Twelve new versions of the Scriptures have been printed during the last year, two for Asiatic, two for Oceanic and eight for African peoples, the annual report of the British and Foreign Bible Society declares. The Society’s list of versions now totals 630. The number of copies of the Bible disseminated during the year broke all previous records, the total being 12,175,292.
Of this number over a million were complete Bibles, 1,125,000 complete New Testaments and 9,795,000 copies of portions of the Bible. The increase in the total compared with the figure for 1928-1929 is 775,000. The Egyptian agency, which serves part of Asia, as well as Northeastern Africa, sent out almost 150,000 books in 92 languages. In Palestine and Syria the Scriptures were purchased by Christians, Jews and Moslems alike.
Russia, which remains closed to the Bible, is the one grim exception that throws into relief the encouragement which the Society derives from its work on the Continent. In the Baltic Republics, among a population of less than 9,000,000, the Society is now selling nearly a third of the number of books sold in Russia before the Revolution.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
