Book Burning, the history of book burning, farehiet 451.

Book Burning

The ritual of book burning is an ancient ritual. It goes back to 213 BC. Books have been burned for many reasons. But mainly books were burned for fear of power and religion. The first recorded book burnings where from the first emperor of China.

Shi Huang, in 213 BC, started the ritual of burning books when he burned books that he thought put a threat on his rule as the first emperor of China. The scholars who's books where burned were then buried alive, and so were the people who supported them. Hundreds of people were killed in this manner.

Another important book burning happened in 1500 AD to the books of a writer by the name of William Tydale. They were burned for the offense of translating the bible into English from it's original Greek and Hebrew form. William Tydale is the second most quoted English writer, behind Shakespeare.

Book Burning

The Book Burning Protest

Book burning

Nearly all of the phrases from the King James authorized version of the bible were taken from Tydale. He coined phrases such as "let there be light," "let my people go," "love thy neighbor as thy self." Not only were his books burned, he ended up burned also.

The leading cause of conflicts has been religion, which has had many book burning cases. Book burning has been going on since paper was invented. The Christian church has accounted for lots of these burnings. In 391 AD, the Christian Church burned down enormous libraries in Alexandria which held 700,000 rolls. The most famous book burning during the middle ages happened when subjects of King Louis IX lit 1000's of Jewish books, because the pope banned Talmud which portrayed Jesus as a common criminal.

Anther mass burning took place around 1500 AD when the Spanish Inquisition burned tons of...