Bible Society of India

When we took our walking tour of MG Road with Arun, he pointed out a new glass and steel building that houses Siemans and the Bible Society of India. He piqued our interest and two days later we went for a visit.

The Bible Society is on the first floor of this one year old building. We arrived at 10:00 and were the first visitors of the day. Our guide, Natasha (a cheerful Russian woman who moved to B’lore in 1984), pointed out an ancient (1 BC) leather manuscript and facsimiles of some ancient papyrus scripts. She conducted us past many old manuscripts and Bibles that were printed in dozens of languages over the past 300+ years. There was a handwritten Bible in an Indian language. A copy of the gospel of Matthew was written on one page that was shaded to look like a picture of Christ on the cross. When we held a magnifying glass up to it, we could actually read it! The page with the smallest print we’ve ever seen was one large sheet with the entire Bible written on it. A special magnifier was necessary to be able to read it.

Natasha was quite proud of all the documents and pieces of equipment they owned. She told us all the Bibles had been microfilmed, so that if the building burned down and all the books were totally destroyed, they could be recreated. Let’s hope that never happens.









The BSI also had two interactive computer stations that Natasha said were very popular with children, and a hand-made model of the Holy Land. The back wall was covered with a collection of stamps from around the world that had Bible themes. There were other treasures, as well.







We spent an hour in this sparkling clean, air conditioned, humidity-controlled facility, and came away with a sense of awe and wonder. The Christian church in India must have a lot of money to be able to afford such a beautiful new location in the highest-priced real estate neighborhood in town.