America 250 Semiquincentennial Bible Celebration

LISTEN NOW (8 Minutes):

Today, we’ll take a look back — and ahead — to the incredible Bible reading marathons. They’re also known as Biblethons; Bible read-athons; and as we’ll see below, even Bibliothons.
What is a Bible reading marathon? Well, picture a group of people. Any number of them will do. They get together and read the bible out loud. They read from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation. There is no pause. They read from cover to cover, beginning to end.

When was the first American Bible reading marathon? I typed the question into Google and it returned this result: “The first American Bible Reading Marathon took place in Washington D.C. in 1990, organized by John Hash and Corinthia Boone, founders of the International Bible Reading Association.”

With this answer, I believe they are referring to an actual organization with the name Bible reading marathon. For many years now, they are held at several State capitol buildings. In fact, as I type this, they are beginning one at the State capitol building in Pennsylvania. If you think that you would be interested in participating, here is a link to their information.

If you’re listening to this as a podcast, the web site is: http://www.capitolbrm.org. So jot that down if you would like to learn more.

As for my Celebrate the Bible collection, I do have quite a few examples of “marathon-style” bible reading events in my photo history archive. These events go back well before the dates mentioned in Google. For instance, I pulled this one — called a “Bibliothon” — from my archive. It dates to 1972. I will read the caption that ran with the photo to you. As follows:

“Friday, October 6, 1972. Bibliothon Going On. Pearland’s First Baptist Church began a Bibliothon — a reading of the Bible from cover to cover — Thursday in front of the church. Expected to run through Saturday, the event parallels the Old Testament story of the Jewish King Josiah’s efforts to restore religion in ancient Israel, says the Rev. Harvey Kneisal, pastor of the Pearland church. After Josiah had the Torah read publicly, Israel experienced a revival in religion, says Kneisal, who hopes that will happen here.”

Just as a reminder, if you’re listening to this as a podcast and would like to see the photos, please go to celebratethebible250.com and just type BibleThon into the search, and the page that has the photos will be returned to you.

Looking at a different form of a Bible read-a-thon, this one took place on New York radio station WOR. However, this did not run cover-to-cover straight through. Instead, it aired every night of the week. Each session lasted for 15 minutes and continued for 480 nights!

This Biblethon took place back in the 1960s.

Now, this is a pretty big deal, because radio station WOR in New York is a very prominent station in one of — if not THE — largest market in the United States.

Here is a little background information:

WOR was started in the 1920’s by Louis Bamberger, owner and founder of the Bamberger department stores. He wanted to sell radios. He thought the best way to do that would be to start a radio station. The broadcast studio was located on the sixth floor of Bamberger’s dept. store at 131 Market Street in Newark, New Jersey.

WOR studios moved to Bamberger’s in Manhattan, New York, in 1924. One of the programs was a morning exercise show. When the host didn’t show up one morning in 1925, a replacement went on the air. The replacement was a man named John Gambling. John B. Gambling stayed on the air with WOR until 1959. His son, John A. Gambling stayed on the air until 1991. And John R. Gambling took over and stayed on the air until 2000. He returned for a 2008 to 2013 run on air. A 75 year family run!

Over the years, several notables made significant contributions. They include Dorothy Kilgallen, Orson Wells, and Jean Shepherd. More recent programming came from Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity.

Here’s the press photo from the event, and this is what the newspaper had to say about it:

As follows:

“A TALE OF 480 NIGHTS:
New York, New York, August 14, 1962: Drawing near the end of his task, John A Gambling reads the Bible over radio station WOR. Gambling expects to complete the reading, begun October 17, 1960 by Galen Drake, Friday August 24. Piled around him are some of the 120 reels of tape used to complete the project. The readings are broadcast 15 minutes a night, five evenings a week, at 10:45 p.m. EDT.”

So, until we meet again, and for “Celebrate the Bible 250” this is Francis Douglas. If you’re interested in learning more about the History of the Christian Holy Bible in America, please like, share, and subscribe now.