PREPARING THE WAY
FOR BIBLE STUDY
"Equipped for Every Good Work" is logically divided into three large sections . The opening twenty lessons
lay a foundation for the fifty remaining lessons. A
careful study of this first division will acquaint the
student with the Bible's origin, growth, preservation
and authenticity . He will understand more concerning
the original languages in which the Bible was recorded
by its inspired writers, and his vision of how the contents of these original autographed writings were
passed along down through twenty and thirty and
more centuries to reach us in more than a thousand
tongues will be much clarified . This division prepares
the reader for the plunge into the study of each one of
the sixty-six books of the Bible ; it sharpens his gaze
for the beholding of the gripping Bible dramas as they
unreel like a magnificent motion-picture before his eyes .
Lesson I ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE
Many religionists of the English-speaking realm are inclined to think that the Bible as a book originated in a manner purely miraculous . They have a hazy notion that it was written in heaven, in English, of course, divided there into chapters and verses, with cross references and marginal notes, and then sent by an angel to the earth . They skittishly shy away from the American Standard Version and other modern translations of the Bible, thinking that their religiously venerated King James Version Bible is the only true Bible . They fail to realize that the King James Version is a comparative youngster, being in 1946 only 335 years old, whereas the first writing -of Scripture occurred as far back as 3,458 years ago . An English language did not even exist then . 9
