BIBLE FUN FACTS

SAYINGS FROM THE BIBLE

He’ll go the second mile (Matthew 5:41)

I saw the handwriting on the wall (Daniel 5:5)

The leopard can’t change his spots (Jeremiah 13:23)

She thinks she is holier-than-thou (Isaiah 65:5)

I escaped by the skin of my teeth (Job 19:20)

She’s the apple of my eye (Deuteronomy 32:10)

He’s a man after my own heart (1 Samuel 13:14)

It’s a case of the blind leading the blind (Matthew 15:14)

This place is a den of thieves (Matthew 21:13)

That man is a thorn in my side (2 Corinthians 12:7)

Did You Know

The Bible didn’t initially have chapters and verses. Scholars added chapters in A.D. 1231 and verses in 1551.

The word “Bible” comes from a Greek word for papyrus (biblos), a plant used to make paper.

After Johannes Gutenberg of Germany invented the printing press in the mid-1400s, the first book printed was the Bible. The first press run, of about 180 copies, sold out before the presses started. Forty-eight copies of this masterpiece survive.

Christians were among the first to discard the 3,000-year-old tradition of using scrolls. They adopted the codex, or book format. Every surviving fragment of Christian writing from the second century A.D. comes from books. But only 14 of 870 non-Christian works of that time are from books. Books, printed on front and back, were cheaper and easier to use.

“Gospel” comes from the old English word godspell. English scholars used it to translate the Greek word evangelion, which means “good news” from which we get the word evangelist.

Using the Bible at swearing-in ceremonies grows out of the ancient Jewish practice of making a promise and reminding each other that God is watching. (Genesis 31:50)  In the middle ages, Christians swore by kissing or touching a cross, a Bible, or a sacred object they believed once belonged to a holy person.

Laurie Davis, Columnist
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