Chapter Biberius Caldius Mero to Bickerstaff of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

household to reade the Word. And some scoffe at such as carry the scriptures with them to church, terming them in reproach Bible-carriers.”- Gouge: Whole Armour of God, p. 318 (1616).

Bible Christians A Protestant sect founded in 1815 by William O'Bryan, a Wesleyan, of Cornwall; also called Bryanites (3 syl.).

Bible-Clerk A sizar of the Oxford university; a student who gets certain pecuniary advantages for reading the Bible aloud at chapel. The office is almost a sinecure now, but the emolument is given, in some colleges, to the sons of poor gentlemen, either as a free gift, or as the reward of merit tested by examination.

Bible Statistics
   The Number of Authors is 50.    About 39 books are mentioned in the Bible, but not included in the canon.

	Old Testament	New Testament	Total.
Books	30	27	66
Chapters	929	260	1,189
Verses	23,214	7,959	31,173
Words	592,439	181,253	773,692
Letters	2,728,800	838,380	3,567,180

   Apocrypha. Books 14; chapters, 183; verses, 6,081; words, 252,185; letters, 1,063,876.

Middle book	Proverbs	2 Thess.
Middle chapter	Job xxix.	Rom. xiii. & xiv.
Middle verse	2 Chron. xx.	Acts xvii. 17.

   (between verses 17 and 18)

Least verse	1 Chron. i. 25, John xi. 35.
Smallest chapter	Psalm cx vii.
Longest chapter	Psalm cxix.

   Ezra vii. 21 contains all the letters of the alphabet except j.
   2 Kings xix. and Isaiah xxxvii. are exactly alike.
   The last two verses of 2 Chron. and the opening verses of Ezra are alike.
   Ezra ii. and Nehemiah vii are alike.
   The word and occurs in the Old Testament 35,543 times.
   The word and occurs in the New Testament 10,684 times.
   The word Jehovah occurs 6,835 times.
   The letter Mem in the Hebrew text occurs 77,778 times.
   The letter Vau in the Hebrew text occurs 76,922 times. (These are the most frequent.)
   The letter Teth occurs 11,052 times.
   The letter Samech occurs 13,580 times. (These are the least frequent.)
   The Bible was divided into chapters by Cardinal. Hugo de Sancto-Caro, about 1236.
   The Old Testament was divided into verses by Rabbi Mordecai Nathan; and the New Testament, in 1544, by R. Stephens, a French printer, it is said, while on horseback.
   Of the 3,000 languages and dialects on the earth, the Bible has been translated into 180.
   The Septuagint, a translation into Greek, was made in Egypt 285 B.C.
   The first complete English translation was by Wicklif, A.D. 1380; the first French translation, in 1160; the first German, in 1460; the first American edition was printed at Boston in 1752.
   The oldest MS. of the Bible in the British Museum is the “Codex Alexandrinus.” Parts of the New Testament are omitted. The “Codex Vaticanus” is the oldest in the Vatican Library at Rome.

Biblia Pauperum [the poor man's Bible ]. Some forty or fifty pictures of Bible subjects used in the Middle Ages, when few could read, to teach the leading events of Scripture history. (See Mirror Of Human Salvation .)

Biblical Father of Biblical criticism and exegesis. Origen (185-254).

A love of books pursued to the point of unreason or madness. One Don Vicente, a Spanish scholar, is reputed to have committed murder to obtain a supposedly unique book.

Bibliomancy Forecasting future events by the Bible. The plan was to open the sacred volume at random, and lay your finger on a passage without looking at it. The text thus pointed out was supposed to be applicable to the person who pointed it out. (Greek, biblia, Bible; manteia, prophecy.) (See Sortes. )
    Another process was to weigh a person suspected of magic against a Bible. If the Bible bore down the other scale, the accused was acquitted.

Bibulus Colleague of Julius Cæsar, a mere cipher in office, whence his name has become proverbial for one in office who is a mere fainéant.

Biceps Muscular strength of the arm; properly, the prominent muscles of the upper arm; so called because they have two heads. (Latin, biceps, two heads.)