{"id":1071,"date":"2012-04-29T09:00:47","date_gmt":"2012-04-29T14:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barbdahlgren.com\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2012-04-29T19:13:08","modified_gmt":"2012-04-30T00:13:08","slug":"reading-the-bible-is-a-privilege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/?p=1071","title":{"rendered":"Reading the Bible Is a Privilege"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Bible has been printed in so many languages and made available in so many countries it is difficult to think there are places where Bibles are not available.\u00a0 Yet there are thousands of areas where there are no scriptures in a native tongue.\u00a0\u00a0 Plus there are still countries where people are not exactly forbidden to\u00a0have a Bible, but it is unwise for them to read it publically.\u00a0 Having a Bible is so commonplace today it\u2019s hard to believe everyone in the world cannot enjoy the privilege of being able to read one.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Actually, the average person did not always have access to a Bible.\u00a0 Our biblical fore-fathers had no such luxury.\u00a0 In those days only the religious leaders had a copy the Bible and probably not in total.\u00a0 That\u2019s why public reading of Scripture was important. (1 Timothy 4:13)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The invention of the printing press in the 1400s changed all that by giving ordinary people access to books, especially the Bible.\u00a0 Until then the only way to duplicate a document was by hand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Man started chiseling on stone (think 10 Commandments) and gradually moved to ink\/dye on animal hides.\u00a0 The Old Testament was first copied on leather scrolls, then graduated to papyrus.\u00a0 Actually, the word Bible comes from the Greek word for the papyrus plant, biblos.\u00a0 The oldest surviving manuscript of any part of the New Testament is a papyrus fragment containing part of John 18.\u00a0 Scholars estimate that it was written about 125 AD.<\/p>\n

Sheets of papyrus could also be placed between two pieces of wood for covers creating a type of book called a codex.\u00a0 Around 320 AD the codex book form replaced the scroll, and parchment made from the skin of sheep or goats replaced papyrus.<\/p>\n

When the Roman emperor Constantine became a Christian, he authorized the production of many copies of the Scriptures.\u00a0 This was a huge, arduous undertaking.\u00a0 We cannot imagine what it took to produce just one hand copied version of the Bible.\u00a0 The lettering was ornate and each word had to be painstakingly formed in ink with no room for error since there was no \u201cwite-out\u201d or \u201ccorrecto-type\u201d available.\u00a0 It was a laborious task.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>During the Middle Ages (c. 600 to 1400), several thousand monasteries were established across Europe to copy the Bible.\u00a0 Teams of scribes and artists produced magnificent parchments filled with beautiful artwork.\u00a0 Most people in the Middle Ages were illiterate so these designs and illustrations were very popular.\u00a0 Of course these Bibles were huge and expensive, not available to the common man.\u00a0 Years ago I saw some of these magnificent manuscripts displayed at the Getty Museum in Southern California.\u00a0 Unbelievable works of art!\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure what scrolls or parchments New Testament leaders had access to but I can guarantee you they weren\u2019t just all grabbing their Bibles and heading over to Joe\u2019s house for an impromptu study.\u00a0 Many at that time were illiterate.\u00a0 When the Bereans were commended for examining scriptures daily (Acts 17:11) they were making an effort to get together with someone who could read and had access to portions of the Bible.\u00a0 Reading or studying the Bible was a shared activity with people supporting and encouraging one another.\u00a0\u00a0 Susie-Q wasn\u2019t secluded, reading her devotionals with a just \u201cme and you Lord\u201d attitude.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the printing press came along, the flood gates of information became available to the ordinary, everyday people.\u00a0 It was the Internet of its time.\u00a0 Eventually literacy and access to books became widespread.\u00a0 The Bible became accessible to the average person \u2013 people like you and me.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today some can be pretty cavalier about having a Bible and being able to read it.\u00a0 But think about this \u2013 we don\u2019t have to wait for Moses to come down from a mountain with a tablet of stone or for Paul\u2019s next parchment epistle to arrive in the mail.\u00a0 We have access to God, his thoughts, and his example at our fingertips.\u00a0 I wonder if we really appreciate what a privilege that is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bible has been printed in so many languages and made available in so many countries it is difficult to think there are places where Bibles are not available.\u00a0 Yet there are thousands of areas where there are no scriptures … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}