December 8, 2002
Reported by Li Hsin-ren
Translated and rewritten by David Alexander

In the year 2000 Taiwan's Bible Society promoted a "Hand Written Bible" movement to raise funds. Since then many local congregations of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan have produced their own manuscript scriptures to celebrate anniversaries.

In Tainan City, East Gate Presbyterian Church, which is 100 years old this year, is producing one. The Rev. Mr. Ong Beng-jin (Wang Ming-ren) said, "The manuscript Bible is one of the activities we are doing as part of our anniversary celebration. We want to remind our members that the church is founded upon the Word of God and produce something tangible as testimony to our history."

East Gate Church's members ardently support the project. More than 130 of them are working to write out a copy of the "Chinese Union Version" of the Old and New Testaments. They are using high grade paper and writing instruments, and hope to have the project finished by April of 2003. The completed volume will become part of the church's historical collection.

Iam-chiu (Yen-chou) Presbyterian Church in Pingtung County is promoting a Bible reading and writing movement. The Rev. Mr. Cheng Yau-chong says of the project, "This idea moves in stages. Believers can choose to read a chapter then write the verse that most moves them. Or they can go deeper, reading then copying out entire chapters, adding to this their own feelings. We want to promote the idea of each person in his or her own lifetime producing a personally written copy of the scriptures."

Rev. Lai Chun-ming, General Secretary of Taiwan's Bible Society, promotes hand written Bibles as a way to help believers to value the words of scriptures. One of the two copies of the Millenium Manuscript Bible that was produced here two years ago has been placed into the collection of the American Bible Society in New York City for safekeeping.

Taiwan Church News