The Bible, directly and indirectly, is one of the major contributor to Western Civilization. While most of them has been secularized, large amount of ideas that we take for granted or consider common in the Western Civilization, such as equality of all man and inherent dignity of human, could be traced back to The Bible. A good understanding of The Bible would give you an understanding on the process of how Western Civilization is formed as it is today.
Stanford Western Culture class had Book of Genesis and New Testaments as part of required reading [0].
Stanford Western Culture class had Book of Genesis and New Testaments as part of required reading [0].
[0] https://web.stanford.edu/dept/news/stanfordtoday/ed/9705/970...