Jordan Peterson
Jordan Peterson, a well-known Canadian clinical psychologist, YouTube personality, author, and professor emeritus of psychology began to receive widespread attention in the late 2010s for his views on cultural and political issues. He is a leader and influencer of young men in particular and his views are often sort after. Young people flock to his talks and recently he was talking to Joe Rogan on his YouTube channel about the influence of the one book, the Bible, on society as we know it. He recently visited the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. where he followed through the chronological history of the Bible. He came to the conclusion and realisation…
"At one point there was only one book as far as our Western culture is concerned. All books emerged out of the one underlying book."
Asengseng New Testament
This really rings true to me with my interest and former work in Bible translation in PNG with the Asengseng New Testament from 1999-2007. Previous to the Asengseng New Testament which was translated by myself and a national tribal team (Saliyo, Krosli, Giaman, Wisnamli) there was no written book or publication except for a few Bible lessons. The New Testament was the first book just like Jordan Peterson is saying on this YouTube. All books that we have started out with “the book,” the Bible! According to Google data nerds, there are now exactly 129,864,880 unique books in the world.1 That is just shy of 130 million. So from one book we now have 130 million.
I often thought to myself, what a wonderful start and privilege that the Asengseng people have had for their first book to be the Bible. You might wonder why the New Testament was the first book in that language and the answer is fairly obvious. Before missionaries first made contact with the 2500-3000 strong language group in the 1980s the Asengseng language was only an oral language. Nothing had ever been written down and there was no orthography (alphabet) in existence. That was the work of the missionaries such as myself first hearing and identifying phonetic sounds in the village where we lived, writing them down in a phonetic alphabet in a little notebook and then transcribing and eventually developing a phonemic alphabet and finally an orthography all through the process of linguistics. Furthermore, we had to teach them this new alphabet and teach them how to read and write.
We began this work in 1995 and in 2007 the Asengseng people had a complete New Testament in book format. Their first book was the Bible. I wonder how many more books might be translated into their language in the future. But the point is that the foundations of our society have been formed through the Bible and Jordan Peterson is just realising this now after he had walked through the Museum of the Bible in Washington recently. He said, “I just figured this out this week.”
Getting back to basics
In this era of mass confusion, mass formation2 into believing the lie of the recent pandemic, we need to get back to the one book just like Ezra did.3 Peterson also recognises that the Bible lies at the base–it is the one book on which all others rely.
"The more ideas are dependent on a given idea, the more fundamental that idea is. That is the definition of fundamental. Which are the fundamental texts? The answer is the text on which most other texts depend. The Bible is at the base."
So as we progress towards the very end of civilisation as we know it and Christ returns to the earth a second and final time we need to examine the one book above all other books to keep us on the straight and narrow path–the Bible.
Are you reading it and meditating on it today?
- https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/08/google-there-are-exactly-129-864-880-books-in-the-world/61024/ [↩]
- Prof. Mattias Desmet explains about the pandemic-induced societal insanity he calls ‘mass formation’ in https://rumble.com/vtloaj-conservative-one-pandemic-unmasked-12-what-has-caused-covid-madness.html [↩]
- Neh. 8:1-9 [↩]
One Response
What an incredible work to give a people group not just the word of God but also the ability to understand it. I applaud all missionaries like you and Cathi for obeying God’s calling. And yes, I could not live without God’s word. It is indeed food, drink, guidance, encouragement and teaching for me. Without it I would be rudderless in this world.