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The Bible is so readily available to us now in every conceivable format and
in so many versions that we can easily overlook the marvel of how the Bible
survived the centuries and the varied attempts to destroy it. We saw earlier
(page 10) how the mad tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 BC decreed that "The
books of the law (i.e. Jewish scripture) that they found they tore to pieces
and burned with fire. Anyone found possessing the book of the covenant, or
anyone who adhered to the law, was condemned to death."
The Roman emperor Diocletian instituted the "Great Persecution" against
Christians in the year 303 AD. He attempted to exterminate the church and
decreed that every manuscript of the Bible was to be seized and destroyed. He
had the words extincto nomine Christianorum ("the name of the Christians
having been destroyed") put over the ashes of a copy of the Bible.
But the Scriptures have obviously long outlasted Diocletian and Antiochus
and other rulers who tried to do away with the Bible.
Other obstacles also kept the Bible from the people, including illiteracy,
language and cultural barriers. The church in the Middle Ages spread to
diverse peoples who spoke different languages. The "barbarian" peoples over
several centuries were brought to Christianity. So the scriptures were taught
in many different ways. The written word was still basic, and the
monasteries carefully attended to the copying of the Bible. They made
illuminated manuscript copies, sometimes magnificent and beautiful,
reflecting the reverence the monks accorded to the Bible. And the Scriptures
were preserved as civilization underwent major transformations. But these did
little to feed the souls of the masses of common people.
This was before the advent of printing so every copy was done by hand. A
single copy of the Bible could take up to a whole year for a scribe to write.
But even if the Bible had been available, most of the population would not
have been able to read it. For example in fourteenth and fifteenth century
Europe, only ten percent of the population could read and only two percent
could read effectively.
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