Dr. James F. Lacy grew up in Geneva, a small town in South Alabama. He attended Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) graduating in 1953 with a degree in Agricultural Science and a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army. He was immediately called to active duty, serving more than twenty years. In addition to several state-side assignments, he also served in Europe, Korea and Vietnam. After his retirement from the army in 1974, he taught for more than twenty years at Chattahoochee Valley Community College. In addition to teaching history and geography he was chairman of the Social Sciences Department. Dr. Lacy's educational experiences include his BS from API, a MS from Tulane in International Relations and a PhD in History from Auburn University. His foreign languages include Spanish and Portuguese. Dr. Lacy has post-graduate work in geography. In the process of preparing for writing this book he traveled to Israel four times. He has traced two of Paul's three missionary journeys. Throughout Dr. Lacy's entire life, he has been involved in Bible study and teaching. For more than fifty years he has taught at least one Bible study each week and this includes the years spent in Korea and Vietnam, where regular Bible study was not easy. For the last ten years Dr. Lacy has taught at least three, sometimes four, Bible studies per week. Dr. Lacy is a lay person. His main purpose in writing this history of the Bible was to provide lay people with a comprehensive history of the scriptures that would be easy for lay people to read and understand.