The Bible

The collected scriptures of Judaism and Christianity · commonly credited here in error

The Bible attracts this kind of adoption because so much of English moral vocabulary genuinely came from it, and readers reasonably assume that a saying which sounds scriptural probably is. It is far from alone in being wrongly credited: ‘God helps those who help themselves’, ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’ and ‘money is the root of all evil’ are all outside it, misremembered, or both. Nothing here bears on what scripture says or on anyone’s faith; the question on this page is narrow — where a particular English sentence came from — and the answer happens to be a film.

Traced to source

1 quote we’ve traced

On the research bench

Commonly pinned on The Bible — under review

7 lines flagged as pinned on The Bible and queued for a full source trace — not yet verified.

Did they really say it?

Thought The Bible said something else?

Type a quote you think The Bible said — we’ll tell you what we know, or point you to the best sources.