Full transcript
0:03When you think of bestselling books, what titles come to mind?
0:09Perhaps The Lord of the Rings? It’s sold 150 million copies worldwide, which puts it in third place.
0:16A Tale of Two Cities has sold 200 million copies.
0:20That’s good enough for second place, but it’s still not the all-time best.
0:24The number one bestselling book in all of history is the Bible.
0:28In fact, the Bible has sold over five billion copies, and it’s been translated into more than two thousand languages.
0:36The history of the Bible, and how it came to be the most widely distributed book in the world,
0:42is a remarkable story.
0:43The drama begins in antiquity, many centuries before Christ.
0:47The scribes, priests, prophets, and poets of the Hebrew people kept a record of their history with God,
0:53along with their inspired insights and hopes.
0:56Because these writings were a vital part of Hebrew life, they were carefully copied and recopied many times.
1:02As time went on, these sacred writings were gathered into three collections known as
1:07"the Law," "the Prophets," and "the Writings."
1:10Eventually these three collections came to be considered the canon,
1:13or official list, of the Hebrew Bible.
1:17However, when Alexander the Great and his successors conquered the ancient world,
1:21Greek became the common language of the people.
1:24So in the third century B.C.E., the Hebrew Scriptures were translated
1:28into Greek for Jews and others living outside of Palestine.
1:33This Greek translation was called "the Septuagint."
1:36It contained all the books of the Hebrew Bible, plus an extra seven books
1:40not originally in the Hebrew collection, called the Apocrypha.
1:43This was the Bible used by Jesus and the early church.
1:47Greek remained the common language for hundreds of years,
1:50so when the early Christians recorded the life of Jesus and the teachings of the Christian faith,
1:54they also wrote in Greek.
1:57The earliest writings of the New Testament are the letters of the Apostle Paul.
2:01He wrote to people in specific places, but other believers also wanted copies of Paul’s teachings,
2:07so his letters began to circulate.
2:09The Gospels soon followed, as well as other letters, exhortations, sermons, and writings.
2:15Eventually, guided by the Spirit of God,
2:18the church put together a collection that most accurately testified to Jesus Christ.
2:23By the end of the fourth century, church councils reached a consensus,
2:26and the canon of New Testament was officially recognized.
2:31Also in the fourth century, the Emperor Constantine
2:34authorized the creation of fifty copies of the complete Scriptures,
2:37and possibly for the first time, the Old and the New Testaments came together as one book.
2:45Almost as soon as the Bible was formed, scholars began translating it
2:49into other languages for Christians living in other parts of the world.
2:52It was important to the early church that as many people as possible had access to the Scriptures.
2:58The most significant translation of the early church was a Latin version called the Vulgate.
3:04A scholar named Jerome spent over twenty years living and studying in Palestine
3:09in order to make an official translation of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures into Latin.
3:14The Vulgate eventually became the official text of western Christianity.
3:19However, the Latin-speaking Roman Empire fell in the fifth century,
3:24and tribes such as the Vandals, Goths, and Huns invaded Europe.
3:28Christian monasteries began to collect biblical texts - especially Jerome’s Vulgate -
3:33preserving and copying them throughout the centuries.
3:37By this time missionaries and soldiers had brought the gospel to the British Isles,
3:42and translated the Vulgate into the common language of the people.
3:46But many rulers and church leaders felt that the Scriptures in the popular language
3:50of the people challenged the Church’s authority.
3:53Even though Latin had long-ceased to be the common language of the people,
3:57it became a crime to possess or circulate non-Latin copies of the Bible.
4:02However, not all leaders felt the same way.
4:06In England, late in the fourteenth century, a churchman and political figure
4:10named John Wycliffe and his followers to translated the Scriptures into the common language,
4:16and it was completed the year Wycliffe died.
4:19The authorities did all they could to suppress this English Bible,
4:22going so far as to dig up Wycliffe’s body and burn it.
4:26They banned the use of any new translation,
4:29and many people were persecuted for copying or reading translated Scriptures.
4:34In spite of this, the English people hungered to hear the biblical story in their own language.
4:39But copies of the Bible had to be made by hand, so complete Bibles were scarce and very expensive...
4:45until a printing breakthrough occurred in the middle of the fifteenth century.
4:50In Germany, a goldsmith named Johann Gutenberg created the printing press,
4:55allowing books to be printed on a machine rather than by hand or wood block.
4:59The first large book produced by Gutenberg’s press was a Bible in Latin.
5:04However, by the middle of the sixteenth century,
5:06the Latin Bible had been translated and printed into 14 other languages.
5:11It was around this time that a young scholar from England named William Tyndale came upon the scene.
5:17Sometimes called the Father of the English Bible,
5:19Tyndale believed that people had the right to read and hear the Scriptures in their own language.
5:24He eventually went to Germany where he translated the New Testament from Greek into English,
5:29and it became the first printed English New Testament.
5:33Copies were smuggled into England, and secretly purchased and read.
5:37Even though readers and owners were arrested, the Scriptures kept flowing in.
5:42Tyndale went to Antwerp to work on a translation of the Old Testament, but before he had completed this work,
5:48he was betrayed, arrested, condemned a heretic, and publicly executed.
5:53His last words reportedly were, "Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!"
5:59Tyndale’s prayer was answered three years later.
6:01The first authorized Bible in the English language, called the Great Bible,
6:06was published as the result of King Henry VIII’s injunction that an English Bible be placed in every parish.
6:12People flocked to the churches to listen to the reading of the Scriptures in their own language.
6:18Early in the seventeenth century, King James I authorized a new translation of the Scriptures.
6:23This translation, known as the Authorized or King James Version, is still read today,
6:29but it was only the beginning of English bible translation.
6:34Since the Tyndale Bible there have been close to 900 English translations or paraphrases of the Bible.
6:40This, coupled with versions in 2,000 other languages, makes the Bible
6:45the most-read, most-translated, and bestselling book in history.
6:50The fact that virtually anyone on earth can have the Scriptures in their own language
6:55is due to the perseverance and sacrifice of those who never wavered from the belief
7:00that the Bible should be available to anyone who wishes to read it.
7:04However, that does not mean that every person on earth has open access to the Scriptures.
7:09In some areas of the world today, the Bible continues to be seen as a revolutionary and dangerous book,
7:15and its publication or distribution is either highly monitored or banned outright.
7:20Many people can face persecution, imprisonment, or death for owning or teaching from the Bible.
7:27Perhaps you wonder why this book is so popular that people would risk their lives to obtain one.
7:33Those who do so believe that the Bible is more than simply a collection of stories or a book of history.
7:39They understand it to be the very Word of God,
7:41revealing his love, encouragement, and instruction to humanity.
7:46There is something about the Bible that draws spiritually hungry people to its pages and nourishes them.
7:51As long as the desire for the Scriptures remains,
7:54there will be people - like Jerome, or Wycliffe, or Tyndale -
7:58who are willing to dedicate their lives to bring God’s Word to you.
8:02To obtain your own detailed copy of the Bible Explored: A Short History, or your own Bible,
8:07please contact the Canadian Bible Society at biblesociety.ca.