An American charity has completed the first Bible in American Sign Language in what has been a 38-year translation project.  

Deaf Missions started the project in 1982 as an attempt to spread the gospel to the deaf community, as there are more than 400 different sign languages around the world.

Each chapter of the Bible is explained in multiple videos and more than 31,000 verses have been translated.  

The New Testament portion of the Bible was completed in 2004 and some of the later books of the Old Testament have been completed over this last month.

According to Deaf Mission, there have been more than one million downloads of the Bible.

Deaf Missions’ team draws from the biblical texts written in the original languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek and translates them into American Sign Language (ASL) using video. ASL users can access the full text using Deaf Missions’ website or app.

In a statement Chad Entinger, CEO of Deaf Missions said: "We truly believe the completion of the American Sign Language Version (ASLV) of the Bible is a monumental moment in history!  Not only do Deaf people finally have all of God’s Word in a sign language but we are praying the ASLV will build awareness and momentum for the acceleration of different sign language Bible translation projects globally."

In the UK there is also an initiative to translate the Bible to British Sign Language, but it is still ongoing. Only the Gospel of Mark is available on DVD.