The Geneva Bible: a book to remember this Christmas

Books on the New York Times bestseller list include Eben Alexander's Proof of Heaven and Todd Burpo's Heaven is for Real. But one more book that Kirk Cameron would like to see on it is the 1599 Geneva Bible.

"This book should be on the NYT Bestsellers List," the Fireproof star says.

The actor and committed Christian is endorsing the newest edition of the historic English translation that was used by the likes of William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John Milton and John Bunyan.

The 1599 Geneva Bible was the first complete Bible to be translated into English from the original Hebrew and Greek texts, and came complete with verse numbers for the first time and over 300,000 study notes.

It preceded the King James Version by 51 years and was one of the Bibles taken by English Pilgrims on the Mayflower to New England.

"This Bible changed the world," Cameron enthuses in a YouTube endorsement video.

"It was outlawed but it was a Bible by the people, for the people - the book that built America."

Christian historian and founder of the World History Institute, Marshall Foster, wants Christians to rediscover the Geneva Bible this Christmas and and its impact on the world.

"The Geneva Bible began the unstoppable march to liberty in England, Scotland and America, catapulting them out of slavish feudalism to the heights of Christian civilisation," he said.

Although a Bible in the English language is taken for granted today, Foster reminded Christians that a high price was paid by others to translate Scriptures into English.

The English scholar William Tyndale's English Bible was outlawed and he famously cried out, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes," before being burned at the stake for heresy.

Foster continued: "This Christmas, as we celebrate the Word becoming flesh (John 1:1,14) through the birth of Christ, I want people to see that the Geneva Bible ultimately inspired the end of slavery and the caste system, the solidification of free enterprise and private property, the Puritan work-ethic which animated the scientific and industrial revolutions, and the wholesome, uplifting literature which we all treasure today."

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