![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/gutenberg-Bible-300x200.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
by Dan Jones<\/span><\/p>\n Kinship Christian Radio is solidly founded on prayer and the Word of God.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Ephesians 6:17 calls the Word of God the “sword of Spirit” which we are to take up every time we do battle in prayer.<\/span><\/p>\n But did you ever stop to think what it took to put that sword in your hand?<\/span><\/p>\n As with all the blessings we enjoy every day, we tend to take our Bibles for granted, but they really are an amazing miracle.<\/span><\/p>\n You may well know that scientists believe that the earliest teachings and historical accounts were passed down through the generations through stories and songs that were memorized. The oldest writing is thought to be about 5500 years old. And, a recent discovery of a pottery shard in Israel appears to be inscribed with biblical text in ancient Hebrew from about 3500 years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n For thousands and thousands of years, reading and writing was not practiced by the common people. Most historians suggest that, throughout most of human history, the literacy rate was about one percent. Only kings and rulers, scribes, and the bookkeepers of the ancient world had any real use for reading and writing.<\/span><\/p>\n There is some dispute about that, however when we get to the time of Jesus. There is conjecture that Roman society frequently posted laws, calendars, regulations, and funeral epitaphs and other notices to the general public. Indeed, the Bible points out that Pontius Pilate wrote a sign saying, “JESUS KING OF THE JEWS” in three different languages and had it fastened to Jesus’ cross. It can certainly be inferred that a substantial portion of the public would probably be able to read it. Our best guess is that the literacy rate at the time was probably about 30-40%<\/span><\/p>\n The literacy rate was probably slightly higher among the apostles. James and John were sons of Zebedee, who owned a fishing fleet, had hired workers, and was probably literate. Matthew, the tax collector, would certainly have been able to read and write. Paul, a Pharisee, was know as a man of learning. While Luke was not an apostle, he was known to be a physician, and a man of learning.\u00a0 And the Bible records Jesus reading from the scroll of Isaiah in the temple. (Luke 4:17) He is also recorded as using the phrase “have you not read” over 60 times when speaking to the Pharisees.<\/span><\/p>\n Even so, anything that was written down in Jesus’ day was not at all like we imagine today. Parchment was made from animal skins and papyrus paper was made by a laborious process of cutting or peeling the reeds into long strips, laying them together, pressing them together, and drying them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Making copies of existing documents or books could only be done by copying them by hand, letter by letter. It was a slow and tedious process, and it meant that copies of books were precious and expensive.<\/span><\/p>\n Using stamps or seals to make impressions in wax or using carved blocks of wood to print designs on cloth or paper existed for over a thousand years, and there were books printed using wood blocks a thousand years ago in China, but it still remained less expensive to hand-copy books. Even when the idea of movable type using wooden blocks and eventually metal letters was invented in China and Korea in the 13th century, it was still cost-prohibitive because these languages require the use of of over 200,000 characters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It was not until 1439 when Johannes Gutenburg, a goldsmith in Mainz, Germany, took the idea of movable type and married it to the old technology of a press for squeezing grapes or olives, along with a special tool that could quickly and easily produce new movable types with unprecedented precision on short notice that things really changed. Gutenburg also came up with just the right metal alloy for the type which was not only easily melted and cast, but was far more durable than wood, ceramic, or bronze. He also invented a special oil-based ink which produced far higher quality printing than the previous water-based inks. Within a year of inventing the printing press, he had also developed a way to print multi-color pages.<\/span><\/p>\n And this all occurred at exactly the time when paper became more common and affordable, as did eyeglasses, all of which was fueled by the economic engine of capitalism.<\/span><\/p>\n Gutenburg’s printing press rapidly changed the world. Two men could produce 3600 pages per day with his machine. By 1455, he was producing high quality and relatively inexpensive Bibles and the world was forever changed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gutenburg’s press is credited with starting the Renaissance and is often called the most important invention of the second millennium. Knowledge was now widely available to the common man, including the ability to read for oneself what had previously only been available to the elite.<\/span><\/p>\n By the time of the Reformation in 1517, there were printing presses in over 200 European cities. Luther not only translated the Bible into the language of the people when it had previously only been available in Latin, he and the Reformers contended that the Pope did not have sole authority to interpret the Bible.<\/span><\/p>\n Over the course of the 500 years since that time, human beings have come up with faster, cheaper and better ways to print Bibles. The literacy rate exploded, with most developed countries now at over 95%. Literacy is now regarded as a basic human right.<\/span><\/p>\n Currently, Americans sell or give away about 168,000 Bibles per day. The Gideons alone give away over 100 Bibles per minute, amounting to almost 60 million per year. In the last 200 years, it is estimated that over six billion<\/em> Bibles have been printed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And that’s just for the physical version of the Bible. We now have the ability to read the Bible online for free. There’s no longer any need to cut down trees and turn them into paper or have massive machines imprinting ink on that paper. Anyone, at any time, almost anywhere in the world can access the Bible online. Sites like Bible Hub and Bible Gateway are not only free to use but contain resources to read the Bible in numerous different languages, research the original Greek or Hebrew, read commentaries and analysis of specific verses and chapters, and thoroughly study God’s Word.\u00a0 One site, called Biblica and maintained by the International Bible Society, currently shows\u00a07,884,367,167 accesses to chapters of the Bible from all over the world over the course of just three years.<\/span><\/p>\n The sword that is the Word of God is right at your fingertips. It is sharper than ever, living and active, still piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.<\/span><\/p>\n HALLELUJAH!<\/span><\/p>\n Today’s Praise<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper\u00a0in the thing\u00a0whereto I sent it.<\/strong><\/em> (Isaiah 55:11) KJV<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Dan Jones Kinship Christian Radio is solidly founded on prayer and the Word of God.\u00a0 Ephesians 6:17 calls the Word of God the “sword of Spirit” which we are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 16:39:08","action":"delete","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinshipradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}