American Bible Society - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The American Bible Society (ABS) is an interconfessional, non-denominational, nonprofit organization, founded in 1816 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, which publishes, distributes and translates the Bible and provides study aids and other tools to help people engage with the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

.

It is probably best known for its Good News Translation of the Bible, with its contemporary vernacular and unique line drawings of Bible events with a snippet of text interspersed throughout the book. The line drawings were done by Annie Vallotton, a Swiss religious artist. They also publish the Contemporary English Version

Contemporary English Version

The Contemporary English Version or CEV is a translation of the Bible into English,published by the American Bible Society...

.

The stated mission of the ABS is to make the Bible available to every person in a language and format each can understand and afford, so all people may experience its life-changing message.

ABS is headquartered in New York City. Its headquarters building at 1865 Broadway houses an extensive museum of religious art and a 45,000 volume collection of Scriptures, making it the largest Bible museum in the western hemisphere and second largest in the world behind the Vatican

Holy See

The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

Government

The government of the Society is entrusted to a board of managers, consisting of 36 laymen, one-fourth of whom retire from office each year, but are eligible for reelection. Laymen who were constituted directors for life before 1 June 1877, and ministers who are life members are authorized to attend the meetings of the board, with power to speak and vote.

The current president of the American Bible Society is Dr. R. Lamar Vest, former General Overseer of the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee)

Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee)

The Church of God, with headquarters in Cleveland, Tennessee, is a Pentecostal Christian denomination. With over seven million members in over 170 countries, it is one of the largest Pentecostal denominations in the world...

(1990–1994; 2000–2004).

19th Century

The American Bible Society was founded in 1816 by people who were committed to the word of God and to the end of slavery

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

. The first President was Elias Boudinot

Elias Boudinot

Elias Boudinot was a lawyer and statesman from Elizabeth, New Jersey who was a delegate to the Continental Congress and a U.S. Congressman for New Jersey...

, who was also President of the Continental Congress

Continental Congress

The Continental Congress was a convention of delegates called together from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution....

from 1782 to 1783 and later Director of the U.S. Mint.

John Jay

John Jay

John Jay was an American politician, statesman, revolutionary, diplomat, a Founding Father of the United States, and the first Chief Justice of the United States ....

, the first Chief Justice

Chief Justice

The Chief Justice in many countries is the name for the presiding member of a Supreme Court in Commonwealth or other countries with an Anglo-Saxon justice system based on English common law, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Court of Final Appeal of...

of the U.S. Supreme Court, was named President in 1821 and a number of illustrious individuals like Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen, Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University

The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

President Daniel Coit Gilman

Daniel Coit Gilman

Daniel Coit Gilman was an American educator and academician, who was instrumental in founding the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale College, and who subsequently served as one of the earliest presidents of the University of California, the first president of Johns Hopkins University, and as...

and Edwin Francis Hyde, a former president of the Philharmonic Society of New York, headed up the organization over the years. Francis Scott Key

Francis Scott Key

Francis Scott Key was an American lawyer, author, and amateur poet, from Georgetown, who wrote the lyrics to the United States' national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner".-Life:...

, the writer of the United States' National Anthem

National anthem

A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nation's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people.- History :Anthems rose to prominence...

, was a Vice President of the organization from 1817 until his death in 1843.

The American Bible Society provided the first Bibles in hotels and the first pocket Bibles for soldiers (during the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

). The first translation by the Bible Society was in 1818 into a Native American

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

language.

In 1852 the Bible House was built, occupying the whole of the ground bounded by Third and Fourth Avenues, Astor Place and Ninth Street in New York City. By 1920, it was one of the oldest office buildings in the city.

One goal of the Society is to reach the destitute of all classes and conditions. During the 19th century, four canvasses of the United States for this purpose were undertaken. These canvasses were begun in 1829, 1856, 1866 and in 1882. During the fourth canvass, begun in 1882, more than 6,300,000 families were visited, and 473,806 families were supplied with Bibles; in addition nearly 300,000 individuals received Bibles.

20th Century

By 1912, the Society issued Bibles for use in the United States in 83 languages besides English. Foreign circulation was rising steadily, increasing from 250,000 copies in 1876 to over 2,000,000 copies in 1915.

21st Century

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the ABS distributed more than one million Scriptures and offered downloadable portions free of charge to those affected by the tragedy.

It has also maintained its commitment to military

Military

A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...

, including producing a pocket-sized military Bible, developed jointly with the aid of Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

and Protestant chaplains from all branches of the armed forces.

It has also provided Scriptures to victims of natural disasters. Following the tsunami

Tsunami

A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...

in 2004, ABS worked in cooperation with the United Bible Societies

United Bible Societies

The United Bible Societies is a worldwide association of Bible societies. In 1946 delegates from 13 countries formed the UBS, as an effort to coordinate the activities of the bible societies. The first headquarters were London and in Geneva...

and partner Bible Societies in Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

, Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

and Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

to provide a host of Bible resources to people in the affected regions. In 2005, it sent nearly a million Bibles and Scripture portions to those who survived the devastation of Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

.

And ABS has formed a partnership with Habitat for Humanity to give a free Bible to each of its new homeowners in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Current events

Housed at ABS’s main headquarters in mid-town Manhattan in New York City

New York City

is a Library

Library

In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...

that houses the largest collection of Bibles in the Western Hemisphere and a number of interesting and valuable editions of ancient and historic bibles dating back as far as the Gutenberg

Gutenberg

Gutenberg may refer to:People:* Johannes Gutenberg , inventor of movable type printing* Beno Gutenberg , a German-born seismologist* Erich Gutenberg , a German economistPlaces:...

edition, of which ABS has several pages under protection.

The curator of the 45,000 volume collection is Dr. Liana Lupas, Ph. D. in classics from the University of Bucharest

University of Bucharest

The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...

(Romania). The collection contains editions of scripture in every language, from many countries and regions and spanning nearly six centuries and is the second largest collection of religious books, with the Vatican

Holy See

the largest. ABS often finds and protects found scriptures, sometimes even buying them at auction. The Museum is open to the public, and Dr. Lupas provides tours of the facility.

In ABS’s Bible repository in South America, there are hundreds of thousands of random versions and editions of Bibles that it has collected over the years.

The American Bible Society celebrated a century of service to China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

in 1934. Vice President John R. Mott recalled that in 1833 the Society sent $3,000 to Dr. Elijah Coleman Bridgman

Elijah Coleman Bridgman

Elijah Coleman Bridgman was the first American Protestant Christian missionary appointed to China. He served with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions...

, first U. S. Protestant missionary to China, to print scriptures in Chinese. As of 1934 the Society had spent $2,897,383 distributing nearly 70,000,000 volumes of Scripture in China.

In 1999, ABS launched its first major internet ministry, ForMinistry.com, a free church webbuilder. Since then, it has released many different ministry sites including ShareYourStoryNow.org (2006), which allows users to share stories of how the Bible has changed their life.

In December 2006, along with Larry Jones and his group Feed the Children

Feed The Children

Feed The Children founded in 1979 is an international, non-profit relief organization guided by Christian values, whose stated mission is "providing hope and resources for those without life's essentials". In FY 2010, Feed The Children distributed more than 133 million pounds of food and other...

, ABS participated in the "largest food distribution effort" in the U.S.. Over 10,000 bundles of food were handed out in one day (consisting of a case of chicken, juices, fruits and vegetable) in Harlem

Harlem

Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...

, outside the Abyssinian Baptist Church

Abyssinian Baptist Church

The Abyssinian Baptist Church is among the most famous of the many prominent and activist churches in the Harlem section of New York City.- History :...

on 138th Street. ABS handed out Bibles to all of the food recipients

In 2010 ABS launched a new Bible Search tool, which is an ad free web engine that searches across ten translations of the Bible and targets the "Bible curious" and Protestant, Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

and Orthodox believers.

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