I was reading about the history of the Bible the other day and was amazed how painstakingly manuscripts of the Old Testament and New Testament were written before the printing press was invented.
Manuscripts were written initially on papyrus (thin paper-like material made from the papyrus plant) and later on parchment or vellum (processed skin of animals). Papyrus scrolls were around 35 feet long, and about 10 inches high.
Imagine yourself holding one of these instead of the printed Bible that you have and if you happen to be the preacher reading and preaching from one of these.
To add to that, until the Bible was divided into chapters in the 13th century by Stephen Langton and into verses in the 16th century by French printer Robert Estienne, everything was put together. The oldest manuscripts were in Capital letters called Uncials and there were no spaces in between words with very little punctuation. Try reading IAMTHEWAYTHETRUTHANDTHELIFENOONECOMESTOTHEFATHEREXCEPTTHROUGHME. One may have to read a few times if not familiar, and imagine the elderly ones woes without proper vision.
Now when God has made it easy i.e. we have the printed God's Word in our hand's....people fight over versions, punctuation's and interpretations.
If you have a Bible, praise God brother, praise God sister.
