BiblicalInsights.net

How many books are there in the world?  A few years ago, Google Books Library Project came up with a number.  According to Leonid Taycher, a Google software engineer, who at the time, worked on the project, there are 129,864,880 books in the world.  And we’re talking about number of titles, not number of copies of all titles (Josh McDowell, God Breathed, p. 113).  Out of these almost 130 million books, there is one that is truly unique.  It is the Bible.  Consider the following:
1.  The Bible is the world’s best-selling book of all time and best-selling book of the year (every year!)  Fifty Bibles are sold every minute.
2.  The Bible was written over a period of 1,500 years by more than 40 individuals from many backgrounds (prophets, fishermen, kings, philosophers, scholars, poets, shepherds, herdsmen, etc.) who lived in 10 different countries on 3 different continents (Asia, Europe, Africa) writing in three different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek).  They wrote about God’s interaction with 2,930 characters, from more than 1,550 different places.  Yet, every book in the Bible focuses on one theme: the Scheme of Redemption.
3.  Worldwide, there are 80,000+ versions of the Bible with full Bibles in 530+ languages and portions of the Bible in about 2,900 languages.  A full Bible translation in a person’s native/heart language is available for 70% of the world’s population.  In whole or in part, the Bible is accessible to 98% of the world’s population in a language in which they are fluent.  The Bible is the most translated book in the history of the world!
4.  After three years of constant printing, the 1454 Gutenberg Bible (Latin language) was the first book to be printed on a movable metal type printing press (China invented woodblock printed books during the Tang Dynasty).  Johannes Gutenberg, after whom the Bible was named, printed about 180 copies without any printing errors (major parts of 48 copies exist today).
5.  There are about 900 printed English versions of the Bible (complete or incomplete translations and paraphrases).  The first hand-written English manuscripts were written by John Wycliffe who translated from the Latin Vulgate in 1384 A.D.  In 1525-1526, William Tyndale’s New Testament became the first printed English edition of the Scriptures translated from the Greek.
6.  The King James Version (1611 A.D.) is the most popular English translation in the world.
7.  Between 1815 and 1975 an estimated 2.5 billion Bibles were distributed with more than 100 million new Bibles printed every year since, making a staggering total of 7.5 billion in print.
8.  The most shoplifted book is the Bible!  Thousands of Bibles are stolen from hotels every year.  The Gideons, founded in 1899, distribute about one million Bibles, free of charge, every week (about two copies every second).  By 2015, the Gideons will have placed 2 billion Bibles and New Testaments in schools, hotels, prisons, hospitals and among the military.
9.  The use of online Bibles continues to increase.  In 2014, Bible Gateway had 1.5 billion page views by more than 150 million unique visitors.  The YouVersion Bible App offers more than 1,000 translations of the Bible and has been downloaded more than 150 million times.  The Bible.is App offers the Bible in full or in part in more than 1600 languages.
10.  The largest Bible factory is located in China.  The Amity Bible Printing Company in Nanjing, China has produced millions of Bibles while the Bible is not allowed to be freely distributed in China.
11.  It takes 70 hours to read the whole Bible aloud at “pulpit rate.”  Reading the Bible silently with an average reading speed of 250-300 words a minute takes 54 hours.  People who read 800 words per minute can read the Bible in a day.  If you’re short on time, read Philemon, it only takes a minute!
(All of the facts above were taken from: www.jumpintotheword.com.  Twenty Interesting Facts About the Bible, Dr. Lawson Murray, May 5, 2015).

A recent internet article titled, “Nine Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Jesus” affirmed the notion that Jesus was married.  The article referenced an ancient papyrus scrap found in 2014 that referred to the wife of Jesus.  We will examine the evidence for this papyrus fragment
An article published in Biblical Archeology Review (BAR-May/June, 2015) by Harold Shank examined the evidence for the papyrus fragment that stated that Jesus had a wife.  Here are some of the findings and facts:
1. Karen King, a professor at Harvard Divinity School (she currently holds the oldest endowed academic chair in the United States) drafted a lengthy manuscript on the little papyrus fragment, the size of a business card with eight incomplete lines on one side and six illegible lines on the reverse.  This fragment is referred to as”The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” and was given to King anonymously.  It is the only text from antiquity in which it is stated that Jesus has a wife.
2.  King was careful to say that the fragment supplied no reliable historical evidence that Jesus was married, but that some Christians depicted him as married.  King believed the fragment was dated in the fourth century, but was of a composition earlier in the second century.  However, the fragment, dated by Carbon-14 methods, was found to be an eighth century document.
3.  Since the fragment was received by King from an anonymous donor, there is no provenance (historical background) for it.
4.  At first, King submitted her analysis of the fragment to the Harvard Theological Review for publication.  It was accepted and scheduled for publication in January, 2013.  But, it was not published then.  Information about the fragment was also posted online where other Coptic (a form of late Egyptian) scholars could evaluate it.
5.  Leo Dupuydt, Copitc scholar at Brown University, examined it and declared it to be a forgery.  He said, “It stinks.”
6.  Francis Watson at the University of Durham also declared the fragment a forgery.  Other scholars seemed to think it was authentic.
7.  The Harvard Theological Review decided not to publish King’s analysis of the fragment.
8.  After more tests and other scholars weighing in on the controversy, HTR decided to go ahead and publish King’s findings in April, 2014.
9.  The Smithsonian Institution in Washington made a television program about “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” before January, 2013, but after HTR decided not to publish the findings from King, they decided not to air the program.  When HTR published King’s analysis of the fragment, the Smithsonian aired the television program.
10.  Within days of the publication of the new evidence and analysis in HTR, a bombshell dropped on the scholarly world.
11.  The anonymous donor of the fragment had given King another slightly larger fragment from the Gnostic Gospel of John.  It was also in Coptic as the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife fragment.
12.  Another scholar, Christian Askeland, an American Coptic scholar associated with Indiana Weslyan University, and who had recently completed a Ph. D. on the Gnostic Gospel of John knew of another Gospel of John fragment in Coptic called Codex Qau.  He compared it to the fragment of the Coptic Gospel of John that had been given to King.
13.  Askeland found that the text of the small fragment of CGJ replicated every other line from a leaf of the Codex Qau (discovered in 1923 and known to be authentic).  CGJ was a forgery of Codex Qau.
14.  The “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” fragment was written in the same hand and with the same writing instrument as the Coptic Gospel of John (CGJ) which was given anonymously to King.  The conclusion:  if one is a forgery, so is the other.
15.  The overall conclusion:  the fragment, “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” is probably a forgery and since it is the only text from antiquity that states that Jesus’ had a wife, that notion is completely false.
16.  Karen King acknowledges that this evidence is weighty.
Many have attempted to prove that the Scriptures are unreliable.  None of the Gospels indicate that Jesus was married.  Here are a few facts about the reliability of the Scriptures.
1.  Fact:  archaeology has yielded more than 25,000 finds that either directly or indirectly relate to Scripture.
2.  Fact:  The historical existence of some 30 individuals named in the New Testament has been proven.  Jesus is one of those historical individuals.
3.  Fact:  The historical evidence of nearly 60 individuals from the Old Testament has been proven.  BAR lists 52 of these individuals.
4.  Fact:  Only a fraction of possible biblical sights have been excavated in the Holy Land.  There is much more information to be discovered.  (God-Breathed, Josh McDowell, pp. 158-159).

Social engineering is the engineering of consent.  It is a means of bringing about changes in values and beliefs of large numbers of people over a relatively short period of time.  Dr. Samuel A. Stouffer director of the Laboratory of Social Relations, Harvard University, said, “it was a good working rule that people’s attitudes are more easily reached through their emotions than through their intellects” (Hidden Persuaders, Vance Packard, p. 221).
One way social engineering is accomplished is through media saturation.  Media critic, Todd Gitlin, argues that media images and soundscapes have become so accessible in restaurants, in homes, at school, and on the street that they combine to become a constant, forceful flow–a “torrent.”  The presence of media in society has grown into “an accompaniment to life that has become a central experience of life” (Todd Gitliln, Media Unlimited, Popologetics, p. 159).  Further, we have become supersaturated with media, we have become addicted to the emotional and sensual “hit” that media offers.  We have become an easily distractible people–a people who are easily bored, easily mollified.  We yearn for what media offers: disposable feelings.  We don’t pay attention to the content of the media because it has become the wallpaper of our lives (Popologetics, p.159).
Here is a warning for Christians.  We must not allow the various forms of media that we experience to determine our beliefs and values.  We must engage all media forms (movies, television, radio, music, newspapers, magazines, books, advertising, etc.) with critical discernment and intentional choices guided by the truth of God’s Word.
One area of concern is entertainment or recreation.  Many of the forms of media just mentioned are experienced when our guard is down.  We are most vulnerable when we are pursuing a good time.  Sinful amusements and entertainment can be vehicles of social engineering.  When the lusts of the flesh are engaged and emotions are activated, one’s thinking can be altered.  “Sinful amusement exploits, addicts, degrades, and dehumanizes, and so twists and distorts the original playful element of God-given shalom” (Popologetics, Ted Turnau, p. 148).
Social engineering has been used to change public opinion regarding homosexuality.  Regarding homosexuality, the emotional argument has been forceful.  Humor, sarcasm, and pathos have been used to change hearts first and then change minds.  Humor has been used in sitcoms on television.  Sarcasm is used to expose supposed homophobia or bigotry.  Pathos has been used in movies to generate sympathy for homosexuals when persecuted by others.  The change that has taken place is one of the most dramatic in human history.  Homosexuality which was once condemned by many is now glorified by many.  We have witnessed the power of the media over the past fifty years to affect social change.
The problem is that homosexuality is a sin in the sight of God (Romans 1:18-32; I Cor. 6:9-10).  This eternal truth cannot be changed by social engineering.  It cannot be changed by political will.  It cannot be changed by the American legislative system.  God’s authority supersedes man’s authority and we ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).