The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1897-03-24
The Making Of the Bible.

that OF Nlr. H.. y. " Dam, IN Mcclure s
Monthly, on the Making of the Bible" "
in which an instructive account was
givon Of a visit to the Bible House of
the British and Foreign Bible Society
in London. One is at first inclined
to resent remark of the writer at the
very beginning of his paper, where he
says, in speaking of the Billie, "a
book which you do not know too much
about If there is book above all
others that we'll educated persons
fancy they know all about it is the
Bible, and in proof of their thorough
acquaintance with it they will give
you chapter and verse for any text you
may name, and quote glibly from it in
connection with any subject that may
come up. And yet we venture to
assert that they could easily be puzzled
by score Of questions concerning the
Bible, the answers to which can be
found in this article of Mr.. Dams.
At the entrance to the Bible House
the visitor sees the sentence deeply
craven in the marble wall: "Heaven
and earth shall pass away, but My
Word shall not pass away 1t re,
minds him of the fact that those words
were simply spoken by the founder Of
Christianity to His followers, and not
recorded in any imperishable way, and
yet how amply are they being verified.
And certainly the Bible Society that
issues annually almost four million
copies of the Scriptures, or parts of
them, in three hundred and twenty
different languages, is one Of the means
He has ordained to render His words
eternal and to fulfil His command :
$50 ye to all the world and preach
the Gospel to every creature.
The writer very truly says that the
preservation of the words of Christ is
one of the greatest miracles the world
has ever known. "The founder Of
Christianity left no writing. No
apostle was deputed to keep the re-
cord, and none, so far as is known,
kept it. Matthew and John, who were
of the Lwelve, and Mark and Luke,
who we're not, wrote accounts many
years after the death of the Master of
His life and doings. But no man
known to history ever saw these origi-
nal accounts, and no allusion has ever
been made to them by any ancient
writer whose writings exist. No man
uscript of them written within three
hundred years after the death of Christ
has ever been seen by any modern eye.
How those words lived no man knows.
The most tremendous empire Of an
tiquity massed all it's forces against
them without avail. The words, liv-
ing mainly in mems minds, passed
from mouth to ear, and meeting to
meeting, until they vanquished the
Roman Empire, and set a Christian
King upon a Pagan throne, and after
nineteen centuries are still moving
forward majestically, invincibly and
irresistibly to ends that no men know
In that one paragraph there is mat
ter for the deepest thought, and, as
we realize the grandeur of that ire
sistible progress, that is to 60 on con-
quering and to conquer, until "the
whole earth shall be filled with the
knowledge and glory Of the Lord as
the waters cover the sea- how con-
temptibly puny seem the efforts Of any
human being to stay it's march with
his pitiful doubts as to this or that
miracle, or as to the Divine inspiration
of the Bible And most of all are
those efforts to be deplored when they
are made by one who has been set
apart and consecrated to be preacher
Of the Word, and to whom has been
entrusted the care of souls that look
up to him for instruction.
The oldest known copy of the Bible
in manuscript is in the Vatican. 1t
originally contained the whole Greek
Bible, but, as Napoleon carried it to
Paris, and it was subsequently returned
to the Vatican, it has lost some pages
here and there. Another of the four
great manuscripts from which the
Bible of to-day has mainly come is the
Codex Alexandrinus in the British
Museum. 1t was made by noble
Christian lady of Alexandria in the
fifth century, and is SO precious that
it is only brought out on the most
special occasions; but every page has
been photographed for the use OF
students. Another copy was accident
ally discovered in a monastery on
Mount Sinai in 1914 by the Bible
scholar Tischendorf: as it was being
used to kindle fire. He obtained
part of it at the time, and fifteen years
later, through the intervention of the
Czar, he was fortunate enough to get
the rest. In this was the New Testa-
ment complete, so that it is one of the
most valuable manuscripts in the
world. The fourth copy known to
exist was at one time written over
with other matter; but when accident
showed some verses Of the Scriptures
beneath the more modern writing, the
latter was carefully removed and a
large portion Of the Bible revealed.
The writer in McClure's goes on to
tell US that the Bible, as it is known
to-day, comes from manuscripts such
as these, the old Latin version OF the
fourth century, and from manuscript
translations of the Bible in Syriac,
Coptic and other languages Of the
sixth century of which date there are
twenty-seven copies, thoug h none OF
them is complete. "Therc have been
corrections, convocations and revisions
in the past, as there will doubtless be
in the future. The debates and dis
putcs, however, have dealt mainly
with minor matters, important only to
scholars; the essential message, the
the good tidings Of great joy to all the
world, have never ut any time been
subject of doubt
The printing of all immense number
of Bibles is done by the Oxford Press,
which has been engaged in the same
work for more than four hundred
years, the first volume being issued in
l47S. The press makes it's own paper,
known as India paper of a peculiar
a. Al.