The Bible is an ancient book, sacred to any Christian, be it Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant. Every word of her is sacred, and such an attitude causes a desire to perpetuate biblical texts. It is difficult to find a more suitable material for this than stone.
The idea of perpetuating sacred texts in stone is presented in the Bible itself. According to the biblical book of Exodus, the Ten Commandments granted by God to the prophet Moses were drawn precisely on tablets - stone slabs. The tablets of Moses, if they existed in the form described in the Bible, were not preserved. But the very idea of carving Holy Scripture in stone has been repeatedly embodied.
Sculpture
The Bible in stone is not necessarily text. "Stone Bible" is often called sculptures that adorn the cathedrals of medieval Europe. However, “decorating” is not a completely accurate definition, because the main purpose of their creation was not beauty. In the Middle Ages, even kings and noble seniors could not read, not to mention ordinary townspeople and peasants. Under such conditions, sculptural compositions depicting biblical heroes were the only way (along with listening to sermons) to get acquainted with the content of the Holy Scripture.
However, the presence of such sculptures in Europe is not surprising. But the most ancient monument of this kind was found in a country that cannot be called Christian - in China.
Christianity did not become the dominant religion in China, however, it penetrated there as early as the 1st century AD. The tomb found by archaeologists in Jiang-Su, a province in eastern China, belongs to this era. Various scenes from the Bible are carved on the walls of the tomb: the creation of the world, the temptation of the ancestress of Eve, the birth of Jesus Christ, episodes from the acts of the apostles.
