FREE ONLINE BIBLE TRANSLATION DEBUTS ON bible.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FREE ONLINE BIBLE TRANSLATION DEBUTS ON bible.org
Dallas, Nov. 4, 2005 – Internet-based “bible.org,” one of the largest online Christian ministries in the world, announced today that after 10 years of development, the first edition of the “NET BIBLE®” is now available online and free for download from www.bible.org. Over three million people use bible.org and the new online translation has been endorsed by top Christian leaders. Previously, the NET BIBLE® was available in a series of online beta editions but is now available in its first edition.
“The NET BIBLE® is an entirely new translation from the ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts,” said Dave Foran, executive director of bible.org. “A team of over 25 top scholars, experts in the Biblical languages, worked directly from the best currently available texts. The result was 60,932 translators’ notes and citations pulling from more than 700 scholarly works.”
The NET BIBLE is the first Bible ever to be beta-tested on the Internet. In this beta-testing process all working drafts of the NET BIBLE were posted on www.bible.org for public review and comment.
“The significance of this is that the NET BIBLE team, from day one, has been listening to its readers,” Foran said. “The purpose of the public review was to be accountable, to be transparent, and to request that millions of people provide feedback on the faithfulness and clarity of the translation as well as on the translators’ notes. By creating this kind of translation environment the NET BIBLE was read, studied, and checked by more eyes than any Bible translation in history.”
Ministry officials point out that anyone anywhere in the world with an Internet connection is able to use and print out the NET BIBLE without cost for personal study, preaching, teaching, and training others. And anyone who wants to give away the Bible can print up to 1,000 copies of the NET BIBLE and distribute them for free without the need for written permission.
Pastors without extensive libraries, missionaries and Bible translators in the field, and people in countries where access to Bible study materials are restricted or prohibited will all benefit from access to a contemporary English translation with extensive notes available on the Internet.
“We are putting ministry first,” said Chris Goodman, director of ministry development. “We are able to offer an entirely new and in-depth Bible translation to millions of people online to download without cost for personal study and to teach others. The NET BIBLE unlocks the riches of the Bible’s truth from entirely new perspectives and to me, this is wonderfully fulfilling.”
Bible.org is a non-profit (501c3) Christian ministry headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The Ministry launched in 1994 to leverage the Internet as a powerful new force in Christian ministry. In the last decade bible.org has grown to serve millions of individuals in over 170 countries by providing thousands of trustworthy resources for Bible study – including the new translation of the Bible (the NET BIBLE®).