When the Bible was first published, bathhouses were mandatory, no one could read, and only the people in the Church could write.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
After the advent of the written word, the masses who could not - or were not permitted to - read, were given sermons by the few who could.
The Bible was written by fallible human beings.
The only book in our home was the Bible. My parents forbade books. They thought I needed help because I wanted to be a writer!
When Paul was exhorted to be baptized and to wash away his sins, there was an evident allusion to the use of water in the ordinance of baptism, and had there been no application of water on which to ground such an allusion, we may be certain that we should never have heard of washing away sins in baptism.
If there was no Bible, it would be no matter whether you could read or not. Reading other books would do you no good.
No writer of a portion of the Bible was perfect. It was the direct and miraculous operation of the Holy Spirit that what they wrote is without mistake.
If men were but to read the New Testament with the same tone and emphasis, with which they do other books, and were to keep out of mind the idea of its being sacred, they would be disgusted with the credulity, and the want of intellect, reason and judgment, that is apparent in it.
The Romans had been able to post their laws on boards in public places, confidant that enough literate people existed to read them; far into the Middle Ages, even kings remained illiterate.
My father was a first reader in the Christian Science Church, which is similar to being a preacher. There was no drinking, smoking or cursing.
The Bible, for all its riches, is not a document of social history.