Email
Print
Bible is written while on tour
Media General News Service
Betsye Russell from St Lukes Methodist Church made a visit to Friendship Baptist Church in Chesterfield Co. to write a verse of the Bible. Russell wrote Leviticus 19:15
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: October 14, 2008
The first Bible was handwritten.
And now, there will be another, only this Bible will be written "one verse, one person" at a time.
To mark the 30th anniversary of the New International Version Bible, which has more than 300 million copies in print, the Bible will be handwritten during a 90-city tour in 44 states. The handwritten version will be called America's New International Version.
It will take 31,173 people to copy all the verses in their own handwriting. So far, the project has attracted more than 2,000 participants.
William Huddleston, 17, is one of them.
"I'm a very religious teenager, and I plan on becoming a pastor. I believe the word of God is important for the youth across America," said Huddleston, a senior at Clover Hill High School in Chesterfield County.
Huddleston signed his verse, from Leviticus, at Friendship Baptist Church in Chesterfield. The church on Newbys Bridge Road hosted the Bible Across America tour yesterday from 1 to 7 p.m.
Todd Estes, the church's pastor, said he wanted the church involved with a worthwhile effort.
"I am a strong believer in the Bible. Anything that gets the Bible in front of people, that's what it's about," Estes said.
Zondervan, which publishes about 100 editions of Bibles, is sponsoring the Bible Across America tour.
The eye-catching tour bus, adorned with "31,173 verses, 90 cities, 1 word" and "inspiration at every turn" also stops at special events, stores and universities.
Usually, 80 to 300 verses are completed at each location, said Tim Paneitz, one of four Zondervan employees on the tour who sets up the writing stations to collect the verses.
It takes participants about six minutes to print their respective verse twice to ensure an error-free version.
Discussion is under way to offer an original copy to the Smithsonian or the Library of Congress for display, Paneitz said.
Everyone writing a verse gets a certificate listing their book, chapter and verse. It's too early to say what kind of discount participants will get when the Bible is published next summer. But they will be listed on an index in the Bible.
Today, the tour will stop at Liberty University in Lynchburg from noon to 6 p.m.
To follow the tour, which has an online GPS tracking system, visit www.BibleAcrossAmerica.com.
Robin Farmer is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Email
Print
ADVERTISEMENT
Click a region for news specific to that area.
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
Advertisement
