English Bible Quest Opens Today

*Update October 2017* The Quest is now titled “History of the English Bible (Interactive Study)”. It has been updated and redesigned for easier navigation.

Today I took down the “Coming Soon” sign on my English Bible Quest page. I’m excited that it is ready! Beginning in the fourth century and ending in modern times, the quest highlights some of the important people and events that played a part in the process of God’s word becoming available to English speaking people in their native language.

This is the second time that I have put this quest online. The first time was in a 3D environment. It was within an online virtual world called There at There.com. It was a lot of fun to set this quest up in There. Avatars were able to move from location to location including a river for the quest question about John Wycliffe’s bones being burned and thrown into the river Swift and a large stone church for the quest question about the Bishops’ Bible.

I originally signed up for There so that my son and I would have some way of having fun since I was mostly couch bound. In that world we could use jet packs, play paintball, fly planes, and drive all sorts of cool vehicles. There were also a lot of social activities. It may have been virtual fun, but it was great to have a way to have fun of any type with him.

After I played for a while I realized there were ways to witness in the game beyond having my Christianity detectable by my profile. I found other Christians who were already doing so. There were virtual churches! I joined with a group of Christians, and together we explored all sorts of ways to reach out to the community including quests which were a normal part of the game. We created quests with Christian messages and themes. Through our efforts, hearts were affected by the gospel. It was wonderful to be able to minister to so many in this unique way. Unfortunately, There.com closed down in 2010. It did reopen a couple of years later, but by then I was no longer able to “play” anymore.

In order to present this quest on my website I had to make adjustments. There is a big difference between the mediums. I do believe the value is the same even if my website version is not as immersive. Putting it on my site does allow me to share a lot more links. I also added more narration. Overall it offers more content then I was able to share in my 3D quest.

To make sure all my old links were still working, I revisited them. I also added new ones. Some of the sites that I used previously are no longer available. Both times that I made this quest I spent a lot of time reading relevant background material. Sometimes I needed to force myself to stop and move on to the next question because I would get so engrossed in the history that I would keep reading and reading. The history of the English Bible is filled with political and religious drama. It’s easy to get immersed.

It was a delight to work on this project. I hope that it is a blessing to others. I pray that the Lord may use it in some way. I hope that respect and appreciation for the treasure we have in our English Bibles deepens. If you would like to go on the quest you may visit my homepage main menu and navigate to Bible Notes or click here.

Happy Traveling!