BibleGateway is an

evangelical Christian Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of th ...

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

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

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

in many different versions and translations, including

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

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 countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

, and other languages. Its mission statement is "To honor

Christ Jesus ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Christianity, central figure of Christianity, the M ...

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, United States. Zondervan is a founding member of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA). It is a part of HarperCollins, Ha ...

. Bible Gateway's engagement features include the ability to display a single Bible verse in many 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, a 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, United States. Founded in 1876, Calvin University is an educational institution of the Christian Reformed Church and stands in the Reforme ...

Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is the largest city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, United States. With a population of 198,917 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 200,117 in 2024, Grand Rapids is the List of municipalities ...

, Bible Gateway was initially planned as a static

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

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 Christianity, Christian websites based in Muskegon, Michigan, Muskegon, Michigan. Gospel Com ...

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

Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was developed ...

. Later versions were written in C++,

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. ...

, and

Ruby 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 sapph ...

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

International Bible Society Biblica, formerly International Bible Society, was founded in 1809 and is the worldwide copyright holder of the New International Version of the Bible (NIV), licensing commercial rights to Zondervan in the United States and to Hodder & Stoughton ...

, The Lockman Foundation, and

Wycliffe Global Alliance Wycliffe Global Alliance is an alliance of organizations that have the 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 ...

. In late 2008,

(the

Evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of th ...

Christian publisher of the NIV and

TNIV Today's New International Version (TNIV) is an English translation of the Bible which was developed by the Committee on Bible Translation (CBT). The CBT also developed the New International Version (NIV) in the 1970s. The TNIV is based on the N ...

Bible and a wholly owned subsidiary of

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

) 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 Jose ...

''. 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, prev ...

, which was owned by

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

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 was #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