Nineteenth-Century Children's Crusade

(taken from "Strange Facts About the Bible" by Webb Garrison)

Before the Civil War children from two lands collected dimes and purchased stock to outfit a special Bible boat. More than 150,000 youngsters in this country and in the Hawaiian Islands invested their dimes in "The Morning Star" - a sloop built especially for the purpose of taking the Scriptures to the Marquesas Islands and the regions of Micronesia.

On her first voyage the ship logged more than 10,000 miles. The Bibles were received with such warmth that when the boat was wrecked, she was replaced by a two-masted vessel bearing the same name. Three more boats bearing the same name were later used as each one wore out taking the Holy Word to the coral atolls and volcanic islands of Oceania in the western Pacific.

A Bible No Living Person Can Read

(taken from "Strange Facts About the Bible" by Webb Garrison)

John Eliot is famous as the translator who issued a Bible no living person can read. Working with tribesmen who spoke a Massachusetts dialect of the Algonquian Indian tongue, he published a New Testament for them in 1661. Several natives, among who Cockenoe the interpreter was most important, assisted in the work.

Approximately fifty copies of Eliot's Bible have been preserved, but no one can read it because the tribesmen who spoke the language it employs have become extinct. A few words have been identified by scholars, however. Eliot rendered the phrase "kneeling down to him" (Mark 1:40) by a thirty-four letter word;
Wutteppesittukgussunnoowehtunkquoh.

Though that word didn't survive, at least one of Eliot's is still in use. For the title "duke" that appears in Gen. 36:40-43, he substituted the native title "mugwump". Used as a slogan in several famous political campaigns, it is still included in the English dictionary as a label for a chieftain or person of importance.

In 1966 one copy of his Bible sold at auction for $43,000 - more money than the missionary-translator made in his entire life.

Earliest Humane Society

(taken from "Strange Facts About the Bible" by Web Garrison)

In 1866 Henry Bergh, inspired by earlier work in England and Scotland, founded the world's largest humane society. But at least 3,000 years before that, every Hebrew community had an informal society for prevention of cruelty to animals.
Moses's Law required every man to lead a stray ox or ass back to its owner - even if the owner was a personal enemy (Exodus 23:4). No matter who the animal belonged to, a person who found a donkey unable to get on its feet because of his load was required to give the beast a hand (Exodus 23:5). And in New Testament times even sever laws prohibiting all kind so of work on the Sabbath were relaxed on behalf of mercy to animals. If a beast were in trouble on the Sabbath, a person was permitted and even encouraged to help rescue the animal (Luke 14:5). At first literally and then in a figurative sense, "an ox is in the ditch" came to indicate an emergency grave enough to warrant violation of customary restrictions of work.

An Agnostic Inspires The Most Popular Biblical Novel of All Times

(taken from "Strange Facts about the Bible" by Webb Garrison)

One evening in September 1870, two men riding across Indiana on a train struck up a conversation. Soon they began to argue about the inspiration of the Bible. Robert Ingersoll, an internationally known agnostic was challenging General Lew Wallace.
General Wallace, a civil war veteran, was unable to cope with Robert Ingersoll. He felt frustrated and defeated when they finally parted company.
As a result, General Wallace went home determined to write a novel that would serve as a powerful argument for the divinity of Christ. He finished it when he was serving as Governor of the territory of New Mexico and called it "Ben Hur, a tale of the Christ". It became one of the most popular books of modern times by presenting the message of the New Testament within a framework of vigorous action and believable characters. Robert Ingersoll didn't live long enough to read the book that his arguments had inspired.