nogods4me

Are there any reliable accounts of the destruction of libraries, or other repositories of knowledge by the early xtians or the early church? I know there is a great deal of debate concerning Alexandria. If someone could point me in the right direction I would be grateful.

Secular Pinoy

You can ask Bede, the venerable catholic apologist, or Bill, the Agnostic Pope. They have debated the issue of the pillage of the Lib of Alexandria a few times before.

Marduk

It seems that the only historical burning of the Library of Alexandria was done by Julius Caesar’s troops and that was by accident, they set some ships on fire in the harbor which spread to a library annex. Any damage done by Christians or Muslims is not as certain.
However the Spanish Catholic explorers to the “New” World did intentionally destroy most of the Myan written works. Oddly what few Mayan works left to us were saved by a Monk who found the destruction of history done by his fellow Christians disgusting. I can’t remember his name but the text he saved was the Pophul Vol (sp?)
Christians were much better at destroying other Christian works that they didn’t like or found heretical, Gnostic, Cathern writings, non Christian stuff they mostly ignored and let rot away.

Abel Stable

On a sidenote:
The monk's name was Fr Francisco Ximenez
The Popol Vuh is a Mayan sacred book. I like its take on the creation of humans:

"They came together in darkness to think and reflect. This is how they came to decide on the right material for the creation of man. . . . Then our Makers Tepew and Q'uk'umatz began discussing the creation of our first mother and father. Their flesh was made of white and yellow corn. The arms and legs of the four men were made of corn meal."

You are what you eat!

Here's a brief summary of its principal story, The Hero Twins