Thursday, October 01, 2009

My current leather possessions are limited to a wallet and some belts

"Logos Bible Software is celebrating the launch of their new online Bible by giving away 72 ultra-premium print Bibles at a rate of 12 per month for six months. The Bible giveaway is being held at Bible.Logos.com and you can get up to five different entries each month! After you enter, be sure to check out Logos and see how it can revolutionize your Bible study."

Well, it's a new month, and that means it's time to enter again in Logos Bible Software's luxury Bible giveaway. I've entered every month so far, but I haven't wanted to enter by writing a blog post; I figured I would look pretty shallow writing about a contest just to be entered into the contest. Thankfully, because of Lingamish's recent rant about the giveaway, I have a pretext to write a post.

Lingamish hasn't shamed me into not trying to win a luxury Bible, but he has reminded me anew that English-language Bible resources are wasted on speakers of the English language. There is a great hunger abroad for good tools for interpreting the Bible, but many obstacles stand in the way. A lack of workers, copyright issues, poverty, lack of technology. Meanwhile, Bible publishers, one of which is my esteemed employer (I speak entirely in earnest), continue to crank out new repackages of the English Bible. People keep buying them, even though (according to this website, which was the first hit on Google), 92% of American homes have a Bible--and among those 92%, the average number of Bibles is three.*

By contrast, 200 million people don't have the Bible in their own language.

Lingamish has 6 things you can do about this. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to win one of Logos's Bibles, but maybe you can do one of these, too. I'll add a seventh option:

7. Give to one of Wycliffe Bible Translators' current projects.

*I have over twenty Bibles on my shelves (not counting electronic versions), but what can I say? I would really enjoy getting one of the leather-bound copies Logos is giving away. I'm hoping for the TNIV (currently a lacuna in my library).

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