A Book of Matchless Impact

THERE is a book with an Eastern setting, written by Orientals, that doubtless has had a greater impact on humankind than any other book. It has been translated, the whole or a part thereof, into more than 1,600 languages. And here is a most remarkable fact: It is because of this book that many individuals and even entire nations have learned to read! Previously unwritten languages now have scripts only because this book was translated into these particular tongues. This unique book is the Bible.

It is simply amazing that the Bible has found acceptance among many millions of every race and nation. Here we are living in the twentieth century, removed by many hundreds of years from the events narrated in the Holy Scriptures. For the majority of readers, the Bible’s setting is also far removed geographically. Yet the Scriptures have appealed to people’s hearts in a way that no other writings have.

Charles D. Eldridge, in Christianity’s Contributions to Civilization, made the following observation on this point: “Books written in one land seldom become popular in other lands; they are like trees which cannot stand the strain of transplanting; though published with acceptance under favorable conditions in one nation, they rarely survive the changed conditions of social, educational, political, and religious life in other nations. Not so the Bible: it has been transplanted to every soil under the sun without serious loss of vigor and charm.”

A basic reason for the Bible’s appeal to all tribes, nations and races is that it realistically depicts life, with its joys and its sorrows, its triumphs and its failures, its advances and its setbacks, its love and its hate. T. H. Darlow, in the introduction to The Greatest Book in the World, expressed this as follows: “There is one Book, and only one, which embraces all the heights and depths of human nature. The Bible belongs to those elemental things​—like the sky and the wind and the sea, like bread and wine, like the kisses of little children and tears shed beside the grave—​which can never grow stale or out of date, because they are the common heritage of mankind.”

The impact that the Bible has had on learning and literature staggers the imagination. Take the English-speaking world, which includes some 358 million people. Writes John R. Green, in A Short History of the English People: “The whole prose literature of England, save the forgotten tracts of Wyclif, has grown up since the translation of the Scriptures by Tyndale and Coverdale. So far as the nation at large was concerned, no history, no romance, hardly any poetry, save the little-known verse of Chaucer, existed in the English tongue when the Bible was ordered to be set up in churches.” English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare got much of the inspiration for his works from the Bible. It has been said that “no writer has assimilated the thoughts and reproduced the words of Holy Scripture more copiously than Shakespeare.” Similarly, for the English poet Shelley, the Bible was the foremost book in his limited library.

In more recent years, English novelist Hall Caine admitted: “Whatever strong situations I have in my books are not my creation, but are taken from the Bible. ‘The Deemster’ is a story of the Prodigal Son, ‘The Bondman’ is the story of Esau and Jacob, ‘The Scapegoat’ is the story of Eli and his sons, . . . and ‘The Manxman’ is the story of David and Uriah.”

American humorist and editor Thomas L. Masson said of the Bible’s impact on literature: “It is the bedrock foundation of all our literature and, therefore, if you want to know anything, the Bible is where you must find it. . . . It is too big for systems, it comprehends man himself and all his thoughts. It is, in reality, a great gallery of superb human portraits.”

Most appropriately, therefore, the 1971 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica describes the Bible as constituting “probably the most influential collection of books in human history.” We further read: “Whatever one may think of the Bible’s contents, its role in the development of western culture and in the evolution of many eastern cultures makes at least some acquaintance with its literature and history an indispensable mark of the educated man in the English-speaking world.”

Not only have major literary works in the English language been influenced by the Bible, but so have the major writings in most other Western countries. A case in point is German literature. German lyric poet and literary critic Heinrich Heine was moved to say: “All expressions and idioms to be found in the Luther Bible are German. The writer must go on using them. And as this book is in the possession of the poorest people, they need not be exceptionally erudite to be able to express themselves in literary form.” Many German proverbs are drawn from the Bible, and Luther’s translation of the Scriptures provided the basis for literary German.

The comments of two famous German literary figures, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Heinrich Heine, regarding the effect of the Bible upon their work, are especially noteworthy. Goethe said of his career: “It is belief in the Bible, the fruit of deep meditation, which has served me as the guide of my moral and literary life.​—I have found it a capital safely invested, and richly productive of interest.” Commenting in a similar vein, Heine stated: “I owe my enlightenment quite simply to the reading of a book.​—A book? Yes, and it is an old simple book, modest as nature itself, and as natural; a book that appears as efficacious and unpretentious as the sun that warms us, as the bread that nourishes us; a book that looks at us as sadly and affectionately as an old grandmother, who herself reads the book daily, with loving, quivering lips, and her spectacles on her nose.​—And the name of this book is quite offhandishly the book, the Bible.”

How could some forty men living over a period of about 1,600 years have produced such a book, a work that continued to be a source of inspiration for many centuries after its completion and remains such? None of its writers took credit to themselves. Their purpose was to convey, not their own message, but that of Jehovah God, the Source of their inspiration. The psalmist David declared: “The spirit of Jehovah it was that spoke by me, and his word was upon my tongue.” (2 Sam. 23:2) Does not the outstanding nature of the Bible support this expression? So, then, does not this book merit our very best attention?

[Box on page 291]

Holy Bible

Appeals to people of all nations

Now in more than 1,575 languages

Because of it, entire nations have learned to read

Many languages have written script only because of this book

“Probably the most influential collection of books in human history”

“The bedrock foundation of all our literature”