Palestinian Bible Society

The Palestinian Bible Society (PBG, The Palestinian Bible Society ) is dedicated to the dissemination of the Bible and Christian scriptures in the Palestinian Territories .

The PBG was founded in 1993 , works interdenominationally and has its headquarters in the eastern part of Jerusalem . It has branches in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank , including in Nablus , Jericho , Bethlehem and in Bir Zait near Ramallah . The bookshop in Gaza City , which opened in March 1999 as a joint project with the Open Doors missionary society, is the only shop in the Gaza Strip where various editions of the Bible are offered to the public.

Together with 139 other national Bible societies , the PBG is a member of the United Bible Societies , whose activities in the Holy Land go back to 1816.

The PBG's director is currently Labib Madanat. The number of employees has increased from 3 when it was founded to around 30. In 2005, the PBG reported that over 43,000 Bibles and more than 46,000 editions of the New Testament were distributed.

While the population in the Gaza Strip is made up of 98.7% Muslims , 0.7% Christians and 0.6% Jews , 75% of the population in the West Bank are Muslims, 17% are Jews and 8% are Christians. The vast majority of Muslims belong to the Sunni faith.

Intimidation and attacks

On the night of April 15, 2007, the PBG bookstore in Gaza City, which had been bombed in 2006, was badly damaged by a bomb explosion. The bomb attack was preceded by threats on leaflets accusing the PBG of “spreading an anti-Islamic doctrine”.

On October 6, 2007, Rami Khader Ayyad, managing director of the PBG bookstore in Gaza City, was kidnapped shortly after business hours. On the morning of the following day, Palestinian police found his body, which had been multiple bullets and knife wounds, near the Islamic University . Ayyad had received death threats several times in the previous weeks and had been asked to stop distributing Christian literature in the Gaza Strip. The 30-year-old, who previously belonged to the Roman Catholic Church before becoming a Baptist , leaves behind his pregnant wife Pauline and two young children. After the funeral, which was attended by around 300 Christians and Muslims, a delegation from the ruling Hamas visited the family and expressed their condolences. Former Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya condemned the murder, which caused a lot of media coverage, and assured that they would "not allow anyone to sabotage Muslim-Christian relations".

swell

1. ^ First Gaza Bookshop to Sell Bibles , as of October 22, 2007
2. ↑ Profile of the PBG at the United Bible Societies Trust Association, England and Wales, as of July 17, 2007 ( replacement link ( memento of October 16, 2007 on WebCite )).
3. ↑ apd announcement of October 8, 2007 ( memento of the original of October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Factum Magazin Schwengeler Verlag, Berneck. ISSN 1660-5462 , as of October 17, 2007.  
4. ↑ News from October 8, 2007 at the Adventist Press Service ( apd ), Free Church of the Seventh-day Adventists in Germany, Darmstadt, as of July 17, 2007 ( Permalink ( Memento from October 16, 2007 on WebCite )).
5. ↑ Anonymous, Rami Ayyad † , in: The community. The magazine of the Federation of Evangelical Free Churches , No. 25 of November 11, 2007, p. 25 [without ISSN, ZDB -ID 1157992-4 ].
6. ↑ The first Christian martyr in Hamastan ( Memento of the original from October 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Israelnetz - News from Israel and the Middle East, Wetzlar from October 8, 2007, as of October 22, 2007  

Web links

• Homepage of PBG (Engl.)