The roots of American order Book

Great overview and explanation of the development of Western political thought and civilization. Kirk is masterful in weaving together long arguments and traditions into a simple narrative.

However, Russell Kirk baulks on the veracity of the Old Testament:

"The 'historical Moses' may have been different from the Moses of Exodus, modern scholarship may suggest...(T)here exist two distinct forms of history: sacred history, and secular history. Sacred history consists of an account of mankind's experience with God; secular history consists of an account of mankind's experience in mundane affairs. The first form of history often can be expressed only through imagery - through parables, allegories, and the 'high dream' of poetry. The second form of history, dealing with worldly events, tries to confine itself to such verifiable records and narrations as are available...

"Therefore the Old Testament, a sacred history, ought not to be read as if it were simply an account of everyday events. Often it is symbolic and poetical, for many truths are most accurately expressed in symbol. The story of Jonah, for instance, really is a kind of parable: it teaches how a people, through their religious faith, may preserve their identity even though conquered and enslaved by some immense power - as if a man were to be swallowed by a sea monster. Just so the Jews, through their faith in Jehovah, survived their Babylonian Captivity.

"Similarly, it is not a conceivable 'historical Moses' - unknown to us, because no documents or even artifacts or bones survive from that remote time and that obscure people - who really matters. The important Moses is the figure portrayed by the scribes - the man who experienced a 'leap in being,' who was granted moments of transcendence perhaps comparable to Pascal's, who through that experience was enabled to describe the Law for the Hebrews. One might as well search for 'the historical Don Quixote de la Mancha.' Even if somehow it could be shown that Cervantes had in mind a particular Spaniard of his acquaintance whom he used as a model for his immortal character, it would not be the 'historical' Quixote who would matter to the twentieth century: the significant Quixote is the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance of Cervantes' novel. As Mark Twain said of Homer, the Iliad was written either by Homer of by another man with the same name. So it is with Moses and the Law.

"Although a good deal of secular history is intermingled with the sacred history of the Bible, the Old Testament's purpose is not to present a chronicle of political and military events, but rather to describe in a variety of ways, and by various hands, how the Hebrews were made aware of the existence of Jehovah, and of Jehovah's laws, and of the Covenant that joins God and man. To criticize the Old Testament as if it were an attempt at chronological recording in the modern sense is to mistake its whole character."

— Roots of American Order, pages 38-41