Most people know a Bible verse or two. Tom Meyer can recite whole books of holy writ from memory.

And not only dramatic parts like Genesis 1 and Revelation. Also the long-winded “begats” and Levitical laws.
It’s his crusade to revive the historic tradition of public oration — the tradition of Shakespeare and Dickens — a heritage he says has been lost in the last century.

“I want them to hear the beauty of the ancient text,” says Meyer, of Lombard, Ill., part of Wordsower Ministries. “On a page, it’s flat. When it’s spoken, it’s almost 3-D. It comes alive.”

Meyer, 35, will recite Revelation at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Westgate Baptist Church, 901 N. Hiatus Road, Plantation. He’ll then go to Broadview Baptist Church in Pompano Beach on Sunday.

At Broadview, he’ll recite Genesis 1-11 at the 11 a.m. service, then Revelation at 7 p.m. The church is at 1640 SW 61st Ave., Pompano Beach.

But he doesn’t just recite: YouTube videos show him pacing, gesturing, using vocal inflections. When he recites the story of Jonah, he occasionally shouts: “The waters compassed me about, even to the SOUL! . . . I went DOWN to the BOTTOM of the MOUNTAINS!”

Surprisingly, it doesn’t take as long as it may sound. Even in a measured, “conversational” speed, Meyer says he can finish Jonah in eight minutes, the Genesis passage in 35, all of Revelation in an hour.

He’s been doing it eight years and trying to keep up with demand: He says he has spoken in 24 states just in the past six months. This year he plans to visit 75 churches in 20-25 states. He says he’s booked through the fall.

He works on an offering basis for Wordsowers, a charitable organization in Salem, Ore., which supports schools and orphanages and widows’ programs in Haiti, India, Ghana and Liberia.

Growing up in Lombard, a suburb of Chicago, Meyer was better at memorizing baseball cards than Bible verses. After high school, he worked for five years in his father’s asphalt company, but then felt the call to fulltime ministry.

A pastor suggested he learn Matthew 6, in which Jesus reassures his followers that God cares for them. That encouraged Meyer to learn whole books: Jonah, Genesis 1-11, most of the so-called minor prophets.

He refined his methods during four years in Jerusalem, earning master’s degrees at Hebrew University and Jerusalem University College. He gleaned 60 traditional techniques, then boiled them down to hearing, reading, writing and oral repetition. The latter is the most important to keep from forgetting, he says.

Revelation is his most recent book; he learned it just in time to recite it during 2012. “Everyone is talking about the end time, blah blah blah,” Meyer says. “It’s good for churches to hear what God has to say.”

But he stresses that his performances are not just shows, but meant to inspire people to start memorizing scriptures themselves. “The Bible says God blesses people who meditate on it.”

Just two weeks after a Temple era seal was displayed to the public, archeologists continue to dig up breathtaking proofs of the ancient and never-severed connection between Jews and the Land of Israel. This time, the find is a 1,500 year old tiny stamp discovered near the city of Akko, bearing the image of the seven-branched Temple Menorah.

The stamp was used to identify baked products and probably belonged to a bakery that supplied kosher bread to the Jews of Akko in the Byzantine period.

The ceramic stamp dates from the Byzantine period (6th century CE) and was uncovered in excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is currently conducting at Horbat Uza east of Akko, prior to the construction of the Akko-Karmiel railroad track by the Israel National Roads Company.

This find belongs to a group of stamps referred to as “bread stamps” because they were usually used to stamp baked goods.

According to Gilad Jaffe and Dr. Danny Syon, the directors of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “A number of stamps bearing an image of a menorah are known from different collections. The Temple Menorah, being a Jewish symbol par excellence, indicates the stamps belonged to Jews, unlike Christian bread stamps with the cross pattern which were much more common in the Byzantine period.”

There were no Muslims in the region at the time — because the Quran had not yet been written.

According to Syon, “This is the first time such a stamp is discovered in a controlled archaeological excavation, thus making it possible to determine its provenance and date of manufacture. The stamp is important because it proves that a Jewish community existed in the settlement of Uza in the Christian-Byzantine period. The presence of a Jewish settlement so close to Akko – a region that was definitely Christian at this time – constitutes an innovation in archaeological research.”

“Due to the geographical proximity of Horbat Uza to Akko, we can speculate that the settlement supplied kosher baked goods to the Jews of Akko in the Byzantine period,” the excavators added.

The stamp is engraved with a seven-branched menorah atop a narrow base, and the top of the branches forms a horizontal line. A number of Greek letters are engraved around a circle and dot on the end of the handle. Dr. Leah Di Segni, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem suggested they probably spell out the name Launtius, which was common among Jews of the period and also appears on another Jewish bread stamp of unknown provenance.  According to Dr. Syon and Gilad Jaffe, “This is probably the name of the baker from Horbat Uza.”

Horbat Uza is a small rural settlement where clues were previously found that allude to it being a Jewish settlement. These include a clay coffin, a Shabbat lamp and jars with menorah patterns painted on them.

Dr. David Amit of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who has made a study of bread stamps, added, “A potter engraved the menorah image in the surface of the stamp prior to firing it in a kiln, whereas the owner’s name was engraved in the stamp’s handle after firing. Hence we can assume that a series of stamps bearing the menorah symbol were produced for Jewish bakers, and each of these bakers carved his name on the handle, which also served as a stamp.

“In this way the dough could be stamped twice before baking: once with the menorah – the general symbol of the Jewish identity of Jewish bakeries, and again with the private name of the baker in each of these bakeries, which also guaranteed the bakery’s kashrut.”