Articles - The Bible

The Bible is superior in many ways to what is written by uninspired people whose books and articles fill libraries, magazines, and newspapers that the world may read. Since literary superiority is in some ways subjective, it is appropriate to note what some of the great figures and writers of history have to say about it. “Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French writer and skeptic, admitted: ‘I must confess to you that the majesty of the Scriptures astonishes me . . .’” (qtd. in Dickson 393). Charles Dickens said, “The New Testament is the very best book that ever was or ever will be known in the world” (qtd. in Halley 19). Daniel Webster said, “If there is anything in my thoughts or style to commend, the credit is due to my parents for instilling in me an early love of the Scriptures” (Halley 18). In similar vein, John Ruskin wrote, “Whatever merit there is in anything that I have written is simply due to the fact that when I was a child my mother daily read me a part of the Bible and daily made me learn a part of it by heart” ( 18). John Quincy Adams wrote in his diary, “I have made it a practice for several years to read the Bible through in the course of every year” (September 26, 1810). Patrick Henry said of the Bible, “This is a Book worth all other books which were ever printed” (qtd. in Kimball 82). Robert E. Lee said, “The Bible is a book in comparison [to] which all others are of minor importance” (qtd. in Kimball 82). Woodrow Wilson wrote, “A man has deprived himself of the best there is in the world who has deprived himself of this, a knowledge of the Bible” (83). And Sir William Jones said, “the Bible contains more true sensibility, more exquisite beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence, than can be collected from other books in whatever age or language they may be written” (83).