Journal: Central Bible Quarterly
Volume: CENQ 03:1 (Spring 1960)
Article: The Bible Bound In Morocco
Author: Richard V. Clearwaters

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CenQ 3:1 (Spring 1960) p. 9

The Bible Bound In Morocco

Richard V. Clearwaters

President Central Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary

John Ruskin said, “You-can’t give your children the Bible bound in Morocco.” We cannot give our children the Bible bound in Morocco and stop there and expect it to change their lives. Bengel is credited with the statement, “Apply thyself wholly to the Scriptures, and apply the Scriptures wholly to thyself.” For any individual to do this he must needs follow the practice of Ezra and Nehemiah who “caused the people to understand the law and the people stood in their place. So they read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. And Nehemiah which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law” (Neh. 8:7b–9).

This passage teaches that they “read in the book in the law of God distinctly”; in the second place, after the law of God, the Israelite Bible, was read, they “gave the sense” of the passage of God’s word that was read; and in the third place, they “caused them to understand the reading”; and in the fourth place, “all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law.”

The proposition for this paper comes from a quotation from Green’s Short History of the English People: “No greater moral change ever passed over a nation than passed over England in the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. England became the people of a Book, and that Book was the Bible. It was read by every class of people and the effect was amazing. The whole moral tone of the nation was changed.” Let us locate Queen Elizabeth’s reign in history. The Encyclopedia Americana reads, “On November 17, 1558, Mary’s disastrous reign came to a close, and Elizabeth was immediately recognized Queen by Parliament.” The same authority states that she died at Richmond, Surrey, 1603, after naming James of Scotland her successor. This same authority, Americana, further states “the reign of Elizabeth was the golden age of English literature.” In the preface of the Revised Standard Version we read, “The King James Version (1611) had to compete with the Geneva Bible in popular use; but in the end it prevailed, and for more than two and one half centuries no other authorized translation of the

CenQ 3:1 (Spring 1960) p. 10

Bible into English was made. The King James Version became the ‘Authorized Version’ of the English-speaking people.”

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