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'' (Χρ ...

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 Wikip ...

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, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts o ...

in many different versions and translations, including English,

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, 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 religi ...

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 Pu ...

. 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 Christianbook, LLC, formerly known as Christian Book Distributors (CBD), is a Christian catalog and internet retailer. Christian Book Distributors was started in 1978 by Stephen Hendrickson, 19 years old and a sophomore at Central Bible College ...

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, Michigan, Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the List of municipalities in Mi ...

, 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 JavaScri ...

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 programming language, high-level, General-purpose programming language, general-purpose, Interpreter (computing), interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it ...

. Later versions were written in C++,

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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 sapp ...

. 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 and Wycliffe Global Alliance. 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 exp ...

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 Kozmo.com was a venture-capital-funded online company that promised free one-hour delivery of "videos, games, dvds, music, mags, books, food, basics & more" and Starbucks coffee in several major cities in the United States. It was founded by youn ...

, which was the subject of the documentary film '' e-Dreams''. He was also co-founder and former CEO of Askville, 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