A project aimed at creating the first two Bibles handwritten in Chinese began at Shuang Lien Church (
This activity, called the "Millennium Handwritten Bible," is being sponsored by the United Bible Society of the ROC (
In order to complete the enormous task, the society has been appealing to tens of thousands of Christians throughout Taiwan. When finished, one copy will be placed in New York and the other will be displayed at an annual book exhibition in Taipei.
The activity got off to an errant start yesterday as Lee began writing his second copy of the first two verses of the Book of Genesis.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ..." Lee's own creation was found to have a mistake and he had to use correction fluid to cover it.
Lee donated NT$1,000 for the privilege of participating. Former first lady Lee Tseng Wen-hui (李曾文惠) joined the activity as well and donated an additional NT$1000. The society is asking each participant to donate a minimum of NT$100 for writing one verse.
"They will be the first Bibles in the world handwritten in Chinese," according to the society's director, Pastor Lai Chun-ming (賴俊明).
Lai said the donations will be used to publish Chinese bibles for the blind and for romanizing Taiwanese Aboriginal languages.
The Bible, both Old Testament and New, has 1,189 chapters and 31,367 verses. Its Chinese translation contains 1,409,312 characters. The society hopes to collect more than NT$1 million from the project.
Society member said they knew mistakes were inevitable but wanted participants to understand how difficult creating accurate copies of the Bible was before printing presses were invented.
Registered participants have claimed every verse of the New Testament. Society members were quick to point out that many verses of the Old Testament remain for anyone interested in participating.
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