If you only had two hours

I came across something online that has me more than a little intrigued. It is the idea of writing out the Bible. I’ve heard of people doing that before but never really gave it much thought. But tonight…the thought stuck.

Maybe because I read of how people used to have to handwrite the Bible, copying it down from a Bible they were given access to. Or maybe it was because someone mentioned how there are people in persecuted countries that are forced to handwrite the Bible by copying a much treasured Bible that belongs to someone else…often in countries where Bibles are illegal.

Or maybe it was because I read of someone that set out to write the Bible and discovered that in writing it out by hand, they learned so much more than if they simply read it.

Or maybe it was because I read of someone that challenged those they knew to handwrite the Bible based off a hypothetical situation. The situation? Bibles will be confiscated in two hours. You have two hours…with no electronic devices or machines…to handwrite what you can from the Bible. This person challenged those in their group to spend two hours…the two hours before their Bibles were ‘confiscated’…to write out their favorite verses. After that they would use those verses, and only those verses, for Bible study. They did wind up copying down each other’s verses.

But this made me wonder…what would I copy down if I only had two hours to handwrite from the Bible, and at the end of those two hours I would hold the only section of the Bible I would have for the rest of my life?

I thought of the very near panic that would set in as those two hours ticked away the small amount of time before my Bibles were confiscated. What would I write? Which verses would I chose? Would I just start writing and work straight through until I ran out of time? Or would I pick and choose different verses?

I truly don’t know the answer to those questions.

It also made me wonder just how far I would go to get hold of the rest of the Bible, or as much of it as I could. Would I drive several hours to copy what someone else had written in their two hours? Would I meet with strangers to copy what they had?  

I pictured myself sitting down to write out the Bible just because. Because I wanted to, because it seemed like a good idea, because I wanted to handwrite a section of the Bible to give as a gift, because I was a part of a group effort to write the Bible by hand…whatever the reason, I thought of how I’d want a certain kind of paper. Certain quality, certain look. Just what I’d want, I don’t know. I’d probably spend some time shopping, looking, searching, for just the right paper.

I thought of how if I was going to handwrite a section of the Bible to give as a gift…not the gift most people would want, but one I would love and treasure…I would search to find just the right way to write it out. Would I write out an entire book? I’d want a notebook with a cover that did justice to what I was going to fill the pages with. Would I write out only a single page? Then I’d want the nicest paper, maybe with an antique look, to write just the right set of verses on.

But if I had only two hours to write what would become all of the Bible I would ever have…I’d write on anything I had available. Paper bags. The backs of envelopes. Napkins. Even pages torn from other books.

And as I think of those two very different scenarios, I have to admit that the verses written on whatever was at hand…let’s say a paper bag…would be worth so much, treasured so much.

And still I don’t know what part of the Bible I’d write out if I knew I had only two hours to write the only bit of Bible I would ever have again.

What would you write if you were to write part of the Bible to give away?

What would you write if you had two hours to write the Bible and would never again hold a Bible in your hands?