In Israel the tongue of the prophets has been revived. The streets of Jerusalem reverberate with essentially the same language used by Moses and the prophets, a language known to Jesus and His disciples. The scribes of Israel played a key role in transmitting the written Word to posterity, as evidenced by the 2000 year-old Isaiah scroll found in 1947 at Qumran, near the Dead Sea. This scroll is nearly identical to the Massoretic Hebrew text used in most Bible translations today.

Ironically, the very land which gave the world the Bible became bereft of God’s Word in prolonged desolation. Travelers to the Holy Land in past centuries were astonished at its utter physical ruin, poverty, and illiteracy. These wretched conditions coincided with the dearth of God’s written Word. Physical restoration of the Promised Land only began in the 19th century with the Zionist return to the Land. As Isaiah promised: “The Lord will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places, and her wilderness He will make like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord.” Isaiah 51:3 Interestingly, this Zionist renewal was preceded by the reintroduction of God’s written word to the land, carried out by the Bible Society and other Protestant organizations.

Bible work began in the Holy Land in 1816. In 1821, Joseph Wolff, a Jewish believer came with 20 camels loaded with Bibles. The work continued through the agency of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) from 1836 and years later it became a joint agency of the BFBS and the American Bible Society (ABS) with offices in Jerusalem till 1948. In 1871 the Bible Society opened a Bible book shop in Nazareth. In 1905, the first Bible book shop opened in Jerusalem outside Jaffa Gate. In 1923 the Society purchased property near the municipality building in Jerusalem, but because of the war, abandoned that property and moved to Haifa till it returned to Jerusalem in 1979 opposite its original site and is now located on Jaffa Road.

The Bible Society in Israel serves churches and congregations of all denominations. Our goal is to supply the churches and congregations with their Scriptural needs. It is our mandate to research, translate, publish, and distribute the Bible throughout the Land. In addition to the many Jewish and Arab people who are hungry to meet the God of the Bible, there are several thousand Jewish believers in Yeshua and over 100 Messianic congregations and home fellowships. Because we are a publisher of the Bible, New Testament, and study helps in both Hebrew and Arabic, in addition to reaching out to Israelis, Arabs, we reach out to the new immigrants, foreign workers, and visitors who come into this Land. And because Israel is an international crossroads and the Bible Society provides Scriptures for people of many nations, many Romanians, Thais, Chinese, and Filipinos are being reached with the Gospel for the first time with Scriptures in their own language.

The Bible Society operates from three locations in Israel: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Nazareth. The Bible Society continues its tradition of providing Scriptures to all in their own tongue. The first complete Hebrew Bible was published by the Society in 1959. Later the New Testament was translated into modern Hebrew making it accessible to everyone. In 1993, the Bible Society received the Israeli government’s highest literary award for its complete Bible, and in 2000, the first modern Hebrew New Testament concordance was published.

The Bible Society in Israel is part of a worldwide organization of 140 Bible societies. Together we are the largest publisher of Bibles, which has been translated into over 2,300 languages. We operating in over 200 countries dedicated to disseminating the Word of God to peoples in their languages at an affordable price. The world fellowship of national Bible societies joins together with us, as United Bible Societies (UBS), for consultation, mutual support and action in the task of achieving the widest possible, effective and meaningful distribution of the Holy scriptures and of helping people interact with the Word of God.

The Bible Society in Israel is a living testimony of God’s faithfulness to His people in the Promised Land. The sowing of God’s Word, has come full cycle, starting 2000 years ago in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and on to the uttermost parts of the earth, and now back to its source – Jerusalem. Romans 1:16 comes alive in the words of the Jewish apostle Paul: “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and then to the Gentile.”

It is a privilege to serve the God of the Bible in His city and in His land… publishing and distributing the Word of God where our roots of faith began and continue. Won’t you join us?