How The Jason Bourne Films Inspired A Pill-Sized Bible

A China-based Christian ministry, Back to Jerusalem, hosts hacker events for CIA-type Christians. They use advanced technology to create and use devices ranging from drones, Bibles the size of credit cards and a pocket-sized WIFI device called the Gospel Cloud, inventions that 007 would be proud of if he were a man of God. Photo courtesy of Back to Jerusalem.

Editor’s note: Names in this story were changed for security reasons.

NEW YORK — Eugene Bach was brainstorming ways to make a lighter, more portable Bible when he watched Jason Bourne in the movie The Bourne Identity have a chip embedded in his back that projects a list of bank account numbers onto the wall. 

“Well, when I saw that, I thought, why can’t we make a Bible that will do that?” Bach said. “So, we got a person on our team that does a lot of product development. And so, he and I began to work on a device like that.”

He and other operative tinkerers came up with what they call the pill Bible. It is a small electronic device, the size and shape of a vitamin pill that contains the entire Bible. Not only does this device enable smuggling, but it can also be safely swallowed if needed. Working best in a dark room, the device manipulates light and projects the text of different books of the Bible in front of the user’s face. It can carry the Bible in any written language. 

Bach, 42, is the field coordinator for Back to Jerusalem (BTJ), which develops technological innovations to spread the Gospel message. The China-based Christian ministry hosts hacker events for CIA-types who are Christian believers. They have created advanced technology, including credit card-sized Bibles (distributed via drone) and pocket-sized WiFi devices called Gospel Clouds. They use a James Bond mindset to create inventions that 007 would be proud of if he were a man of God. 

According to Open Doors, a Christian aid group, around 260 million Christians face persecution and antagonism for their faith worldwide. In many of the countries where these Christians reside, government authorities ban or restrict access to the Bible and other Christian materials.

Historically, in light of this persecution, Christian missionaries and organizations have responded by smuggling physical Bibles and other Christian materials into countries that are either closed to any religion or closed to Christianity. “Back to Jerusalem is a vision of the Chinese church to take the Gospel and continue westward from China all the way back to Jerusalem,” Bach said.

This unique approach to this mission is driven by BTJ’s missional focus on countries between China and Jerusalem. In many of these countries, government authorities ban or restrict access to the Bible and other Christian materials. BTJ works to circumvent these restrictions by constantly developing new inventions. 

In China, where BTJ produces most of its devices, Christianity is heavily regulated by the Religious Affairs Bureau, part of the Communist Chinese government. All churches in China are required to register with the bureau, which then tracks the members of the churches.

“They install cameras in your church,” said Doug Johnson, an American who has worked in China for several years. “They are watching things. They have facial recognition. They keep an eye on what you are preaching making sure it is not against the government, that it’s not like Western ideology or anything like that.” 

While Bibles in China used to be available for purchase online, the government recently ended that, now only allowing Bibles to be bought through state registered churches.

“They want to make sure that the Bibles that are being sold are ones that preach things that are not against the government, and all this stuff,” Johnson said. “In fact, they are actually creating a new translation of the Bible, which kind of aligns the Bible more with Chinese communist doctrine, a little bit.”

This development has led to fear by some Christians about how much the government will actually change the message and text of the Bible. 

These kinds of regulations and restrictions, present in countries from North Korea to Iran, fuels BTJ’s innovative spirit. To generate ideas, they host a yearly “hacker’s conference” where they assemble a group of computer specialists from all over the world. They spend several days in a cabin in the mountains brainstorming and prototyping ideas. Often those attending are involved with intelligence organizations like the CIA.

Like many of those at the yearly “hacker’s conference” Bach has a military background. Before joining BTJ, he served in the Marine Corps as a scout sniper where he saw two tours of duty in the Persian Gulf. Bach first began working with BTJ back in 1999 and moved to China in 2000. When he arrived in China, he began organizing Bible printing, which removed the difficulty of getting Bibles into China from the outside. Shortly after, he began smuggling Bibles into other closed countries.

“I began to travel into North Korea, Iran, and [saw] there was a need for Bibles in those places as well,” Bach said, “Then we started smuggling Bibles into those places as well, probably around 2003.”

However, the difficulty of smuggling physical Bibles remained and so his group began working on developing technology to aid the process. One innovation they created was an e-Bible about the size of a credit card. Recognizing the limits of solar power for some readers, they designed this e-Bible reader with a lengthy battery lifespan.

“So you can read from it every day, 5-7 years, and you don’t have to worry about plugging it in, you don’t have to worry about carrying around a charger, and it costs about the price of two McDonald’s meals,” Bach explained. They first used the Bibles in North Korea, but soon, with the rise of ISIS, began to use them in Iraq. 

“We started working together with a group to fly used drones and fly our e-Bibles into Mosul, into ISIS territory and do air drops,” Bach said. While this worked relatively well, the drones could not handle a lot of weight and were only able to carry about three e-Bibles at a time.

This deficiency led to the creation of the pill Bible, which since January has been on display at the Museum of the Bible at Great Passion Play in Eureka Springs, Ark. in prototype form.  For security reasons, how it works remains a secret.  

“The reason why is because it is not intuitive how to use it,” Bach explained, “That is the main thing that we are not able to share because it allows people to be able to continue using it in closed countries, specifically places like North Korea.”

According to Open Doors, North Korea is the world’s worst persecutor of Christians for the 19th consecutive year. An estimated 300,000 North Korean Christians are considered threats to the regime, facing lifelong sentences to labor camps or death for practicing their faith.

“Access to Bibles or Christian materials is extremely limited within the country, and anyone found with these resources is subject to profound punishments, including labor camp or even death,” said Amy Lamb, a spokesperson for Open Doors USA said. “Because most citizens lack safe internet access, electronic Bibles are not necessarily a safer option.”

That’s why the pill Bible is designed to be safely swallowed if necessary and not rely on the Internet. If North Korean soldiers did find a pill Bible, they would likely not figure out how to use it.

In 2019, BTJ hoped to produce 10,000 pill Bibles. Due to some technical difficulties, they didn’t reach this goal. The group solved the glitches, but the rise of the coronavirus has slowed down the production and distribution process.

“We decided to wait until after Chinese New Year which was at the end of January,” Bach said. “And then the coronavirus has hit so much [that] factories inside of China have shut down including ours, and so we still have not reached our goal.”

Despite these setbacks, they have distributed some pill Bibles to regional Christian leaders they work with, including leaders in North Korea. According to Bach, the devices work well and the leaders like them.

Another innovation the group is developing, the Gospel Cloud, creates a Wi-Fi signal that allows anyone within 100 meters to connect. Once connected, the user receives access to a plethora of Christian materials. Normally used in Iran, BTJ shared the Gospel Cloud with a missionary in Cuba five years ago. He recently reached out telling them that people have downloaded the Bible from the cloud more than 1 million times. 

Despite the success of devices like the pill Bible and the Gospel Cloud, Bach doesn’t let himself get too comfortable. He’s already planning for future innovations. 

“Once our items are known about then we try to switch over to something new, something that hasn’t been invented yet,” Bach said.

Leif Le Mahieu is a student at Covenant College who took part in the NYCJ program at The King’s College in New York this past spring. He was also an intern this semester at First Things.