THE BIBLE ---
" The famous educator William Lyon Phelps once said: “I believe a knowledge of the Bible without a college course is more valuable than a college course without a Bible.” (The New Dictionary of Thoughts, p. 46) Regarding the Bible, John Quincy Adams wrote: “It is of all books in the world, that which contributes most to make men good, wise, and happy.”—Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son, 1849, p. 9.
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The Bible offers the best advice on living, as many have realized. English author Charles Dickens noted about the Bible: “It is the best book that ever was or will be known in the world . . . because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature . . . can possibly be guided.”
The Encyclopedia Americana says: “The influence of the Bible is by no means limited to Jews and Christians. . . . It is now viewed as an ethical and religious treasure whose inexhaustible teaching promises to be even more valuable as the hope of a world civilization increases.”
“What a grand book! Stranger than its contents for me is its manner of expression, where the word becomes virtually a natural product like a tree, like a flower, like the sea, like the stars, like man himself. It sprouts, it flows, it shines, it laughs, one knows not how, one knows not why, one finds everything so completely natural. It is truly God’s Word, in contrast to other books that testify of only human wisdom.”—The 19th-century German poet and journalist Heinrich Heine’s comments about the Bible.
“I BELIEVE the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man.” That statement was made by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. He was not alone in his appreciation for this age-old book.
The 19th-century British statesman William E. Gladstone stated: “The Bible is stamped with a Specialty of Origin, and an immeasurable distance separates it from all competitors.” Along similar lines, the 18th-century American statesman Patrick Henry said: “The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed.” Obviously impressed by the Scriptures, French emperor Napoléon Bonaparte commented: “The Bible is no mere book, but a Living Creature, with a power that conquers all ----
For some, the Bible has been a source of help and comfort. The American Confederate general Robert E. Lee stated: “In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength.” And because of his appreciation for this book, U.S. president John Quincy Adams said: “I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year.”
“I have always said and always will say,” asserted American president Thomas Jefferson, “that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make better citizens . . . The Bible makes the best people in the world.”
“THE Bible is a crystallization of mankind’s civilization and life experiences and is unique,” says a journal published by Chung Shang University in Guangzhou, China--
. Immanuel Kant, an influential 18th-century philosopher, is quoted as saying: “The existence of the Bible, as a book for the people, is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced. Every attempt to belittle it . . . is a crime against humanity.” The Encyclopedia Americana says: “The influence of the Bible is by no means limited to Jews and Christians. . . . It is now viewed as an ethical and religious treasure whose inexhaustible teaching promises to be even more valuable as the hope of a world civilization increases.”
“I BELIEVE the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man.” That statement was made by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States.
Writing in The Union Bible Companion, S. Austin Allibone says: “Sir Isaac Newton . . . was also eminent as a critic of ancient writings, and examined with great care the Holy Scriptures. What is his verdict on this point? ‘I find,’ says he, ‘more sure marks of authenticity in the New Testament than in any profane [secular] history whatever----
. “Everyone who has a thorough knowledge of the Bible may truly be called educated,” wrote the early 20th-century scholar William Lyon Phelps. “No other learning or culture, no matter how extensive or elegant, can . . . form a proper substitute.”
THE 19th-century antislavery activist William H. Seward believed that “the whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever growing influence of the Bible.”
AUTHOR Henry Van Dyke once wrote: “Born in the East and clothed in Oriental form and imagery, the Bible walks the ways of all the world with familiar feet and enters land after land to find its own everywhere. It has learned to speak in hundreds of languages to the heart of man. Children listen to its stories with wonder and delight, and wise men ponder them as parables of life. The wicked and the proud tremble at its warnings, but to the wounded and penitent it has a mother’s voice. . . . No man is poor or desolate who has this treasure for his own.”
The New Encyclopædia Britannica calls the Bible “probably the most influential collection of books in human history.”2 The 19th-century German poet Heinrich Heine confessed: “I owe my enlightenment quite simply to the reading of a book . . . the Bible. It is quite rightly called Holy Scriptures. He who has lost his God can rediscover Him in this book.”3 During that same century, antislavery activist William H. Seward proclaimed: “The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible.”4
9 Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, called the Bible “the best gift God has ever given to man . . . But for it we could not know right from wrong.”5 British jurist Sir William Blackstone highlighted the influence of the Bible when he said: “Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation [the Bible], depend all human laws, that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.”6
TODAY, translations of the Holy Scriptures are almost universally available. However, the battle over the Bible has often been a matter of life and death.
In the book Fifteenth Century Bibles, Wendell Prime wrote: “Thirty years after the invention of printing, the Inquisition was in completely successful operation in Spain. Of 342,000 persons punished by it in that country 32,000 were burned alive. It was the Bible which brought them to the flames of martyrdom. Equally terrible was this engine of destruction in Italy, both at the north and south. Archbishops, aided by the Inquisition, were consuming fires for both Bibles and their readers.
Nero made some Christians shine as lights in the world by setting them on fire, sewed up in sacks, covered with pitch, using them as candles to illuminate the scene of his debaucheries.
But the streets of European cities blazed with Bible bonfires. Bibles were not like readers who could be impoverished, stripped, tortured, mutilated and cast out. Even a leaf surviving might pierce the blackness of this darkness like a star.” .
--What author Prime describes actually took place in the case of the Bible page reproduced here. It is the colophon page, that is, the closing page of the book with an inscription identifying the translator. The two parallel columns at the top are the concluding verses of Apocalypse, or the book of Revelation.
Regarding this book, The Cambridge History of the Bible states: “Bonifacio Ferrer’s Catalan translation of the Bible was printed in Valencia, 1478; all available copies were destroyed by the Inquisition before 1500, but a single leaf survives in the Hispanic Society of America’s library.”
Wendell Prime also noted: “To terrified ecclesiastics there were no good Bibles but burnt Bibles. These holy fires had been far more frequent and brilliant but for the lack of fuel. In many places there were no Bible bonfires merely because authority was so vigilant that there were no Bibles to burn.” Despite such intense efforts to eradicate Bibles intended for the common people, many copies escaped destruction. Prime added: “Bibles were preserved by being carried away by exiles, or by being concealed like precious stones and metals in times of distress and danger.”
God’s prophet Isaiah wrote: “All flesh is green grass . . . The green grass has dried up, the blossom has withered; but as for the word of our God, it will last to time indefinite.” (Isaiah 40:6, 8) Over the centuries, multitudes of Bible lovers and many courageous translators have risked much and suffered greatly for the sake of God’s Word. Yet, human efforts alone could never have ensured its preservation. For this preservation, we thank the Bible’s Author, Jehovah."----
----Bible Commentary -----
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