September 12, 1999, about 4,600 pathfinders, companions (teenagers) and youth from Seventh Day Adventist Church, gathered from more than 200 places from Romania, to write the Bible from memory in the shortest possible time.
The main alleys of the former "Liberty" park were filled with young people an hour before the opening. The participants learned portions of the Bible and wrote them on 66 rolls of paper at the same time and thus putting together the whole Scripture. The total length of the paper rolls was 2.8Km (aprox. 1.7 miles).
Pastor Jan Paulsen, President of the General Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, and Pastor Mark Finley director for "It Is Written" television join the youth writing the first and the last verse of the Bible
The total time of writing from memory the most recent manuscript of the Bible was only 28 minutes. The time could have been shorter but it was twice as long because an urgency plan was applied for those that was sick or missed the event for important reasons. Each participant was supposed to learn a friend's portion too, in order to write his or her part in cases such as already mentioned. Also the organizers authorized that about 80 verses out of a total of 31,102, to be written directly from the Bible because both the titular and the reserve were missing. We estimate that the accuracy of the writing is more than 95%. The manuscript will be checked for the exact figures.
We will try to get this record into the Guinness Book as:
The most rapid writing or a Bible manuscript from memory.
The Adventist young people wanted to tell the other youth
from Romania that the Bible is still relevant for this generation and it
can offer the best solution for the moral and identity crisis they face.
The same night one of the most popular TV stations in
Romania made the event one of its top stories. There were journalists
from main newspapers that attended the event and we expect a good report
from them too.
Please send this report to your friends. Thank you!
The longest Bible manuscript.