”Every good and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father”

James 1v17

 

The Word of God is one of God’s greatest gifts from heaven to earth, to mankind.  Before we consider why, here are some amazing facts about this most amazing book:

 

•The entire Bible was written over a 1500 year span by over 40 different authors, many of whom did not know each other and often times were unaware of what others had written or were yet to write – but nonetheless they complement and agree with one another and one writer helps us to interpret another.

 

• The 39 books of the Old Testament were composed between 1400 and 425 B.C., the 27 books of the New Testament between 50 and 100 A.D.

 

•There are over ¾ of a million words in the Bible.  These words consist of 1,260 promises, 6,468 commands, 3,268 verses of fulfilled prophecy, 3,140 verses of prophecies yet to be fulfilled.   The fulfilled prophecies give us every confidence that the others will most certainly come to pass in their time.

 

•The Bible is the best selling book of all time and has been translated into over 2,817 languages covering 98% of the world’s population.  There are still around 2,000 languages that have no translation of the Bible but then there are still over one billion people around the world who cannot read.  It takes about 70 hours to read the entire Bible.

 

•The Bible was the first book ever printed.  In 1454, Johannes Gutenberg invented the "type mold" print press and began to print the Bible. Life Magazine called this the single most important event of the second millennium.  The first English Bible translation was initiated by John Wycliffe in 1382 and completed by John Purvey in 1388.  The first ever, vocal radio broadcast on Christmas Eve, 1906 consisted of a reading from Luke chapter two.

 

•Gideons International distribute over 80 million Scriptures every year, to schools and hotels etc. In late April 2015, Gideons distributed their two billionth Scripture. The first one billion Bibles and New Testaments by Gideon members spanned 93 years (1908 to 2001). The second billion was reached in less than 14 years (2002 to 2015)!