By Luther Blackmon
For hundreds of years the Bible has been the world’s best seller, in the book field. The life of the average novel is about one year, and it is “gone with the wind.”
The first book printed, after the invention of the printing press with movable type, was the Bible. This was about the middle of the 15th century. It was called the Guttenberg Bible, after the name of the man who invented the printing press. A copy of this book, if you could buy one at all, would sell for $100,000. The British government paid Russia $510,000.00 for a single copy.
The longest telegram ever sent was the New Testament. When the revised version was completed, the whole book was sent by wireless from New York to Chicago. Several years ago the “British and Foreign Bible Society” was printing 22 Bibles every minute, day and night, to keep up with the demand.
Enemies, scoffers, doubters, fanatics, neglect and destruction have sought its termination. Diocletian thought he had effectively done away with all “Christian ‘Scriptures.” But when Constantine came to the throne, 28 years later, he issued an edict to have all the scriptures that could be found, brought forth. In less than forty-eight hours, fifty copies of the Bible had been found.
Celsus, Voltaire, Gibbon, Hume, Ingersol, Paine, Robespierre and many others have hurled their “witticisms” and sarcasm against it, to no avail. Even its friends have sometimes caused it to be looked upon with suspicion and disdain, because they have tried to make it a sort of theological grab-bag. “Choose the kind of religion you like and then find some scripture that can be made to appear as though it confirms your choice.”
Unity of The Bible
The Bible was written by about forty men, over a period of 1600 years. They came from all walks of life. Ezra the priest, Solomon the poet, Isaiah the prophet, David the king, Daniel the statesman, Amos the herdsman, Moses, Luke and Paul the scholars; From the cliffs of Arabia, from the hills of Palestine, from the courts of the Jewish temple, from the dungeon of Rome and from the Isle of Patmos. Most of these men never saw each other. Yet, their writings, when brought together, form a perfect and harmonious whole.
We have never heard anyone say, “I was a thief, drunkard, liar, a moral leper, but I read Shakespeare and Darwin’s writings, and I am a changed man.” But this has been said of the Bible thousands of times.
Not Affected by Surroundings
Moses, who wrote the Pentateuch, was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. They then believed that man sprang from worms along the Nile River. Then, when man spat on the ground, a woman sprang up. Where the woman spat, an animal sprang up. No such foolishness as this is found in the writings of Moses.
The writers of the New Testament were all Jews, except Luke. Yet they describe their Messiah as being entirely different from that which the Jewish people expected him to be.
Archeology
Critics of the Bible said Moses could not have written the Pentateuch, because writing was not known in Moses’ day. Archaeology has long since exposed this fallacy. Archaeologist M. de Morgan uncovered a black diorite upon which was written nearly 400 lines of writings, giving 248 laws written by Hammurabi a king of Babylon, about 2250 B.C.
Skeptics once insisted that no such nation as the Hittites ever existed. Records have now been found which show that the Hittites, for about seven centuries occupied parts of Syria and Asia Minor. No originality is claimed for this article. It is all borrowed. “Nuff Said.”
TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 25, p. 2
April 27, 1972