BibleGateway is a

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and W ...

designed to allow easy reading, listening, studying, searching, and sharing of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...

in many different versions and translations, including

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

, and other languages (see below). Its mission statement is "To honor

Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

by equipping people to read and understand the Bible, wherever they are". The website is free to use, but also offers Bible Gateway Plus, a membership program with enhanced services. It is currently owned by

Zondervan Zondervan is an international Christian media and publishing company located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Zondervan is a founding member of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA). They are a part of HarperCollins Christian Publ ...

. Bible Gateway's engagement features include the ability to display a single bible verse in all English bible translations, the ability to display and compare up to five Bible translations side by side at once; its daily Blog; more than 60 email devotions, Bible reading plans, and verses-of-the-day; an award-winning free mobile app; audio Bibles; video interviews; Bible reference books; shareable widgets; advanced search tools; Bible Gateway Blogger Grid; a retail store; and the Bible Gateway Deals discount program. Bible Gateway's online bookstore offers more than 500,000 Christian resources. It is an affiliate of Christianbook.com.

History

Founded by Nick Hengeveld in 1993 at

Calvin College Calvin University, formerly Calvin College, is a private Christian university in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Founded in 1876, Calvin University is an educational institution of the Christian Reformed Church and stands in the Reformed (Calvinist) ...

Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is th ...

, Bible Gateway was initially planned as a static

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaS ...

presentation of the

. In 1995, the site moved to the new Gospel Communications Network (a part of

Gospel Communications International Gospel Communications International (formerly Gospel Films) was a non-profit Christian organization and the founder and parent organization of several Christian websites based in Muskegon, Michigan. Gospel Communications Network was founded in ...

). The Bible Gateway website was originally written as a CGI script in

Perl Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offic ...

. Later versions were written in

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

, PHP and

Ruby A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called ...

. Bible Gateway gradually expanded its database by acquiring the rights to more English and foreign language translations, including translations published by

International Bible Society International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

The Lockman Foundation The Lockman Foundation is a nonprofit, interdenominational Christian ministry dedicated to the translation, publication, and distribution of Bibles and other biblical resources in English and other languages. The foundation's core products are t ...

and

Wycliffe Global Alliance Wycliffe Global Alliance is an alliance of organizations that have objective of translating the Bible into every language. The organisation is named after John Wycliffe, who was responsible for the first complete English translation of the whole ...

. In late 2008,

(the

Evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...

Christian publisher of the NIV and TNIV Bible and a wholly owned subsidiary of

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News C ...

) acquired Bible Gateway from Gospel Communications. The sale of the site came after two years of continued financial difficulties on the part of the donation-driven GospelCom ministry. In June 2009, Joseph Park was hired as president of BibleGateway.com. Park was co-founder and former CEO of Kozmo.com, which was the subject of the documentary film ''

e-Dreams ''e-Dreams'' is a 2001 American documentary film directed by Wonsuk Chin portraying the rise and fall of Kozmo.com, an online convenience store that used bike messengers to deliver goods ordered online within an hour. The movie follows Joseph ...

''. He was also co-founder and former CEO of

Askville Askville was a user-driven research site founded by Amazon.com. It was opened to the public on December 8, 2006, and shut down on October 25, 2013. History Askville was co-founded by Korean-American former investment banker Joseph Park, previ ...

, which was owned by

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

and closed in 2013. In May 2010, Rachel Barach replaced Park (who became Senior Vice President of Consumer Products at parent company HarperCollins Digital, Consumer) as General Manager of Bible Gateway. , Bible Gateway hosts 232 versions of the Bible, in 74 different languages. Its Alexa ranking is #744.

References

{{HarperCollins Android (operating system) software BlackBerry software Christian websites Electronic Bibles Internet properties established in 2008 IOS software Online Scripture Search Engine Universal Windows Platform apps Bible versions and translations Internet properties established in 1993