euclid

It was the second book printed after the bible.

>>9483621
Such book would not be the "literary work of Western Civilization"

>>9483630

Never said that, can you not read? It would be the most important book in all of human civilization regardless of its origin.

>>9483628
Euclid just compiled a bunch of scrolls that got to him, the ideas from Elements were known for literally thousands of years prior.

My diary desu

>>9483634
>>Bible

>>9483633
>Never said that
Read OP's post again, baka

>>9483638

Read counter argument. I only demonstrated alien origin isn't a factor in most influential/important. Which is what OP was arguing, So again can you not read?

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>>9483550
The New Testament was written in Greek in the Roman Empire...

>>9483642
And according to Spengler, it was historical pseudomorphism, the alternating effect of magical civilization (the goat-herder civilization: early - jews; blooming - christians, chaldeans, zoroastrians; late - islam) on the new-born Western (faustian) civilization.

>>9483563
Yes.

>>9483600
Ancient Greece and Rome was another civilization too, not Western.

>>9483931
Yes but it was Christianity itself that served as the foundation of Western Civilization from it

>>9483622
Exhaustive list of every book that ever mattered
>
That's it. Every other book ever written is superfluous and ultimately meaningless

>>9483622
You forgot Harry Potter

>>9483563
western civ started in 1776

>>9483550
So the most important literary work to you has to be made by you?

>>9484006
The Illiad

>>9483936
What if it wasn't?
Desert people's nations were formed through common belief, the Umma, the community of believers of the same faith.
Western nations were formed by noble dynasties with outstanding ambition and will. New languages and states were born just because one dynasty emerged and managed to create a legacy. Look at Portugal, Austria or Netherlands, they would have no reason to exist if not for the dynasties that forged them by ruling them or making them rebel against them. The Catalan nation doesn't exist because of a marriage. All of these nations exist or don't exist because at some point in history, a group of people emerged, defined by bonds of blood, pursuiting power and an outstanding fate.

>>9484011
Wrong for the same reasons as the Bible.
>>9484000
Feudalism was part of western civilization.

>>9483988
>>9484027
You're speaking of Individual nations not Western Civilization. If we are to speak at what draws the line between what links these "Dynastic" countries you speak of and equally dynastic nations like Morocco and Turkey it was the Church

>>9484000
This is bait.

start with the greeks

>>9483936
No, that would be Greece and Rome hundreds of years prior to Christ's ministry.

>>9484093
Western civilization consists of individual nations. The Ottomans were self-appointed succesors of the Caliphs, the leaders of Islam. In Islam there was no difference between the State and the Church. So if you say it was the Church that linked Western countries together, there is some logic in that from a certain aspect, I give you that, but that doesn't adress the fact how fundamentally different was the role of the Church in the East vs West.

So if the paralel you draw with the Church as the link would be true, there would be no difference between the East and the West because the Church, albeit a different one, links both of them, however there is clearly great difference between them, so your paralel doesn't seem to be true in the deeper sense, only at a superficial, surface level at most.

>>9484122
Nah Greek and Roman civilization is in the genetics of Western Civilization but so too were they the fathers of Islam and the Ottoman Empire. Don't overlook the commonality between the Roman mission towards single all emcompassing civilization and Muhammad's Caliphate.

>>9484127
I agree but you see I would call this seperation of Church and State (Law) something deeply intrinsic to Christianity itself. Feudalism needed Christianity to function essentially

>>9483924
>New Testament
>Late Islam

>>9483622
Newton's Principia, not Russell's, right?

>>9484145
Yes, exactly, the West was all about separation while in the East that question wasn't even raised. And we are talking about the same Christianity because Cristianity existed in the East too.n that sense Eastern Christianity and Byzantinian state model has more in common with Islam than with the West. So I'm saying there must have been something special about the West, and it wasn't Christianity for sure.

>>9484145
>Greek and Roman civilization is in the genetics of Western Civilization
Spengler would strongly disagree.

>>9484528
The Orthodox Church was not Christianity proper as they denied the transcendental division of the Trinity, in that sense they remained Jewish Pagans with the aesthetics of Christianity.

>>9483622
If we're talking about a list of the most influential books, then
>analects
>the Vedas
>dhammapada
These books are a pretty big deal too.

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>>9484656
>>9483622
>Non-Western lit

>>9484563
Yeah and probably Orthodox and Jews would tell the same about Catholics. Not really adressing my point.

/poem/

>Aeneid
>Divine Comedy
>Faust
>Illiad

/prose/

>moe flanders
>grimm's fairy tales
>don quixote
>1984

Others

>On the Origin of Species
>The Communist Manifesto
>Poetics
> Kritik der reinen Vernunft
>Republic

>>9483550
Faust I & II

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>>9483622
>the communist manifesto

Leviathan by Hobbes is better and more important

>No catholic catechisms in this thread
??

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>>9483550

>>9484765
That is the entire point. The Orthodox Church believed in dogma as they prioritized the Father same as the Jews and Greco-Roman Pagans.
Perhaps it is the Celtic-Germanic origins of Western Europe in which pantheons had no clear structure or hierarchy that led to the developement of Catholicism which rather than prioritizing the father sees Man as God as authentically embodying God as much as the Father, the Law giver.

It allowed a faith in which individual human reason was given the same dignity and potential of understanding as God and hence were able to construct a Civilization that allowed this his spiritual right to determine his own rightful way as opposed to the Communal dogmatism of Eastern faiths in which the Father as represented by the one State must bestow rule on all.

>>9483622
>The Communist Manifesto
>western civilization

kek

>>9486242
why is this comical?

>>9486246
only 3rd world monkey republics were actually dumb enough to accept it.

>>9486252
I don't understand. Accept it? This thread is about important works of the West.

That work spawned from a tradition of Western thought, in the West and continues to be influential in the West as people engage with it in various ways. It's not about value judgements of said works, who 'accepted' them, or practised them you fucking mong.

>>9483550
ITT: pseuds name dropping books they skimmed through once and trying to reduce the entirety of western intellectual tradition to a few books.

>>9483550
The Bible

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>>9483550
>Classical antiquity isn't a part of Western Civilization.

>Note: if you say the Bible, you're wrong. Because obviously the most important literary work of Western Civilization has to be made by said civilization, not by some desert people hundreds of years before said civilization even started.

the bible. i'm right.

>>9483550
Divine Comedy, obviously.

>>9486733
>book that nobody ever reads
doubt.jpg

>>9486724
it isn't though

>>9483622
Thats some nasty bait you got there pal.

>>9484006
Winner.
The bible might not be the most important work made by western civilization, but it's impact on it can't be denied. OP is an idiot.

>>9484991
>Communal dogmatism of Eastern faiths in which the Father as represented by the one State must bestow rule on all
gonna go ahead and ignore the Tolkien language here to say this: if this is how you understand Eastern Christianity, you've never even come close to studying it with any academic integrity.

pro-tip: read non-Catholic authors next time.

>>9483550
muh greeks, muh aquinas, muh magna carta, muh Jung, muh doestoyevsky(for burger claps) muh Hobbes, muh proust, muh freud, muh memes

>>9486724
welllllllll considering everything past romanticism

no, its not, have you talked to a westerner lately???

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>>9483931
>Ancient Greece and Rome was another civilization too, not Western

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>>9483622
>The Communist Manifesto

>>9488610
>pro-tip: read non-Catholic authors next time.

lol no thanks, nice argument though Ivan

>>9483550
Find me a work in the western canon that wasn't influenced by the bible and I'll yeild.

>>9488812
Start with the Greeks

>>9488812
the republic

>>9488818
>>9488822
Not Western

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>>9488859

my father is dead, my mother was the religious one

I flip flop

>>9483550
The New Testament was written in Greek by both Greeks and Jews.