While the majority of our users are currently, Christian, I recognize that this may not always be the case. Nonetheless, it seems that BibleGateway is a popular reference here for biblical quotations. As such, I wanted to propose this feature request to determine whether it would be useful for those here on this site.
I believe it would beneficial to have either some markup or one-box support for BibleGateway. Something along the lines of:
[bg version=NIV book=Genesis 1:1-5]
Should turn into:
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
For comments, it would be nice if the same markup could be used to insert a link, like such:
[bg version=NIV book=Genesis 1] tells about creation.
turning into:
Genesis 1 (NIV) tells about creation.
Ideally, the section should have a limited vertical height. This will help with long passages (entire chapters, for example).
It would also ideal that the "version=" attribute should be required. There should not be a default version of the Bible, since this would amount to an endorsement of a certain translation over others. (Although it should be noted that BibleGateway.com itself defaults to NIV.)
Finally, it's important to note that creating the markup does not imply endorsement of BibleGateway (seeing as one-box in chat is available for Youtube, Wikipedia, XKCD, etc.) I'm simply requesting BibleGateway as it would is seems to be commonly used on this site. Furthermore, alternate translations not found on BibleGateway could be added manually (just like all scripture is currently added), so that alternative versions would still be as available as they are today.
