The Peoples Bible

People across the UK are being invited to handwrite a couple of Bible verses using a digital pen, which will then be uploaded to the internet to make the digital People’s Bible.

The People’s Bible is touring the UK between June and November, beginning at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland on June 19, the anniversary of the birth of King James VI of Scotland at the castle in 1566.

Public figures and celebrities will be making their contributions before part of it is bound and presented at a national service of celebration at Westminster Abbey on November 16, to be attended by the Queen.

The announcement came as a ComRes poll commissioned by Bible Society revealed considerable confusion about the biblical roots of some common English phrases.

While 56% of the more than 2,000 adults polled correctly identified ‘my brother’s keeper’ as a phrase from the Bible, only 19% knew that the ‘the writing on the wall’ also comes from the Bible, equalling those who thought it originated with the Beatles (18%).

Similarly, 41% thought that the phrase ‘eat, drink and be merry’ came from Shakespeare. Only one in ten (9%), correctly identified the phrase’s biblical roots.

The poll also asked people how important they felt a knowledge of the Bible to be to appreciating culture, history and politics.

People were more likely to find it important to visual arts (48%), classic English literature (46%), and the history of Britain (45%), than to politics (29%) and classical music (24%).

Luke Walton, Culture Programme Manager at Bible Society, said: “It’s clear that people’s knowledge of the Bible is limited and they just don’t realise how significant and wide-ranging its influence has been.

“We hope that this project will help people, once again, value the Bible. Making a connection with the text helps us both to appreciate its role in our own culture, history and politics, and it can enrich our lives personally.

“The Bible remains the world’s best seller and we can’t afford to exclude it from public life.”

Find out more about the People’s Bible at: www.thepeoplesbible.org