Just about everybody had one.

Strong's exhaustive concordance of the Bible.

If you were a Christian, it seemed like you would have a Bible

and somewhere next to it, you would have Strong's concordance. It was first

published in 1890. It contains a numbering system for Hebrew and Greek words and it has 8,674 Hebrew roots that are numbered and 5,123 Greek

roots that are numbered.

This is massive, this work, this exhaustive concordance,

showing where every word in the Bible

could be found with its book chapter and verse. It is massive and this

before computers, before software programs and before search engines, which means this work was all done by hand.

Well, this same strong also served as editor of the massive 10 volume,

Cyclopedia, of biblical, biblical theological and ecclesiastical literature.

It was published from 1867 through 1881.

And if that's not enough, this same strong, finally worked on a committee that produced the American Standard Version of the Bible.

For the 30 years, this committee labored from 1871 until the ASV was published in

1901. Charles Hodge was one of those editors. It was a pantheon of

Scholars of the Day. 101 editors and all worked on the American Standard

Version and one of those 101 was The Strong.

So who is he?

Well, he is James Strong. He was born in New York City on August 14, 1822. He died in New York in 1894. He wanted to be a doctor when he was young but he went off to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and there he studied biblical languages, among other things.

He was really a layman and he had a fascinating career.

He organized a railroad company and then built the Flushing Railroad in the 1850s.

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