One Sunday night in October, 1961, the streets of Jerusalem, usually crowded with people, were empty. Restaurants, usually alive with diners, were serving no meals. Everybody was home, listening to the radio, for this was Israel’s most exciting moment—the night of the International Bible Contest.
In the United States, there is the World Series; in England, there are the Test Matches (cricket); in France, there is the annual bicycle race around the country, the Tour de France; elsewhere, it is football or golf or ski tournaments—but in this land of the Old Testament, the Bible quiz was the big sporting event.
Midnight struck and those people who go to bed early were still awake. The town was a blaze of lighted windows. At one o’clock, people were drinking coffee to stay awake, for the race was still on, with a Yemenite rabbi and a Protestant mother of four, from Brazil, tied for first place. Then, shortly after 1:45, the contest was over; the black-bearded rabbi had won. And with that there was a thud of feet on the pavements as several thousand rushed to the Convention Center to hail the winner.
A few minutes later the newsboys were crying the news. The morning newspapers had issued extras. Looked at with the eyes of the casual foreign observer, it was an extraordinary phenomenon: a Bible quiz arousing as much excitement as a World Series. For those who know the country, however, it is one readily understandable. You feel the Old Testament there all the time. To Israelis, it is not simply a religious document; it is living history, geography, a storehouse of national folklore, a personal literature, and a guidebook. The names of holy places—Beersheba and Jericho—are for us things far away; to them they are a bus stop, the address of a friend, a picnic area.
In school, it is a basic textbook, and up to college, nearly every child studies the Old Testament at least three hours each week, for here is language, literature, geography, history, in addition to the religious teaching. The teen-ager’s popular songs are from Solomon, and the Israeli equivalent of our corner boys sing: “Behold thou art fair, thou has doves’ eyes.…” “My beloved is mine, and I am his; he feedeth among the lilies.…” And a common kindergarten song is also from the Bible: “Behold he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.…”
A Biblical Zoo
Even the zoo in Jerusalem is a “biblical zoo,” containing only animals mentioned in the Bible and those indigenous to the land of Israel. On the cages one finds not only the name of the beast but with it the appropriate quotation printed in Hebrew and English. Here, for example, is a fox. The sign reads: “Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines.” And before the bear’s cage: “Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.”
Some of the animals mentioned have become extinct. In these cases, a close relative of the beast has been substituted. There are, for example, no more lions in Israel. One from Ethiopia occupies a cage. The last leopard was killed in the 1930s, but, in the interest of accuracy, an Indian variety is on exhibition.
In the newly opened children’s part of the zoo, it is proposed to project Bible stories: Noah’s ark and a diorama of Isaiah’s prophecy of the animals living peacefully together.
Some Commercial Values
Not all is entertainment or education. There are a dozen practical reasons that make the Bible a guide and a help to the nation’s economic well-being and in their way explain the excitement of the contest. Careful reading has led scholars to the discovery of at least one of King Solomon’s mines—a deposit of copper. “A land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper,” it is written in Deuteronomy. The mineralogists looked and found. Another quotation led to a supply of natural gas.
Its agronomists have learned what to plant and where to plant it, using the Old Testament as a record of successful agriculture of the past. In the seemingly arid desert they have found it possible to grow grapes largely because the ancients grew them there. And the entire reforestation program is guided each step of the way by biblical references to trees that grew in each locality. But more dramatic than its help to the economy is how it has helped military commanders. In the first world war, a British officer remembered from his Bible reading a passage between two cliffs, one long since abandoned, and by using it outflanked and defeated the Turks.
Alive With Interest
The International Bible Contest is therefore more than a random quiz; it is an expression of a living interest, one which stirs the imagination of the people, whatever their profession or philosophy. Unlike our great sporting events which by their nature interest mostly men, this contest has something for all members of the family. It is the night when even the smallest child is allowed to stay up late.
It began, almost by accident, in 1958, as a device for celebrating the tenth anniversary of the country’s independence. Fifteen persons from 13 countries competed. It was so successful, both locally and internationally, that one was planned every three years. The 1961 competition which I attended was the second.
What dramatized the first year’s quiz was the winner, Amos Hacham. He had been paralyzed as a boy and still limped; in fact, he had to be helped on and off the platform. He had a speech impediment. He lived literally in a hovel, alone and with few visitors. He earned his living giving lessons in Braille and translating the Old Testament into this language of the blind.
When his victory was announced, some 3,000 people surrounded him, lifted him in the air, and bore him to his home. Out of neighboring homes came men with violins and drums and clarinets to make an impromptu orchestra, and in the humble street where Hacham had led his poor, lonely life there was dancing until broad daylight. The prime minister himself arranged for an operation that would enable him to walk with only a slight limp. Other surgeons labored successfully to lessen his lisp. The government made it possible for him to move into a two-room apartment of his own. Nor was that the end.
A newspaper engaged him at a good salary to write a daily column. And, at last cured of his physical defects, earning a comfortable livelihood, this boy who had looked forward only to an empty life found a girl who loved him and whom he loved, and they were married. The wedding was the social event of the year, held in the city’s largest hotel, and attended by the president, members of the cabinet, and the diplomatic corps. All of this fairy-tale sequence was directly due to his knowledge of the Bible, which was enough to make him a national hero.
The 1961 contest was announced early in the year, and religious organizations and radio stations sent the news into every home in the world. Each competing country held its own competition, stretching it out over several weeks, in some cases several months, of broadcasting, until a winner could be chosen. The lucky man or woman then received from Israel a free round trip to Jerusalem plus a week of travel.
The Bible is of course the best seller of all time, but the effect of the announcement was to increase its sales enormously. In Italy, for example, the number sold was three times normal, and in Uruguay the shops were completely sold out for many weeks.
The European Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters approved the contest; national chains in many cases sponsored local competitions. Elsewhere, sponsorship was undertaken by religious bodies. In Holland, for example, the Protestant Ministers’ Association was in charge, starting off with a written examination for 180 applicants. The 36 survivors were quizzed on the air for nine weeks, four at a time, until only nine were left. These were taken three by three until a victor emerged in the person of a civil aviation official.
The Sunday evening of October 3 Jerusalem’s Convention Center was filled with 3,000 people. In the front row sat the president (Ben-Zvi) and the prime minister (Ben Gurion), both of them with Bibles in their laps to check the answers. Flanking them and back of them sat cabinet ministers, ambassadors, and other distinguished visitors. The 18 national winners were seated in a long row, the width of the stage, beside each the flag of his country. They represented New Zealand, England, Holland, Switzerland, Finland, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, the Ivory Coast, France, Austria, Belgium, South Africa, Canada, Malta, and, of course, Israel. They were schoolteachers, artisans, engineers, lawyers. The American was an insurance man from Cincinnati, Ohio. Most of them were non-Jewish. One was a Seventh-day Adventist minister from South Africa. The Frenchman was a Roman Catholic priest.
Back of the contestants in a parallel row sat the interpreters. The microphone moved on a rail, pausing, let us say, before the Finn. At the same time another microphone in the row behind stopped before the Finnish translator. The question was put in Hebrew and at once was rephrased into the language of the competitor. His answer, in his own tongue, was in turn translated.
The audience was lively, full of enthusiasm, applauding every successful reply, but most of them, of course, were rooting for the home team in the person of the frail-looking rabbi with the black beard from Yemen, Yichye Alsheikh, who had been runner-up in the last national quiz.
As to the questions, they involved no interpretation, being simply a test of one’s knowledge of the so-called historical chapters: Judges; I and II Samuel; I and II Kings; Joshua; and the Pentateuch as well. In other words, not an exercise in philosophy but a memory test, like any other quiz. However, the sponsors felt that the Bible being a book which all nations of the West revere in common, the contest would have a universal meaning.
A pretty girl drew out the first question: “Who was it that said the temple was to be a house of prayer also for the Gentiles?” The Chilean answered promptly: “King Solomon.”
The first question to baffle the contestants was: “A foreign woman came to ask riddles in the land. A foreign man came to be cured. Who were they?” The interpreter recited the correct reply: “The Queen of Sheba and Na’aman, military commander of Aram.”
The microphone moved from flag to flag along the long row, and one by one, all but five were eliminated: Jacob Jacobus Combrinck of South Africa, Edmund Read of New Zealand, Tuvia Goldman of the United States, the Yemenite rabbi of Israel, and Senhora Yolanda Da Silva of São Paulo, Brazil, mother of four. Each now was given the same questions. The first was an easy one for all: “Name the Egyptian woman who was mother of two tribes of Israel.” The answer: “Aseneth, daughter of Potiphar, wife of Joseph, whose two children were Ephraim and Manasseh.”
The other two eliminated the American, the New Zealander, and the South African. Now only two remained: the rabbi with the black beard and the lively, attractive Senhora Da Silva. They had successfully weathered the ten scheduled rounds of questioning.
It was now a quarter to two. The judges decided to match them in an extra round. “Give seven verses mentioning Israel’s exile from its land and/or prophesying its return.” Senhora Da Silva, showing signs of strain, could cite only five. Rabbi Alsheikh knew all seven and was the winner. By the rules, he was to get a gold medal, the contestant placing second, a silver one, but by acclamation, the Brazilian was also awarded a gold medal. In addition she received a kiss on both cheeks by Premier Ben Gurion. There were no cash prizes. The 22-carat medal itself is three inches in diameter, bearing on one side a quotation from the Psalms: “I am the law”; the other side a vase such as contained the Dead Sea Scrolls. The American placed third and was awarded the silver medal.
The contest was now over, and the 17 contestants enplaned for home. Everybody was happy except the English-language Jerusalem Post, which mourned that the contest was not a challenge to one’s understanding of the Bible but only to one’s memory, and stated flatly that “as constructed at present, the competition could be won by an IBM machine.”
Whether or not this is true, the fact remains that this contest of an essentially religious nature has aroused enormous interest in Bible reading in countries everywhere, and who knows where this interest may lead? As it is written in Proverbs: “If thou criest after knowledge, … if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then shalt thou … find the knowledge of God.”
END
HIGH TIME AND LOW TIDE
FOR OR AGAINST—The Oxford Union recently voted by a fair majority against belief in God. This need mean no more than that the slight boom in university religion is now over. We need not suppose that a harassed Gabriel is anxiously muttering, “Dear me! Another byelection lost—all these spoon-fed children of an affluent society out-talking the spoiled children of the modern Church.” … None the less, to vote for God or against Him is something; better, Dante says, than to be uncommitted.—Professor GORDON RUPP, in The Guardian.
LET WELL ENOUGH ALONE—A Catholic priest in Edinburgh has been saying that we live largely in a pagan land. That may be so but that is no reason why ministers of the Church should stoop to evangelise or proselytise.—From “A Scotsman’s Log,” in The Scotsman.
UNIVERSAL RELEVANCE—It is time for the Church to pay the unpaid bill which syncretism represents. It is time to show that there is inherent in the Gospel a universalism sui generis.—Dr. W. A. VISSER ’T HOOFT.
THE MAJORITY—Comparatively few Anglicans really hold that everyone who dies an atheist is for ever excluded from the vision of God.—DAVID L. EDWARDS, Director, S.C.M. Press.
SOCIAL RELEVANCE—The children were revising their homework on the morning bus. One little girl, wearing a blue beret with the badge of a Roman Catholic school, thrust an open book into the hands of her companion and began to recite. Through the bus noises I could hear enough to identify the Magnificat, followed by a prayer of blessing. The “hearer,” in the dark red cap of a non-Catholic school, checked conscientiously and then returned the book. “Can I hear yours now?” offered Blue Beret. Red Cap shook her head. “We don’t get prayers to learn for homework,” she explained. Blue Beret looked surprised, but accepted the explanation. Their friendship in no way impaired by this doctrinal divergence, the two little girls proceeded to discuss the colour of Elvis Presley’s eyes in an atmosphere of mutual respect and affection.—Life and Work, Church of Scotland magazine.
ANCIENT PRECEDENT—The most outstanding fetish and obsession in the present-day religious and ecclesiastical world is an uncontrollable and unappeasable itch for an outward organizational church union, miscalled Christian unity, which is neither Christian nor a unity. Nothing comparable to it has occurred in world history since the building of the Tower of Babel.—The Free Presbyterian Magazine and Monthly Record, Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
