Out of this World: The Bible on the Moon!

The smallest Bible in the Dunham’s collection is a microfilmed Bible taken to the Moon and back by Apollo 14 in February 1971. This is one of 101 copies taken to the moon by Astronaut Edgar Mitchell during his nine hour and seventeen minute moonwalk. The microfilm Bible contains all 1,245 pages of the King James Bible edition 715 published by World Publishing. It can be read with 200x magnification. Members of the Apollo Prayer League commissioned the special first lunar Bible. Bible Societies in 57 different countries united in participating in this project, as well as commercial Bible publishers. This was not the first time the Bible was in space, however. Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to orbit the Moon. On Christmas Eve, 1968, Apollo 8’s crew of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders sent a message to “all the people on Earth.”