The foundations of the Human Rights doctrine largely pre-date their first proclamations in the XVIII century, and its roots run much deeper in our history. At the same time, Human Rights have little equivalents in other cultures; and certainly do not appear as an inevitable, universal product of all conceivable political anthropologies, but rather the very specific offspring of a given historical and philosophical thread, as the continuing struggle to affirm their hegemony makes quite evident. The aim of this study is to retrace the real developments and turning points leading to Human Rights doctrine in its present form, and to show how in fact, in spite of their secular veneer, Human Rights are the final outcome of the introduction and deployment of Biblical monotheism and the related value system in European societies and mindsets. In turn, this appears to explain how and why Human Rights nowadays vastly exceed the purview of legal theory and philosophy of law, and have become the epitome and ultimate point of convergence of the ideologies born from this historical turnaround, as well as the crucial legitimisation principle of the current world order. A seminal and provocative essay now made available for the first time, in a much updated and revised version, to the English-speaking public.