Good news from South Africa: now you can get into a car accident while listening to the Bible on your cell phone:
South African Christians seeking a quick spiritual boost will be able to download the entire bible on to their mobile telephones phones from Wednesday as part of a drive to modernize the scriptures.
Just think: the next time you’re buying groceries at a store you can be on your cellphone and look right through the cashier and the people standing next to you as usual but this time be listening to The Holy Book, instead of chatting to your spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend or calling a phone sex hotline.
The South African wing of the non-denominational International Bible Society, which translates and distributes the Bible, said mobile phone users with the right type of phone could download the whole bible in either English or Afrikaans using the text messaging function SMS.
“The Virtual Bible will enable the Bible Society to supply the Bible to every modern cell phone user in a fast and affordable format,” Rev. Gerrit Kritzinger, chief executive of the Bible Society in South Africa, said in a statement.
The Bible Society hopes the gimmick, which costs 40 rand ($5.43), will appeal to young people in mobile-mad South Africa, where the majority of the population is Christian.
Customers can choose between the traditional King James version of the bible or more up-to-date translations. Zulu and Xhosa version will be available soon and other languages will follow.
By sending an SMS, customers get the complete Old and New Testaments as well as a built-in search engine.
And if a raspy voice comes on and says “Sell your soul to me!” it means you’ve got the wrong number.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.