Bible Design Blog, as the name suggests, is a site dedicated to the physical form of the Good Book. Innovative design, quality binding, that's what it's all about. If you're looking for information about a particular edition, the right-hand column includes an ever-expanding list of reviews and features.
If this is your first visit, a great place to start is the Frequently Asked Questions. And don't forget the search function!
Selling a vintage Bible? Looking for something rare or unique? This is the thread for you. To help connect buyers and sellers, I've created this Auctions & Sales post as a master list, and I invite those of you who'd like to share auction and sales listings to post them as a comment to this thread.
I love everything about the Single Column Journaling Bible. Well, almost everything. After months with the SCJB, I’ve found one feature that doesn’t really fit into my pattern of use: the lined margins for note-taking. While this Bible has become one of my standards, in the whole time I’ve had it, I have never written in the margins. There was a time when I would have made heavy use of those margins, but now I’m more likely to write notes down separately. Even so, I wouldn’t have started daydreaming about chopping those margins off if it wasn’t for how perfect the SCJB seems in every other respect. The thickness of the book, the way it opens flat, the nice dark print on the lovely cream paper. It would be so right, I kept thinking, if only the margins weren’t there. Viewed from the front, the Single Column Journaling Bible, thanks to those margins, is a bit squarish. Opened flat on my desk or on the podium as I teach, the book appears almost twice as large as it needs to be. All that empty space … what would happen if I just snipped it off? In my attic workshop, I have a heavy-duty guillotine paper cutter. The Single Column Journaling Bible is about as thick as a book can be and still fit under the blade. The thing that kept me from making the cuts was that, in addition to losing the margins, I would lose the running headers and the page numbers, not to mention some of the back matter, which is formatted to fill the whole page. With the hardcovers, I would also lose the elastic strap that holds the cover closed, and the covers themselves would look raggedy once I’d sliced them. I solved the first problem by leaving enough of the margin behind that I could still make out a few letters of the header. I wouldn’t be able to retain the page numbers, and the resulting chopped edition would not help me win any speed-draw competitions … but to my mind, that’s a good thing. The older I get, the more I turn against chapter and verse in favor of sentence and paragraph. The second problem, the ragged cover, I solved by chopping the natural leather edition. Using a rotary cutter, I could make a clean edge and then round the corners. The paper lining runs right to the edge of the leather now, which doesn’t look quite right, but otherwise it’s a convincing result. As an aside, because the natural leather doesn't have any kind of protective finish, the surface is particularly susceptible to spotting. If you like things to look new throughout their lifespan, this cover won't rock your world. But if you're one of those people always hunting for the fast-track to patina, here it is. The conversion took less than ten minutes, and most of that time was spent gathering the courage to cut. I took the pages down in stages -- you can always cut more, but you can’t uncut once you’ve gone too far. In the end, I stopped cutting once the margin looked right proportionally. This left more residual lines at the edge than I wanted, while making for a more aesthetically pleasing result overall. When you look at the photos, imagine what this would look like if Crossway created a setting with the headers and page numbers in line with the text and no margin. I think people would love that edition. Post-chop, my SCJB retains all the features I appreciate about this Bible. It’s fluid, it opens flat, it has a great readable layout. Although I performed the conversion as an experiment, not planning to use the Bible afterward, I’ve found myself carrying and enjoying it. Perhaps it is a testament to the SCJB’s qualities that even with the funky edges, I still prefer it to so many other options. And I definitely don’t worry about “damaging” it!
Postscript Ironically enough, not long after I executed this DIY conversion, I decided to transfer my notes and outlines for sermons and lectures I'll be teaching this summer my red Single Column Journaling Bible, using Metaphis color-coded tabs to coordinate the passages -- i.e., all the references for one sermon are marked with white tabs, the references for another in orange, and so on, making them easier to distinguish from one another. The relevant notes on the passage are copied into the margin (in pencil). So I found a use for the Journaling Bible's margins after all.
Single column settings Single column Bibles were a rarity until recently. The success of the Message Remix brought them into the mainstream, but a number of years passed before other translations got into the game. The first efforts, while promising, did not quite manage to pull off the difficult balancing act inherent in rendering the vast text of Scripture in readable novel-like page spreads. That’s when I started to worry. Bible Design Blog, from the start, was about advocacy. While I try to take a live-and-let-live approach, the fact remains, the thing that motivated me to start writing about the Bible was how badly designed most Bibles are … assuming the Bible is meant to be read. If you’re read BDB, you know the mantra. Most Bibles are designed as reference works, resembling dictionaries more than they do novels. While layout isn’t the only factor that influences readability -- and motivated individuals can adapt to even the worst layouts -- it stands to reason that if the Bible is meant to be read, we ought to prioritize design decisions which enhance the reading (as opposed to the reference) experience. Unfortunately, good design doesn’t end with single columns. If it did, then every novel would be well designed. Handing someone a flawed single column design with the promise that it will enhance readability is a recipe for disappointment. A well-designed two column setting will be more readable than a badly-designed single column setting. What we needed was a variety of well-designed single column settings. And then it happened. Crossway released the Legacy ESV and Cambridge started pumping out the Clarion. Both editions were elegantly proportioned and addictively readable. After using them for a bit, whenever I had to return to the old double-column settings, I felt like I was going back in time. If you were using OS X on a Mac circa 2002 then found yourself having to navigate a friend’s Windows 98 machine, you know what I’m talking about. The experience was so frustrating you’d want to hug your friend and say, “Don’t worry. The future won’t be like this.” So if you’re still using a double-column Bible, just imaging me hugging you now. Feel reassured?
Enter the Single Column Journaling Bible The Single Column Journaling Bible came along not when I was gasping for hope, but after I felt sated. I had the Legacy. I had the Clarion. The thing that got me pumped about the Single Column Journaling Bible wasn’t actually the single column … it was the red cover. I had no idea that my first experience with the SCJB would be so thrilling. What the Single Column Journaling Bible has that the Legacy and Clarion lack is this: it’s really, really inexpensive. For about $20, you can have a well-made hardcover with a sewn binding that opens perfectly flat right out of the box. The single column setting is text-only, printed beautifully in nice dark type on cream paper that reminds me of the Message Remix. Both the red and the black editions are styled to resemble the popular Moleskine notebooks. Spend a little more money and you can get one with a wrap-around natural leather cover similar to those Italian leather journals sold at Barnes and Noble. The price point and styling make the Single Column Journaling Bible the perfect edition for introducing new readers to the single column experience. I’ve been recommending them like crazy to everyone who will listen. They represent a true attempt to create a reader-optimized Bible. The layout is reader-friendly, the distracting apparatus is kept to a minimum (chapter and verse numbers, section headings), and there is a reading plan in the back. And did I mention that the SCJB opens flat? As in, turn to Genesis 1.1 and it opens flat. Every book should open flat like this, but most don’t. To me, this is one of the most desirable qualities in a finely made Bible. And make no mistake: this $20 edition is a finely made Bible. In terms of quality, it really delivers.
(Well) Made in China The Single Column Journaling Bible is printed and bound in China, which gives me the opportunity to make a point. A lot of people dismiss Chinese-made books out of hand, as if their source alone disqualified them from the running. I don’t want to get into a debate about globalization. We all have our reasons for feeling as we do. But this edition proves that quality and affordability aren’t mutually exclusive. The real question, I suppose, is why aren’t all the current crop of Chinese-made Bibles this good, not to mention the ones made elsewhere? Not to belabor the point, but if you took the SCJB book block, bound it in goatskin, and gilding the edges, I think we’d be falling all over ourselves to praise the thing. Frankly, I’m falling all over myself just as it is. This edition includes just about everything I want in a Bible, and excludes everything I don’t. The only change I would make is this: I want Crossway to delete the lined margins, move the headers and page numbers in line with the text, and issue the same edition without the note-taking function. (The upcoming Heritage edition, in other words.) The result would be a high quality single column edition the size of a thick trade paperback that would open flat in your lap and stow perfectly in a book bag. The perfect go-anywhere Bible. In fact, I like this idea so much that I took matters into my own hands and, with the help of a guillotine paper cutter, made the conversion myself. But that’s a story for a future post.
What I Like:
An affordable price. A beautiful single column text setting. An edition that opens flat from Genesis 1.1 forward.
What I Don’t Like:
A lined margin for note-taking that makes the Bible an inch or so wider than I’d like. The fact that all Bibles don't open flat like this.
I know, I know. Rule #1 of blogging is to update often, and I am the chief of sinners in that regard. More is in the pipeline, including my latest thoughts on the Cambridge Clarion, which I've been using for awhile. (See the end of the post for a teaser.)
When I'm not blogging about Bibles, I'm writing novels, and over the weekend my publisher decided to do something cool: they're giving the first one away. If you love my Roland March series and wish you could introduce more people to the dogged and depressed Houston homicide cop, here's a perfect opportunity. Since Friday, the first book in the series, Back on Murder, has been available as a free e-book on a variety of platforms -- Kindle, Nook, and more. The goal in sharing the book this way is to hook more readers on the series. Over the weekend, Back on Murder became the #1 free title in Amazon's Kindle Store. Those numbers fluctate all the time, but it's good to know more readers are discovering Roland March for the first time.
Publishers Weekly called the world of Roland March "gritty and chilling," and Books & Culture editor John Wilson declared this "a series worth getting attached to." Friend of the blog Alan Cornett, writing today at Pinstripe Pulpit, calls this "'Christian fiction' the right way: good fiction intelligently informed by a Christian worldview."
The three novels in the Roland March series are, in order of publication:
Back on Murder (2010)
Pattern of Wounds (2011)
Nothing to Hide (2012)
The stories focus on March's life and career as he investigates a gang-related murder somehow connected to a missing teenage girl, a knife-wielding serial killer stalking Houston's affluent West University neighborhood, and a deadly conspiracy involving the FBI and the Mexican cartels. The novels have been praised for their realism, for their writing, and for engaging thoughtfully with serious themes.
If you haven't read Back on Murder yet, download the free e-book and give it a try. If you like it, both of the follow-up volumes are available as specially priced e-books, too. If you're already a fan, share the news with your friends. You'll make this crime novelist very happy indeed.
And now, because you've waited patiently, I'd like to share a couple of recent photos of my Cambridge Clarion ESV, as rebound last summer in brown English calf by the good folks at Leonard's Book Restoration. Enjoy!
Ever found yourself at a fancy party, looked around at the impressive guests, and wondered, "How did I get invited to this thing?" That's how my month has gone. One day my byline is at First Things' On the Square blog, sandwiched between much more august contributors, and next thing you know, I have an essay in the latest print edition of Comment. The theme of this issue, edited by Peter Leithart, is "The Word of God and the City of Man," and it includes writing by Marilynne Robinson, Richard Mouw, Al Wolters, Calvin Seerveld, Makoto Fujimura ... and J. Mark Bertrand.
Just typing that sentence felt a little surreal.
A couple of points: First, if you care about Christian thought and its impact on worldview and culture, you should be subscribing to Comment. Every issue is a keeper.
Second, my essay for Comment, called "What Made Dagon Bow?" is one of the free sample articles from the latest issue, which means you can read it right now. Please do. I appreciate the support you show by reading Bible Design Blog, and would love for you to experience another side of my writing.
The ark had an agenda of its own. No Israelite army on its own strength could have penetrated deep into Philistine land to install the ark inside the temple of Dagon. Only God could do such a thing, and he could do it without their help. Later God would propagate the faith by sending his missionaries to the four corners of the earth as humbled captives, turning defeat and diaspora to good ends, and the Roman beast would draw the Gospel close to its breast by exercising its powers of arrest. Likewise, the ark needed no human strength, no protection from the threat of the outside world. If only the Israelites had realized, there was nowhere the ark could be taken where creation would not welcome it.
Now click over and read the whole thing and let me know what you think. And thank you for reading!
I had a hard time narrowing down the list. Should I recommend the Legacy ESV or the Single Column Journaling Bible? (I went with the latter, as much as I love the Legacy.) Feel free to make your own recommendations either here or there. What Bible would you want for Christmas?
Verdict: If you liked the form factor of the Allan Reader's ESV but were disappointed with the opacity of the paper, the Schuyler ESV is an attractive alternative.
It's not every day that a new player enters the league of high quality Bible publishers. Typically the trend moves in the opposite direction -- somebody drops out, or starts cutting corners. So the debut of EvangelicalBible.com's Schuyler line of Bibles is welcome news. The first edition, the Schuyler ESV, is an impressive start, promising good things to come.
The Schuyler ESV features a special edition of Crossway's new Classic Reference text setting, printed by Jongbloed in the Netherlands, and paired with a limp, edge-lined binding in black or brown goatskin. Imagine a text block the size of an Allan Reader's ESV, only with a cover similar to one of Cambridge's edge-lined wide margins, and you have an idea of what the Schuyler ESV feels like.
FORM FACTOR: COMPARED TO THE ALLAN READER
The trim size of the text block is 6.25" x 9.15", closely resembling that of the R. L. Allan Reader's Edition ESV (although the latter seems bigger in photos thanks to the semi-yapp cover). While there isn't an official name for this size Bible, I think of them as "large format" editions, about as big as I'd want to go in a portable book. Both editions come with art-gilt page edges and three ribbons, wide ones on the Reader and skinny ones on the Schuyler.
Both the Schuyler and the Allan Reader's Edition feature double-column text settings with references down the middle, and the columns are the same width -- just a hair over two inches. Because the Schuyler uses a more recent text setting, the appearance of its interior varies greatly from the Allan. The first thing you notice is that the new Classic Reference setting doesn't use a contrasting sans serif typeface for headings, instead setting them in italicized, boldface serif type. This gives a lest contrasty feel. Frankly, I'm not sure which approach I prefer. Both of them work.
While both covers are edge-lined, they vary greatly in style. I give the Allan beaucoup style points for its Old World feel and leather lining, which speaks to my aesthetic sensibility. The Schuyler cover takes its cues from Cambridge's edge-lined covers, which are also produced by Jongbloed. It comes with the same stitching around the edge to reinforce the turned-in leather, as well as the same shiny synthetic lining. The black edition comes with a black lining, the brown with a brown lining.
IMPRINTING
The Schuyler takes a couple of love-it-or-hate-it risks. We'll talk about the big one, the inclusion of Christian creeds and confessions, later on. First let's look at the imprinting, which is a bit idiosyncratic. On the spine, you'll find the words HOLY BIBLE right at the top, balancing the logo at the bottom. Typically the title would be lower down on the spine (the second section seems to be the most common). If your Schuyler were sitting on a bookshelf amid other editions, you would immediately be able to tell it apart.
On the front cover, you'll find the words HOLY BIBLE printed in what my scale suggests is 42 pt. type. That's big. When I first opened the box, that massive title really jumped out at me. Now I don't notice it as much. For the record, I prefer no imprinting at all on the front cover of a Bible, and if it must be there, make it subtle. This is not subtle by any stretch. No light was hidden under a bushel in the making of this edition.
Above: The Schuyler ESV is available in black goatskin with red ribbons and brown goatskin with gold ribbons. My preference? Definitely the brown -- dark, attractive, and just a little bit different.
Above: The ribbons are on the skinny side for those of us accustomed to the wider Allan ribbons,but they are comparable in length and get the job done.
Above: The edge-lined goatskin cover is stitched around the perimeter for extra strength, with a coordinating polyurethane lining. Some argue that leather lining, while nicer, isn't as durable. I prefer leather regardless, but I've been using these synthetic linings in Cambridge Bibles for years without any problems.
Above: There can be no doubt of the contents with such a large title on front, but I prefer smaller imprinting on front or (ideally) none at all.
Above: The black edition with red ribbons is a less daring choice, but equally elegant. The natural grained cover is quite attractive.
Above: Most publishers would move HOLY BIBLE lower down the spine and adjust the translation title accordingly. For those who notice, this is one of those love-it-or-hate-it style cues.
Above: The Schuyler formula consists of matching quality book blocks with quality bindings, and based on the debut edition, we are fortunate indeed to have this new line available.
PAPER
One of the selling points of the Schuyler has been its upgraded paper specification. The 32 gsm paper is a slightly higher spec than the 30 gsm Crossway used for the ESV Study Bible, and the results are pretty good. We judge the quality of thin Bible paper by the amount of printing that shows through from the reverse side of the page. In cases where show-through is pronounced, it tends to give the page a five o'clock shadow effect, which I call ghosting. Almost all Bibles, modern and vintage, display this effect. When it is extreme, the ghosting detracts significantly from readability.
The good news where the Schuyler is concerned is that, compared to the Reader, there is less show-through. As you can see from the photographs, however, the Schuyler still has plenty of ghosting.
The EvangelicalBible.com page dedicated to the Schuyler claims this paper is "50% more opaque than the Cambridge Clarion Series." This may be true technically, but eyeballing the edition side by side, the differences aren't so clear cut to me. Perhaps the Clarion's superior line-matching (though it's not perfect by any means) makes up the difference. Flipping through the Schuyler at random, I'm able to find a number of instances in which a line from the reverse of the page is printed exactly in the middle of two lines on the front, which heightens the five o'clock shadow effect. The same paper with more consistent line matching might be more noticeably superior
LAYOUT
Setting the text in two columns is traditional, and has its advantages, but in a world where Crossway's Legacy setting and the Cambridge Clarion exist, it's hard to get excited about the Classic Reference, especially in poetry sections, where the two-inch column width doesn't do the lines any favors. If you haven't made the switch yet, you won't notice. And if you have, well, the Schuyler does have something going for it to make the choice difficult: the back matter.
CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS
The second love-it-or-hate-it feature, much more significant than the imprinting, is the inclusion of the ecumenical creeds and a selection of Reformation-era confessions of faith. For years, whenever Bible publishers have asked what features I'd like to see in an edition, the one suggestion I've repeated over and over is the inclusion of creeds and confessions in the back. To my mind, this is a "help" that actually helps, because gives access the church's tradition of interpretation. Traditionally, this material would have been placed inside a hymnal, but singing from a hymnal is about as popular with today's evangelical as elevating the host was in Puritan New England.
Before the Schuyler Bible, the only edition I could recommend to people curious about, say, Nicene orthodoxy or the Reformation era theological consensus (or lack thereof) was the Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible. Now there's a slimmer option. Unlike the SRSB, the Schuyler doesn't index the creeds and confessions with the Bible text, so you won't find marginal notes in Ephesians 1 directing you to a section in the Westminster Larger Catechism or vice versa. Also, the Schuyler omits the Three Forms of Unity, perhaps the most important of the Reformed standards, which consists of the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dordt, and one of the few catechisms I'm aware of which is the subject of a rap song, the Heidelberg.
Having said that, what the Schuyler does include are the ecumenical creeds which all orthodox Christians have in common -- Apostles', Nicene, Chalcedonian, and Athanasian -- along with the Augsburg Confession, the 39 Articles, the Westminster Standards, and the London Baptist Confession of 1689. With the exception of the Dutch Reformed, this covers the major Reformation-era confessional Christian groups still in existence today.
Why include this stuff in the Bible? Good question. The short answer is for ready reference. The long answer goes something like this. Including these documents accomplishes a similar goal to that of a study Bible, with one significant difference: the views summarized are not those of an individual, or even a committee of scholars, but of a confessing church. They represent a collective endorsement and exposition of the faith contained in Scripture. While there is a great deal of consensus among the confessions, there are differences, too -- and I think that's helpful, as well, to those of us who want to have an informed view of what our fellow believers actually confess (as opposed to what they're accused of believing, if you see what I mean).
For those of you who don't want the ecumenical creeds and Reformation confessions in your Bible, Schuyler offers an edition without them. You're missing out on the most unique feature of the edition, but the choice is yours.
Above: The Schuyler's 32 gsm paper doesn't eliminate show-through, but it does help to minimize the effect somewhat.
Above: The Schuyler (left) compared to the Allan Reader's ESV (right) opened to an approximately comparable page.
Above: The Schuyler (left) compared to the Cambridge Clarion ESV on a roughly comparable page.
Above: The Schuyler (top) has a smaller footprint than the Allan Reader's ESV (below), but the book blocks are comparable in size.
Above: Ever wondering "shall all men die?" This any many other questions are answered in the Schuyler's back matter, which includes the ecumenical creeds and a selection of Reformation-era confessions of faith. This feature alone makes the Schuyler worth having.
Above: As you would expect from any edge-lined binding by Jongbloed, the Schuyler is limp and fantastically flexible. It feels wonderful in the hand.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SCHUYLER
Why would anyone want to get into the business of high quality Bibles when so many of the major players in mass market Bible publishing have gotten out? Consider this. Over the past few years, EvangelicalBible.com has become the preeminent distributor of high end Bibles in North America. They've worked hard to offer excellent customer service, and to develop relationships with Bible enthusiasts online. If anyone can make a claim to have a finger on the pulse of the market, they can.
When we chat from time to time, I say things like, "This is what should be published!" And they say, "Yeah, but here's what customers actually buy." And I say, "Who cares what they want, give them what they ought to want!" I'm paraphrasing, but this gives you insight into a couple of things: first, why I wouldn't make a very good businessman. Second, that they're trying to listen to what you're saying.
What are purchasers of quality Bibles saying? Simply put, they expect the quality of a Bible's interior to be comparable to its exterior. The leather should be nice, yes, but so should the paper.
(This is a digression. You can skip to the next paragraph if you wish. One of the factors rarely brought up in the current hand-wringing about the rise of e-books and the supposed death of printed books is this: the quality of printed books, by and large, has dropped to such a state that not having a physical copy doesn't feel like a loss to the reader. As long as the reader's impression of printed books consists of cheap paper and glued bindings that won't open flat, of course the e-book seems superior. When publishers stopped caring about the physical form of their books, they paved the way for today's sea change.)
The Schuyler line promises to address this concern by specially commissioning print runs to ensure higher paper specs. While there is still room for improvement -- I don't think significant reductions in show-through are going to be visible until you hit 40 gsm, based on modern examples I've reviewed, and dutiful line matching will be needed as well -- the Schuyler debuts strong and promises even more performance down the line.
This, I think, is good for everyone. Readers benefit by having a new option to consider. Other publishers benefit from the competition. If the Schuyler formula proves successful, we can expect to see other quality editions joining the race for higher spec paper and taking every measure possible to minimize show-through. The result will be better Bibles all around.
What's in Schuyler's future? The next edition slated for release is a single column setting of the NKJV that should come out in December. I am very interested in seeing the Schuyler formula applied to a single column text setting, so stay tuned.
I attended seminary the way Sebastian Flyte attended Oxford, which is to say, I dabbled. Since systematics interested me, that's what I signed up for. No Greek or Hebrew for this lad. Earlier in life, I'd considered doing my doctorate in history, right up until my advisor suggested learning Latin over the summer to catch up. If Latin seemed a hurdle, you can imagine what a roadblock the biblical languages seemed. Thanks to a semester of Russian endured at the tailend of the Cold War, I could at least make out the Greek letters. Hebrew I found about as intimidating as Chinese.
All this to say, I'm the last person to render an opinion on Franz Delitzsch's nineteenth century translation of the Gospels into Hebrew, or even on the English translation of Delitzsch's work which appears in parallel in this impressive set of editions from Vine of David. All I can say is, the attention to detail throughout the design and production process shows in the end result, which is very fine.
I corresponded with the design team during the production phase and came away impressed. Before going any farther, let me recommend that you follow this link and check out the photo gallery, the videos, and the FAQ. This is what a publisher's website ought to look like. This is the kind of information that ought to be readily available. The listings for each edition include specs on the covers, the binding, the paper, even the packaging. Both the translation and the design are carefully explained. A lot of work went into making this information available, which speaks to the importance Vine of David places on this project.
This is something every publisher in the field could learn from. This is how it ought to be done.
Distilled into layman's terms, the Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels is a parallel edition of the Gospels, with the Hebrew translation on the right and English on the left. (The book is read from right to left.) The designers settled on an attractive single column, paragraphed text setting with chapter numbers and section headings located in the generous outer margin. In the front of the book, a chart explains the layout, but you won't need the instructions -- the placement makes sense visually and simply works.
A friend who reads Hebrew assured me that, compared so some of the texts he'd worked with, this one reads easily. You'll have to enlarge the photo above and see for yourself.
On the English side, I found the text setting very usable. Line spacing is generous. The only quibble I would make is with the inner margin, which is pretty tight, resulting in the nearby text being sucked into the gutter. A bit more space there, and I'd be happy.
Reading an English translation of a Hebrew translation of the Greek mansucripts proved an interesting experience. One of the reasons I think using a variety of English translations can be helpful is defamiliarization. When we're too familiar with a form or words, we stop hearing what they say. The change reminds us that translation involves looking through one set of (intelligible) words to make sense of another set of (unintelligible) ones.
Here, the effect is even more pronounced. As the note on translation philosophy at the front of the book suggests: "Perhaps when reading the words of Yeshua, the reader should feel like he or she is reading words spoken from an ancient Jewish context, not from a modern Western context." Without veering into translation issues too much, I think the otherness (for lack of a better term) of Scripture is something we've tended to lose touch with. Reading this translation, you see the familiar stories and characters through a slightly different lens. The stories and characters are the same, but you see them anew. For that reason, even if you do not read Hebrew, this is a helpful volume to have.
The feature I found most interesting was the guide to Hebrew idioms and key terms (above). One example: When Mary approaches Jesus at the wedding in Cana (John 2), the first words out of his mouth are, "What do I have to do with you, woman?" It seems like a harsh response. Over the years, I've heard many a pastoral tap-dance attempting to explain away the apparent disrespect. Consult the idiom list and you find that this expression has a different flavor in its original context. A synonymous expression would be, "What do you have against me?" In other words, Jesus isn't lashing out; he is responding to an implication in Mary's request -- perhaps that he ought to have done something already about the wine situation.
Another helpful feature is an index of terms transliterated from the Hebrew, some more familiar than others. An index of proper names includes transliterations, Hebrew equivalents, pronunciation guides and Anglicized versions of the name. There's even a chart explaining how first century people accounted for time. Longtime readers of Bible Design Blog will know that I tend to be skeptical of the value of a lot of the extras found in Bibles these days. In this case, I find them well thought out and appropriate.
Even the maps are worthwhile, focusing specifically on locations significant to the Gospels.
The Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels is available in four editions. The book blocks are all Smyth-sewn, printed by R. R. Donnelly in China on nice, thick paper. For readers averse to showthrough or "ghosting," you won't find that a problem here at all. The ornately decorated covers are available in both hard- and softcover versions. The softcover is an attractive tan leather-like polyurethane, but I preferred the deluxe hardcover myself. All but the standard hardback edition come with slipcases, an added touch of class that is sorely missed in Bible publishing today.
To be honest, if every publisher followed Vine of David's example, I'd be out of a job. (Out of a blog, anyway.) They've approached this project as if every detail mattered. I admire that level of commitment. For that reason alone -- though there are plenty of others --I would encourage you to check out the Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels.
M. R. James, the editor of the Aldine Bible, is better known today for his ghost stories. Eric Gill, who supplied the engravings and designed the typeface, is remembered for bequeathing Mac users the font known as Gill Sans. Since I'm a Mac user, and am better known for writing crime novels than blogging about Bibles, it's no surprise that I have an affinity for the Aldine Bible.
The Aldine Bible presents the New Testament in four volumes, of which this is the third. Dating from the 1930s, it states the intention of the project right on the dustjacket:
Herein is presented an edition of the New Testament in modern typographical dress. The text is the Authorized Version, unaltered as to wording, but set in straightforward form: the poetry as poetry, the prose as ordinary prose paragraphs. There are no marginal references; the verse numbers occur only at the top of the page, and the type is large, clear, beautiful, and set by hand. There is also an appendix containing more accurate translations where those of the Authorized Version are misleading or in error.
That sounds like a pretty good program, if you ask me. The type is set in 11 pt. Joanna with 13 pt. leading. I'm not quite sure the overall effect is "modern," despite the description above. (Gill also designed Perpetua, the font used in the Holy Gospel According to Saint Mark.) While I appreciate Eric Gill's aesthetic and have enjoyed reading his essays, there is still something a little too Arts & Crafts for my taste, closer to faux medieval Roycrofters than Jan Tschichold. "That's a bad thing?" you wannabe VIctorians are asking. Actually, it isn't. Not at all.
This must have been quite a sight in the 30s, when Bibles looked very different from the sort of book people actually read. Even today, it hasn't lost its appeal:
There's a lot of enjoy in this little volume. The content includes the "Pauline and Pastoral Epistles," an interesting grouping that results in a slender, hand-sized hardcover.
Turning to my favorite passage, Ephesians 1, I was initially aghast to find what I assumed to be Diana of the Ephesians smiling impishly back at me. The wings and the scroll -- which illustrate Paul as castaway, being lowered by basket, and on the verge of beheading -- suggest this is in fact an angel. The style, of course, is pure Eric Gill.
There are two engravings in this particular volume. The one above, for me, is a miss, but I find the one below quite interesting, exemplifying the sort of symbol-laden medievalism I tend to associate with his art. But really, I'm the last person you want to take advice on art from. On my wall, there's a poster of the Magritte painting with all the men in bowler hats floating along the skyline, and along with it there's an engraving of the Defenstration of Prague.
The inside back cover includes a map of Paul's missionary journeys, appropriate to the content and reminiscent of the maps in the back of leatherbound Bibles.
The editorial note up front goes into more detail about the nature of the technical notes (this volume is post-RV but pre-RSV), as well as formatting. To be truly modern, some quotation marks would have been nice, but the Aldine Bible sticks with the KJV practice of denoting dialogue by merely capitalizing the first letter following the comma. (Note: Doesn't it look like someone forgot to hit return in that second-to-last paragraph? Not that they had a return to hit.)
In back, the notes are divided by epistle and chapter. They seem fairly extensive, too -- more than thirty pages worth. Since there are no flags in the text itself, you have to flip back and forth on the off chance there might be a note, or ignore them entirely until later.
Multi-volume Bibles are almost certainly a thing of the past. One could argue that the advent of smart phone editions, which allow you to have the whole of Scripture and much besides at your fingertip, might open the door for specialist volumes like this, which are much more pleasant to read than either text on a screen or super fine print on tissue paper. Even so, I don't see much of a market for the Aldine Bible approach these days.
It's too bad. All of our Bibles are compromise editions. Whether they're single- or double-columned, paragraphed or not, whether they're printed on see-through paper or relatively opaque pages, the fact that they pack so many words into one compact volume entails some trade-offs. What suffers is the reading experience. What strikes me spending time with the Aldine Bible with its large type and comfortable line spacing is how much like a novel it is. You forget you're expected to read the Bible out of a sense of duty rather than pleasure and begin to enjoy yourself. And that, my friends, is what reading the Bible ought to be like.
If the NRSV was a parable, it would be like unto a man who graduated from an Ivy League college at the top of his class and had to make ends meet by flipping burgers. The patty slaps the grill and he looks up, astonished at his condition. "What happened to me?"
What happened indeed. If you're a fan of the NRSV, you get what I'm saying. There are plenty of cheaply made, not very nicely designed editions available, and not a lot of good ones. In most cases, you're better off sticking with the textbook version you bought in college than upgrading to the decorative pleather version. Even promising editions seem to be handicapped by quality issues. I've had people offer me money -- serious, Allan-level money -- for my Oxford Pocket NRSV bound in mere genuine leather. (To which I say, "Dream on!")
Of course, R. L. Allan has offered NRSVs in the past -- very nice ones -- but even then, they weren't available in the top shelf Highland goatskin bindings. It was as if the nice man in Glasgow could spot an NRSV fan at the back of the line: "No soup for you!" (Or whatever the Scots enjoy for the soup course ... probably thistles washed down with Scotch.
Now, all that is just an unpleasant memory. The clouds have parted and a new day has dawned. The new R. L. Allan Two Column Reference NRSV is available from R. L. Allan direct in black and brown Highland goatskin bindings. There is also a French Morrocco edition which includes the Apocrypha.
The book block was typeset by Nigel Lynn Publishing & Marketing Ltd, a name you may remember from my earlier piece on Crimond House. R. R. Donnelly printed them for Collins in China. This is the same text setting I reviewed in 2008, but the earlier run was printed by Bath Press in the UK. This may dissappoint some readers who make the automatic assumption that China equals bad, but the two Bibles seem similar in terms of opacity, and the Donnelly book block handles better. The UK-printed edition has a whiter color cast, while the China-printed one is more bone colored (at least in low light).
I don't know what it is about me and dotted lines, but here's another text setting that uses them to mark off the center column references, and I like the result. Never a fan of all the superfluous lines some Bible designers seem to add everywhere, the dotted style knocks the weight down sufficiently enough that they don't distract. Verse numbers at the start of paragraphs are in bold, making it easier to hunt through them for the number range you're looking for. Whereas a text setting like the HCSB tends to use boldface inappropriately, here, it works nicely.
This edition comes with all the earmarks of Allan's finest Highland goatskin bindings: a limp, semi-yapp, edge-lined cover, art-gilt pages, three thick gold ribbons, a gilt line along the interior turn-in, ruled notepaper bound in back.
Compare the photo above to the ones I shot for the 2008 review and you'll see what an upgrade this is in terms of limp binding. This text setting deserves the luxury treatment. If you use the NRSV, this would make a great addition to your library. I'm thrilled to see R. L. Allan bringing the Two Column Reference NRSV back into their line-up.
At the risk of sounding heretical, let me admit from the outset that I don't like the Nonesuch Bible very much. Gazing at the photo above, I'm tempted to write a post about vintage Rumidors or perhaps the print of General Grant and his staff which I rescued from the floor -- literally -- of a Georgia antique shop (where I can assure General Lee suffered no such indignities). But this is Bible Design Blog, and I know my duty. So the Nonesuch Bible it is.
The concept, at least, appeals to me. A single column, paragraphed Bible divided into three volumes: #1 and #2 contain the Old Testament, #3 the New Testament and Apocryphya. To liven things up, over a hundred reproductions of Bernard Salomon's nineteenth century woodcuts are interspersed throughout. Unfortunately, the Nonesuch Bible -- at least in this edition -- suffers from poor execution.
Let's not dwell on the negative just yet. The paper's not bad at all. Nice and thick, very opaque, so far so good. The section divisions are printed on thicker stock and has a tendency to rise up, so handling is tricky when you near the transitions. Otherwise, I give the paper a thumbs up.
The problem is what's printed on the paper, or rather, where it's printed. The text columns float too close to the inner margin, so the text looks as if it's being sucked into the gutter. The photographs actually don't do justice to the phenomenon because you can't appreciate the extent to which the book block isn't opening flat. But you can get a sense from looking:
I'm also not fond of the way the woodcuts are deployed within the text. There they are, just floating around. I realize this is exactly how photos on Bible Design Blog look. But that's because I'm not a very good web designer, not because I like it that way.
Overall, the Nonesuch Bible always seems to push its ornamentation a step too far for my taste. This title (below) at the head of perhaps my favorite passage in Scripture illustrates the point. You get one layer of decorative swirls, then the title -- which ought to be enough on its own -- and they a different decorative rule. And then, because we're still not fancy enough, here's an awkward drop cap for good measure.
One thing I do like in the layout above is the way the verse range is given in the margin. That's a nice touch.
It's always possible that I'm being too hard on the Nonesuch Bible. Since I'd heard good things about it, my expectations ran pretty high. For me, the most important thing in a book is the typography. I'll forgive a lot if the type looks good. But here it doesn't. Thin and crowded in a long, narrow column, I find myself gazing at it a few seconds and wanting to move on to something else, like the Mandersteig New Testament. Your mileage may vary -- and there's a nicer edition of the Nonesuch from earlier in its run which might not suffer from the faults I've outlined. For me, though, there are better examples of what can be done in terms of single column text settings.
Welcome to BibleDesignBlog.com, a site devoted to innovative design and quality Bible binding. Read the reviews, explore the extensive comments, and feel free to join in. The links in the righthand column give you access to all the reviews, every category (including rebinding projects and "eye candy"), and links to other sites that might interest you.
J. Mark Bertrand is the author of Back on Murder, Pattern of Wounds, and the forthcoming Nothing to Hide, crime novels featuring Houston homicide detective Roland March. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston and lived in the city for fifteen years. After one hurricane too many, he and his wife moved to South Dakota. Mark has been arrested for a crime he didn't commit, was the foreman of a hung jury in Houston, and after relocating served on the jury that acquitted Vinnie Jones of assault. In 1972, he won an honorable mention in a child modeling contest, but pursued writing instead.
Books by Bertrand
J. Mark Bertrand: Nothing to Hide The third book in the series takes March into the world of the paranoid conspiracy thriller: a headless corpse, the Mexican cartels, gun runners, and an ex-spook obsessed with Dante.
J. Mark Bertrand: Pattern of Wounds In his second outing, March hunts a vicious killer while trying to keep a decade-old conviction from falling apart. A compulsively readable follow-up that Publisher's Weekly calls "gritty and chilling."
J. Mark Bertrand: Back on Murder My crime novel Back on Murder, the first in a series about Houston homicide detective Roland March, is on bookshelves now.
DIY Conversion: Chopping the Margins Off an ESV Journaling Bible
Here's a follow-up to yesterday's post about the ESV Single Column Journaling Bible.
I love everything about the Single Column Journaling Bible. Well, almost everything. After months with the SCJB, I’ve found one feature that doesn’t really fit into my pattern of use: the lined margins for note-taking. While this Bible has become one of my standards, in the whole time I’ve had it, I have never written in the margins. There was a time when I would have made heavy use of those margins, but now I’m more likely to write notes down separately.
Even so, I wouldn’t have started daydreaming about chopping those margins off if it wasn’t for how perfect the SCJB seems in every other respect. The thickness of the book, the way it opens flat, the nice dark print on the lovely cream paper. It would be so right, I kept thinking, if only the margins weren’t there.
Viewed from the front, the Single Column Journaling Bible, thanks to those margins, is a bit squarish. Opened flat on my desk or on the podium as I teach, the book appears almost twice as large as it needs to be. All that empty space … what would happen if I just snipped it off?
In my attic workshop, I have a heavy-duty guillotine paper cutter. The Single Column Journaling Bible is about as thick as a book can be and still fit under the blade. The thing that kept me from making the cuts was that, in addition to losing the margins, I would lose the running headers and the page numbers, not to mention some of the back matter, which is formatted to fill the whole page. With the hardcovers, I would also lose the elastic strap that holds the cover closed, and the covers themselves would look raggedy once I’d sliced them.
I solved the first problem by leaving enough of the margin behind that I could still make out a few letters of the header. I wouldn’t be able to retain the page numbers, and the resulting chopped edition would not help me win any speed-draw competitions … but to my mind, that’s a good thing. The older I get, the more I turn against chapter and verse in favor of sentence and paragraph.
The second problem, the ragged cover, I solved by chopping the natural leather edition. Using a rotary cutter, I could make a clean edge and then round the corners. The paper lining runs right to the edge of the leather now, which doesn’t look quite right, but otherwise it’s a convincing result. As an aside, because the natural leather doesn't have any kind of protective finish, the surface is particularly susceptible to spotting. If you like things to look new throughout their lifespan, this cover won't rock your world. But if you're one of those people always hunting for the fast-track to patina, here it is.
The conversion took less than ten minutes, and most of that time was spent gathering the courage to cut. I took the pages down in stages -- you can always cut more, but you can’t uncut once you’ve gone too far. In the end, I stopped cutting once the margin looked right proportionally. This left more residual lines at the edge than I wanted, while making for a more aesthetically pleasing result overall. When you look at the photos, imagine what this would look like if Crossway created a setting with the headers and page numbers in line with the text and no margin. I think people would love that edition.
Post-chop, my SCJB retains all the features I appreciate about this Bible. It’s fluid, it opens flat, it has a great readable layout. Although I performed the conversion as an experiment, not planning to use the Bible afterward, I’ve found myself carrying and enjoying it. Perhaps it is a testament to the SCJB’s qualities that even with the funky edges, I still prefer it to so many other options.
And I definitely don’t worry about “damaging” it!
Postscript
Ironically enough, not long after I executed this DIY conversion, I decided to transfer my notes and outlines for sermons and lectures I'll be teaching this summer my red Single Column Journaling Bible, using Metaphis color-coded tabs to coordinate the passages -- i.e., all the references for one sermon are marked with white tabs, the references for another in orange, and so on, making them easier to distinguish from one another. The relevant notes on the passage are copied into the margin (in pencil). So I found a use for the Journaling Bible's margins after all.
What I Like
Just about everything.
What I Don’t Like
The fact that you can’t buy this margin-free edition from Crossway. (But the forthcoming Single Column Heritage Bible looks like it will fit the bill nicely!)
The Photos:
Below, I snapped a couple of comparison shots between the DIY Journaling Bible and the lambskin-bound ESV Personal Size Reference:
Posted on May 21, 2013 at 09:44 AM in Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0)
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