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One of my friends who trained as a missionary for Wycliffe ( http://www.wycliffe.org ) sent me a message that his group (not associated with Wycliffe) has successfully smuggled their 10,000th Arabic-language NIV Bible into Saudi Arabia. It's taken them a lot of years to get to this point but they're obviously quite pleased with the accomplishment!

Myself, I am deeply impressed that over 10,000 people in SA are interested in Christianity to the point that they'll break the law to read a Bible. There's obviously a number of converts to Christ in there, too, but there's no word on how many.

There's a lot of risk involved in what these folks are doing but given that at least 10,000 people are benefitting from the effort I'm sure they feel it's worth it.

In any case, sending Bibles to the sandbox beats sending cruise missiles.

   

So medicine, scientific literature, literary classics and newspapers were out of the question.

Religion is what got the nation to where it stands now. It seems not only counterproductive but downright ridiculous to claim more religion will save it.

   

I'd say the bible is a literary classic. And I'm sure that there are plenty of people bringing all those other things in as well.

The bible wouldn't be my first choice to smuggle in either, but I think any gesture against a regime like that is a good thing. Any chance for people to be exposed to unauthorized ideas has to be seen as a good thing.

   

Injecting a little religious diversity would be immensely helpful for Saudi Arabia.

   

Its illegal to read a Bible in Saudi Arabia? Its one of the 3 holy books of Islam. I guess the Saudis forgot that.

Congrats to your friend Bart!

   

Congrats to your friend as well Bartman.

Maybe he can try smuggling in some Hitchens too. ...

   

Good on your friend Bart! Takes some balls to stand up for what you believe.

   

10,000 potential new martyrs courtesy of those peace loving, humanitarian, Saudi Princes.

Good for them since anything that will undermine that despotic regime is as Martha would say "a good thing"

   

Let's see .... one good swing with broadsword on his neck in a public square in Jeddah ...

   

Good for your friend, and hopefully that Bible is put to good use to someone in Saudi Arabia.

   

meh, wasted effort.

   

Reminds me Rambo 4. A bunch of religious nuts going into dangerous territory and trying to be unwanted do gooders and just ending up in all sorts trouble and then having someone come and save their butts.

And also a wasted effort as you can bring in a bible if you want to for personal use and in this day and age you if anyone wanted you can find it online on,a gazillion websites.

   

By and large, people believe in the religion they were brought up in. Seems to be a largely heritable trait, a meme as opposed to a gene. There's a few in the margins who convert to this, that and the other (my brother was one). But mostly, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of ... udi_Arabia



So, yes, it's illegal to give Bibles to muslims who ask for them. And my friend does this all the time along with helping to set up non-denominational home churches. If he ever gets caught he'll be put to death and he knows it so in this he's a braver man than I am.

   

All Saudi internet traffic from servers outside the Kingdom runs through a censorship filter.

   

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