Australian Bible Society launches SMS version of Bible

New Delhi – The SMS service is no longer the monopoly of teenagers who are seen thumbing away at their cellphones. It has caught those who are spiritual too. Recently, the Australian Bible Society has produced a translation of the Bible in SMS version and is certain that the most modern trend of spreading the Word of God will catch up soon.

“In da Beginin God crea8d da hevn & da erth. De erth was barrn, wwit no 4m of life, it was unda a roaring ocean cuvred wit dRknes,” are the opening verses of the SMS version developed by the Bible Society.

The version – all 31,173 verses of the Bible in text message, can be accessed free of charge from the SMS Bible set up programme.

SMS Bible allows you to send Bible verses of your choice together with your own personal message, containing a maximum of 150 characters, to a group of people.

Each verse is translated into ‘SMS language’– the full Contemporary English Version (CEV) with a modern twist. The true meaning, order of the words and grammar are as same as the original text except for the spelling. Sending the entire Bible would take more than 30,000 text messages. Senders will be charged standard SMS costs for sending messages via their own carrier.

According to Michael Chant, spokesman of the Bible Society, it is ideal for Church leaders, youth leaders, teachers and home group leaders to send verses of encouragement and reminders of Sunday sermon. “Our aim was to help to spread the word of God. We wanted to open it up for people of all ages, backgrounds and interests, and the text message version was a logical extension of that,” he said.

The Society maintained that it took one person about four weeks to convert the Old and New Testaments of the International Contemporary English Version of the Bible to SMS lingo.

The Bible Society’s initiative is getting tremendous response from India as well as other parts of the world.

For further details, click http://www.biblesociety.com.au/smsbible/download.html.