The Emoji Bible has arrived

It's the Bible, but not as you know it... Photo / Twitter/Bible Emoji

Once reserved for teens' text messages, emoji have now been promoted to sacred text.

The cartoon-like characters have been used in a translation of the King James Version of the Bible, and the bizarre 21st century update has been named "Scripture 4 Millennials".

Totalling about 3,300 pages, the Emoji Bible is available through the iTunes store.

📖 of Genesis: 01:001:001

In the beginning 😇 created the ✨ & the 🌎.

— BibleEmoji 🙏 (@BibleEmoji) April 22, 2016

The translator, who prefers to be identified only as cool-dude with glasses emoji, said the creation used 80 emoji, and took about six months to complete.

"I thought if we fast forwarded 100 years in the future, an emoji bible would exist," they told The Guardian.

"I wanted to make it similar to how you might text or tweet a bible verse, by shrinking the total character count."

As the translator developed the verses, they tweeted them so the public could share their thoughts.

📖 of Luke 2:14

Glory 2 😇 in the highest, & on 🌎 peace, good will toward men.

— BibleEmoji 🙏 (@BibleEmoji) March 27, 2016

"It was sort of like a public proofread," they said.

.@BibleEmoji - Follow, retweet like and share! pic.twitter.com/U0hYsQt6xK

— BibleEmoji 🙏 (@BibleEmoji) March 29, 2016

Despite a few translation difficulties, the Emoji Bible has drawn a positive response on Twitter.

Amen. Awesome. Powerful n fun. I need this.

— bob tinetti (@BobTinetti) May 13, 2016

"'in the beginning angels created the stars & the earth' i'm pretty sure it doesn't go like that," tweeted one user, prompting a correction from the @BibleEmoji account.

With declining rates of church participation among millennials, it is hoped the Emoji Bible will resonate with a younger generation.

😇 = God ✌😊 https://t.co/G8FKsGWvde

— BibleEmoji 🙏 (@BibleEmoji) April 3, 2016

Although, there is one small problem - unlike the original version, the Emoji Bible isn't available on Android.

-nzherald.co.mz