I talked a little about the Bible a few blogs back and about how it can be misinterpreted and some people tend to use the Bible to prove, or dis-prove, just about anything.
But without trying to interpret each and very verse, the Bible is interesting in and of itself.
I think I mentioned that the Bible is the bestselling book in the world, but Ironically I guess, it’s also the most stolen book in the world. Bibles are regularly taken from hotels, hospitals, bookstores and lots of other places — I guess one of the Ten Commandments that says, “thou shalt not steal,” doesn’t apply to Bibles.
While there is some disagreement, most biblical scholars agree that it took about 1,500 years to write the Bible. The Bible has about 40 authors that wrote different sections and it was written on three continents — Asia, Europe and Africa, and — in three different languages. The Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew, while the New Testament was written in Greek — the language of scholarship at the time. (Aramaic was the common “international language” of the time and most like the language that Jesus spoke.)
It was about 400 years before the New Testament was written after the completion of the Old Testament — these years are known as the “silent years.”
On average, the Bible is over 600,000 words long. Different versions or translations of the Bible are even longer — the King James Bible is 783,137 words. And the Bible has over 1,000 chapters — 929 in the Old Testament and 260 in the New Testament. It’s interesting that both the longest and shortest chapters in the Bible are in Psalms — Psalms 117 is the shortest and Psalms 119 is the longest. The shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35 and consists of only two words: “Jesus wept.”
The Geneva Bible, produced in 1557 in Geneva, Switzerland, was the first version of the Bible to be translated from both Hebrew and Greek, as well as the first to be printed on a printing press. At the time, Queen Mary I of England was persecuting Protestants, even having them burned at the stake. In response, many Protestant leaders, like John Calvin, fled to Geneva. The Geneva Bible was very influential in the 16th century and was one of the books taken to America on the Mayflower in 1620.
Believe it or not, there is a “Sinner’s Bible.” We all know that the Bible states, “thou shall not commit adultery.” However a Bible printed in 1631 contains a typo and actually states “thou shalt commit adultery.” This Bible has become known as the “Sinner’s Bible,” and today a few copies of this rare Bible are still floating around.
There is one more fairly famous Bible that contains a typo — in a 1611 edition of the King James Bible, a typo is found in the Book of Ruth 3:15, which reads: “She went into the city.” This verse refers to God, so it is essentially describing God as a woman. Not surprisingly, this Bible is known as the “She Bible,” and only a very few of these Bibles remain.
The Bible in its entirety has been translated into 704 languages and at least some portion has been translated into over 3,000 languages. And, there are numerous versions of the Bible. With so many versions and translations, things were bound to get lost in translation at some point. So I suppose it’ll continue to be the book to quote when you want to prove, or dis-prove your argument.
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