Hand-Inscribed Bibles in 100 Languages

Most of the Bibles that we see are printed by machines. A few of us who are lucky may see an illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages. Now, the Bible Valley Society is working from Jerusalem to produce 100 hand-inscribed Bibles written in 100 languages.

To date, thousands of people from 31 countries have participated in the project, dubbed "People of the World Inscribe the Bible."

Accord to organizers' plans, each community hand-inscribes the 23,127 verses of the Jewish Bible, with the goal being to inscribe 100 Bibles in 100 languages.

Among the 31 countries represented so far are Panama, Costa Rica, Brazil, the United States, Argentina, Denmark, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Greece, Israel, Poland, Singapore, Finland, Canada, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Latvia and Ukraine.

Copying the Bible By Hand

For thousands of years, scripture was copied not by printing press or by inkjet, but by hand as rabbis, scribes, and monks painstakingly transcribed the Bible from papyrus to parchment to vellum by hand. It was a meticulously detailed process as workers looked to exactly duplicate old copies before they wore out. Now, Bible Across America tour is looking to bring that experience to the average American Christian.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the New International Version of the Bible, the publishing house Zondervan is inviting people across the U.S. to copy a verse in their own hand.

"What better way than to let everyone participate?" said Moe Girkins, chief executive of Zondervan, the North American publisher of the NIV Bible, as it's commonly known. "Anywhere people love the Bible, we want to go."

The six-month Bible Across America tour is visiting 90 cities and will include contributions from all 50 states.

Not many people can say that they have studied a single book of the Bible, and fewer still can say they have read the Bible from cover to cover. How many can claim to have hand-copied scripture?