The Bible Society of India is a

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

body that is authorized to translate, produce, distribute and market 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 ...

and is a member of the

United Bible Societies The United Bible Societies (UBS) is a global fellowship of around 150 Bible societies operating in more than 240 countries and territories. It has working hubs in England, Singapore and Nairobi. The headquarters are located in Swindon, England. ...

. The motto of the Society is to translate the word of God into languages, which people can understand, in a format they have access to, and produce the scriptures at a price people could afford to buy. The Bible Society works together with many organizations in India to translate the Bible into various languages of India. The Bible is now available in 74 Indian languages, the New Testament in 92 additional languages, Braille Bibles in 15 Indian languages for visually impaired people, and Scripture portions in 48 languages. Bible society of india bangalore

History

On 21 February 1811, a meeting was held "at the college of Fort William for the propriety of instituting a Bible Society, as Auxiliary to the British and Foreign Bible Society established in London", entitled "The Calcutta Auxiliary Bible Society" with the same objectives as those in London." This Auxiliary Bible Society in Serampore, West Bengal first began an attempt to coordinate the supply of Scriptures to existing Christians in Portuguese, Tamil, '' Cingalese'', Malayalam, and ''

Canarese Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

'' languages. They sent 5,000 ''Cingalese'' (Sinhalese) New Testaments to a new Auxiliary Bible Society in Ceylon formed in August 1812. The headquarters of the Bible Society of India moved from Nagpur to Bangalore in 1950, under the leadership of General Secretary Premanand Mahanty. The Central Office of the Bible Society of India is located in

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

city in the state of

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

South India South India, also known as Southern India or Peninsular India, is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the union territories of ...

The Translations

Sources for translating and revising

The Society depends on original sources material of the scriptures available in

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...

Biblical Aramaic Biblical Aramaic is the form of Aramaic that is used in the books of Daniel and Ezra in the Hebrew Bible. It should not be confused with the Targums — Aramaic paraphrases, explanations and expansions of the Hebrew scriptures. History During ...

and

Biblical Greek Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-regional form of Greek spoken and written during the Hellenistic ...

languages for which the sources include the

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, abbreviated as BHS or rarely BH4, is an edition of the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible as preserved in the Leningrad Codex, and supplemented by masoretic and text-critical notes. It is the fourth edition in ...

and the

Novum Testamentum Graece (''The New Testament in Greek'') is a critical edition of the New Testament in its original Koine Greek published by ''Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft'' (German Bible Society), forming the basis of most modern Bible translations and biblical crit ...

Pool of Scholars trained in Biblical languages

Since the beginning, the Society worked together with the

National Council of Churches in India The National Council of Churches in India is an ecumenical forum for Protestant and Orthodox churches in India. It provides a platform for member churches and organizations to act on common issues relating to Christianity in India. History The ...

and the

Senate of Serampore College (University) The Senate of Serampore College (University) is an ecumenical regulatory and affiliating body for Christian theological education, which works in partnership with Bible colleges, seminaries and theological research institutes in the Indian subco ...

and the first Translations Director, C. Arangaden helped found the Society for Biblical Studies in India (SBSI) which had been fully-

ecumenical Ecumenism ( ; alternatively spelled oecumenism)also called interdenominationalism, or ecumenicalismis the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships ...

consisting of Biblical Scholars from the

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

, and

Charismatic Charisma () is a personal quality of magnetic charm, persuasion, or appeal. In the fields of sociology and political science, psychology, and management, the term ''charismatic'' describes a type of leadership. In Christian theology, the term ...

Church Societies.

Father A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. A biological fat ...

Rene Van de Walle a member of the Society for Biblical Studies in India was associated with the revision of the

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...

Bible. Similarly,

Lucien Legrand was associated with the inter-confessional translation in

Tamil language Tamil (, , , also written as ''Tamizhil'' according to linguistic pronunciation) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. It is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world,. "Tamil is one of ...

. With this background, the Society systematically built up a pool of Biblical Scholars who specialised in

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

with

and

and also

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

with

. The Scholars include

Yisu Das Tiwari Yisu Das Tiwari (1911–1997) was an Indian theologian and a leading participant in Hindu-Christian dialogue. He was a scholar in Sanskrit, Hindi and Greek. The Bible Society of India entrusted him with revision of the Hindi Bible ''(New Test ...

, B. E. Devaraj, C. Arangaden,

Victor Premasagar Victor Premasagar (1927–2005) was the fourth successor of Frank Whittaker as Bishop in Medak. He was an Indian churchman and Old Testament scholar who made major contributions to research on the Old Testament and to the field of theology. Prem ...

, E. C. John, K. V. Mathew, M. P. John, John Philipose,

Gnana Robinson Gnana Robinson (17 March 1935 – 3 February 2019) was an Indian Biblical scholar who studied the Old Testament. Biography Robinson was born into a Christian family who were communicant members of what was then the South India United Church. ...

, G. Babu Rao,

Timotheas Hembrom Timotheas Hembrom (31 July 1939 – 18 August 2020) was an ordained Minister of the Church of North India and an Old Testament Scholar who taught at the Bishop's College, Kolkata, affiliated to the nation's first University, the Senate of Seram ...

Nitoy Achümi N. K. Achümi was''Nagaland Post'', BSI Dmu auxiliary releases Pochury Bible, 26 September 2014./ref> a Bible Translator who was Translations Advisor with the United Bible Societies and was based in Nagaland. As a Linguist, Achümi was involved ...

Basil Rebera Basil A. Rebera (1935–2021) was an Old Testament Scholar and a Translation Consultant with the United Bible Societies focusing on translations of the Bible the world over. As a contributor to scholarly research, Rebera's writings have been r ...

S. John Theodore Bishop Emeritus Sanki John Theodore was the fourth Bishop-in-Karimnagar Diocese of the Church of South India. Studies John Theodore'sK. M. Hiwale (Compiled), ''Directory of the United Theological College 1910-1997'', Bangalore, 1997. pp.38 an ...

and others.

Inter-confessional translations

The Society translates and revises the scriptures from the original Biblical languages without prejudice to

. As such, the translations of the Society are held in regard by the Christians. Though the

Catholics The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

did not have scriptures in a language of their own, it was the outcome of the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for session ...

which paved way for the vernacular translations.

and

Scholars of the

Churches worked together with the Society to either translate or revise vernacular translations and were also instrumental in inter-confessional translations.

, ''The Bible Society of India and Inter-Confessional Translations'', in D. S. Amalorpavadass (Edited), ''Report of the II All-India Biblical Meeting'', NBCLC, Bangalore, 1975, p.348.

/ref> The Reverend, The Rev. Father D. S. Amalorpavadass was a strong proponent for the inter-confessional translations making the Bible Society to come out with one such version in

. In other languages of India too, the Catholic Fathers were very much in favour of an inter-confessional translation. In the recent times, the Society works together with the

Conference of Catholic Bishops of India The Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) is the national episcopal conference of the bishops of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church in India, functioning in accordance with canon 447. There are 132 Latin Catholic dioceses in the c ...

led by Fr. Govindu Rayanna, a

Scholar and a member of the Society for Biblical Studies in India.

The Translation Directors

The Directors who led the translation at the Society were notable in the

having taught at either the constituent College of the University or its affiliated institutions. It was during the period of C. Arangaden that the translations department was built up together with the General Secretary, the rural Pastor, A. E. Inbanathan had much understanding of the Church and Christianity in India and worked together with the

. It was during their tenure that thoroughbred Scholars were appointed throughout India leading to quality translations.

Management of the Society

The Society has been led by able administrators hailing from the

Clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

. During 1980 when a gap arose, the Society had to appoint

Laymen In religious organizations, the laity () — individually a layperson, layman or laywoman — consists of all members who are not part of the clergy, usually including any non-ordained members of religious orders, e.g. a nun or a lay brother. ...

for a temporary period but with the appointment of The Reverend, The Rev. M. Mani Chacko, an

Scholar and a member of the Society for Biblical Studies in India (SBSI), the Society is again led by the

Trust Association

The India Bible Society Trust Association (IBSTA) is the main management body which runs the administration of the Bible Society of India and has been led by Theologians including

Navamani Elia Peter use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = , death_cause = , other_names = , years_active = 1980–''Present'' , occupation = ...

and other

General Secretaries

Though General Secretaries were in short tenures, it was the rural Pastor, The Reverend, The Rev. A. E. Inbanathan who held the longest tenure and built up the society in all spheres in Translation, Promotion, Distribution and Resource Mobilisation.

Sowing Circle

''Sowing Circle'' is a

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