For $2.99, you too can own Bible Emoji, available on the Apple App Store today. Described as “Scripture 4 Millennials,” the tongue-in-cheek interpretation of the most widely translated work of all time is a “great and fun way to share the gospel.” With the app, you can peruse “all 66 books chronicling the the stories of Abraham, Noah and Jesus like never before.” It’s like Christmas came early this year or something.
Whether or not many Bible readers are actually interested in switching to reading emoji-based scriptures, for some it might be worth downloading this app just to see its creator’s emoji treatment of such scenes as Lot hosting his uncle Abraham in Sodom, Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery, David cutting off Goliath’s head, or Jonah getting swallowed by the famous sea creature. And the Bible isn’t short of others scenes that would need to be rendered into emoji-ese with some delicacy.
It’s an impressive project, to be sure. The app (which is of course really a book) clocks in at just under 3,300 pages, and certainly took its creator quite a long time to complete. Six months, actually (rather more than six days). But who that creator is remains a mystery for now — the emoji author told Guardian Australia that he or she valued anonymity, and is currently being identified as cool-dude-with-sunglasses emoji.
“I thought if we fast forwarded 100 years in the future, an emoji bible would exist,” said [sunglasses emoji]. “So I thought it’d be fun to try to make it. I wanted to make it similar to how you might text or tweet a bible verse, by shrinking the total character count.”
There’s certainly still room for growth, and the creator welcomes edits and additions. Of course, we’ll have to figure out how to get the app out to non-iOS users (though that issue lies in the various book formats different devices support).
So if you’re looking to (re)discover religion, you may want to start with a book that speaks more to our generation — using emojis.
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