For long periods of history, the Bible was a book that you had to keep secret. Not due to having a call to arms or any conspiracies, but because its message about hope, freedom and a higher calling could be seen as a threat. In countries ruled by totalitarian regimes, and cultures that did not allow more than one faith, the simple act of owning, reading, or sharing a bible was dangerous to both ones’ own life and freedom. Even so, it was smuggled, hidden, and shared in secret – because the people knew that words written there was worth the risk.
In the Soviet Union, atheism was seen as the state’s official belief. Bibles were confiscated, churches were shut down and Christian leaders were arrested. In basements and remote villages however, faith lived on. Smugglers went from the west borders with bibles hidden inside their cars, behind walls and some sewn into briefcases. Some smugglers used microform – tiny scrolls containing text from the Bible, readable through special equipment. Others copied the texts by hand, book by book. Sometimes an entire congregation had to share just one Bible between them, where one person learned one book by heart, making it so the entire scripture was collected inside their memory. The children were taught not just in faith, but expressing their faith in silence.
People practicing Christianity were under heavy surveillance after the revolution in China in 1949. Bibles were burned, the act of printing or importing religious literature was made illegal. Even with this dire situation, the Christian underground churches grew. Bibles were printed in hidden printing houses, smuggled in from Hongkong or in modern times, digitally shared with secret apps. The Bibles were often disguised – Bibles were put in boxes marked as technological equipment, or sent in codes via radio or phones. For a lot of Chinese Christians, owning their own Bible was seen as a turning point. It was not uncommon for people to break down in tears when they got to hold a Bible in their hands.
People also hid bibles during World War 2. In 1933 Nazi-Germany forbade the reading of the Old Testament to make a “clean” German Bible. By removing the Jewish scriptures in the Old Testament there was an attempt to remove the Jewish origin of Christianity and replace it with a nationalistic version of the faith. The so-called “German Christians”-movement wanted to rewrite Christianity to fit the ideology of the nazis. They denied Jesus’ Jewish background, and terms like sin, mercy and salvation were toned down in favor of loyalty, honor, and the strength of the nation. These actions resulted in a lot of opposition from Christians who did not agree with the denial of parts of the Bible. Bishops, priests, and common believers hid entire bibles while also continuing to read and share both The Old Testament and The New Testament in secret. For a lot of people, just the act of reading the Bible in its original form was seen as a form of civil disobedience – a quiet protest against an ideology wanting to tamper with the word of God.
In Japan as well, especially under the Tokugawa-period in 1600- and 1700s, it was illegal to practice Christianity. Missionaries were expelled or executed, and Christians had to either deny their faith or go into hiding. In this period, a secret Christian culture developed – the so-called Kakure Kirishitan, “hidden Christians.” They did not have access to the Bible, but preserved stories and prayers orally through generations. When missionaries were once again allowed inside the country in the 1800s, they were surprised to find small communities that managed to keep their faith for almost 250 years without any outside contact – and without any bibles.
In recent times there is North-Korea becoming one of the more extreme examples. In this country, owning a bible is punishable by prison, torture, or capital punishment. There are however, still believers that hide tiny versions of The New Testament behind wall panels or in secret rooms. Some people get access to it via USB-sticks smuggled from China, filled with text from the Bible, movies, and sermons. They know what is at stake – but they still believe it is worth it.
These hidden bibles – either sewn into jackets, copied by hand, memorized or sent via secret networks – show the power that this book has over people. For some it was just printed paper, but for others it represented life, freedom, and truth. It was not the Bible itself that the authorities feared – it was the people that read it, took its words seriously and started living their life differently. There were those who spread forgiveness instead of hate, that followed a higher law than the authorities. There were those who refused to bow down to anything other than what they believed to be true.
And so the Bible, in its many hidden forms, shows us clearly that it is a book that could not be stopped, that kept working, even when it remained hidden in the darkness.
Sources:
https://www.opendoorsuk.org/about/our-history/brother-andrew/
https://www.opendoors.org/
https://www.persecution.com/
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315096391/bible-china-jostoliver-zetzsche
https://hdec.org/book-burning-and-censorship-in-nazi-germany-presented-by-the-us-holocaust-memorial-museum/
https://www.museumofthebible.org/book-minute/the-bible-censored-in-public-libraries
https://www.sophia.ac.jp/eng/research/kenkyukikan/christian-culture/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zp3p82p/revision/4
https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/north-korea/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_van_der_Bijl
