In his 2014 book Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight, author Jay Barbree recounts the following story:
That Christmas Eve in 1968 was extraordinary not just for Neil and Deke and the others in Mission Control, but for the billions that had been brought together before their television sets. They were seeing wondrous never-before-seen video of the moon moving quietly below Apollo 8's lunar orbit when Bill Anders spoke: "For all the people on Earth," he began soberly, "the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you."
He paused briefly and began reading from the verses of the book of Genesis: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth..." As Bill concluded the fourth verse, Jim Lovell read the next four with Frank Borman concluding with, "And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called seas. And God saw that it was good."
The moon with its view of the distant, soft blue marble of life had become host to poets, and Borman signed off with, "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you -- all of you on the good Earth."
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