The
first Bible Society was established in 1804. The main aim of the organisation
was to propagate the Christian Bible. These Bible Societies expanded
rapidly at the end of the 18th century as a result of the establishment
of various Missionary Societies. The
most important of the Bible Societies was the British and Foreign
Bible Society that produced biblical texts in 700 languages and dialects.
This organisation also managed to distributed over 550 million copies
of the Bible to people all over the world.
The United Bible Societies
was established in 1946 to improve cooperation between the various
societies. It now has a worldwide fellowship of over 130 Bible Societies.
By 2002 the bible in complete or partial form was available in 2,303
languages.
Bible
Society
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
