NEWS RELEASE

4 April 2007

The Ultimate Text Message

Divine inspiration direct to mobile phones - that's the thinking behind VirtualBible™, a new service launched this week by Christian Mobile from South Africa in partnership with the Bible Society in Northern Ireland (BSNI).

For the first time, the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation, are available for download to mobile phone users. Text messages will never be quite the same again.

Mobile users simply enter http://wapbibles.com into their phone browser to access a range of Bible translations.

BSNI is committed to making the Bible more widely available through financing first translations and subsidising Scriptures for the poor of the world in any appropriate medium. The new service follows hard on the heels of products like MegaVoice, a solar-powered, hand-held computer that the Society provided for thousands of illiterate people in North Africa. Now the Bible Society is hoping to reach people here in Northern Ireland who normally don't read the Bible, by offering it in an exciting new format - on their mobile.

"While mobiles are great for up-to-the-minute information, urgent messages and football scores - we are offering people an opportunity to use the same technology for reflection,' said John Doherty, the Bible Society's General Secretary. "200 years after Bible Society work first began in Belfast, we can now provide the ultimate text message in a style that young people are used to. Just two minutes' Bible reading can be really helpful on a busy day."

For ministers and pastors in a counselling situation, bringing out a leather-bound book can appear to create a barrier with those who are unfamiliar with the Bible. In some situations, reading a Psalm from a mobile phone may appear less threatening.

Mobile phone users in more than 130 countries will soon be able to make use of the service in a choice of translations. The Bible can become part of a person's daily life and culture and can now be carried everywhere that you go.
"This fits in with our mission to make the Bible and its message accessible to a generation that reads screens more than books. Although the medium may be new, the words and truth remain the same," John Doherty said.


FURTHER NOTES:

  1. Mobile phone users in more than 130 countries will eventually be able to use VirtualBible™ in a choice of translations.

  2. The cost of downloading either the complete New Testament or the complete Old Testament will be £5.99. If users change their phone in the future they will be able to obtain a free fresh download. The charge will be shared with the Mobile phone operators and copyright owners who have all agreed to participate in this new service.
  3. The pace of technological change means that mobile phones increasingly have the capacity to store the 1MB required for both the Old and New Testaments. Already an estimated 70% of phones in use today meet that specification.
  4. A choice of Bible translations is being offered - traditional and modern:
    • Authorised Version   (1611)
    • Good News Bible      (1976)
    • Contemporary English Version (1995)
  5. The Bible Society in Northern Ireland is one of 141 Societies who are currently working in 200 countries to translate and distribute Scriptures. BSNI is already supporting projects in 30 countries this year by funding translators and subsidising the cost of distributing Bibles and other Scriptures.
  6. BSNI has previously placed 5,000 solar-powered digital Scripture players in two North African countries to meet the needs of blind and illiterate people, both Christian and non-Christian. Now modern technology is being used here in Northern Ireland to promote access to Scripture.
  7. BSNI is 200 years old this year. When work began in Belfast in 1807 the distribution of the Scriptures was inhibited by the large number of people who had not been able to learn to read.
  8. This year, 2007, the Bible Society in Northern Ireland is supporting Scripture translation / distribution projects in 30 countries with the support of local churches and individual Christians.