Surfing the Bible

Spirituality Column #132
May 19, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Surfing the Bible
By Bob Walters

An end-of-the-millennium magazine article in late 1999 listed the printing press as the most important invention of the past 1,000 years.

I wonder where, another thousand years hence, they will rate the invention of the Internet, and whether the Internet will have as large an impact on Christianity.

It’s doubtful any mass-printed piece has had as much influence on mankind as the Bible. English theologian John Wycliffe in 1382 provided the first translation of the Vulgate (Latin Bible) into common English, and then German Johannes Gutenberg is credited with inventing the printing press around 1450. By 1517, Martin Luther was nailing his 95 Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany, and the Protestant Reformation was on.

Throw in the 1611 publication of the further-refined King James Version of the Bible – with paragraphs, indented poetic verses and translator’s notes – and scripture became both widely available and understandable to the masses. Continued technology, missionary work and evangelism have spread God’s word to every corner of the globe in virtually every language by Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox alike.

The point here is not the winding course of church history, but that the printed Bible has been and still is a powerful influencer of worldwide culture. Whether today one prefers a Thompson Chain Reference Edition, a multi-version Parallel Bible with side-by-side translations, a Study Bible with many reference notes or a simple Zondervan NIV with minimal reference notes, printing press technology delivers the Word in many forms.

How much moreso the Internet. What the printing press did for Bibles, the Internet can do for Bible study. In-depth, free, online resources abound.

My favorite Bible Internet site is ScriptureText.com, with its word-by-word Greek translations. To try it, Google this: “John 1:14 in Greek.” You see each word in original Greek, Greek in English letters, English words, exact grammatical tenses, and multiple meanings along with multiple languages and translation versions.

While I often flip to the back of my little NIV for index entries, a broader reference is BibleGateway.com. One can instantly search Bible words, phrases or specific verses in virtually any version or any language. Other helpful sites BlueLetterBible.com, BibleandReference.com and NewAdventBible.com (Catholic). Countless Bible studies, concordances, commentaries, blogs, FAQs and tutorials are within a couple of clicks.

Also, visit ThompsonBible.net or Zondervan.com to see how Bibles are made.

We have the tools, we need to use them.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) remembers that the millennium article listed eyeglasses (Italy, 1200s) as the second most important invention; they keep human beings sighted and productive past the age of 40.