Storing Your Bible

Q. I now have quite a few Bibles, some of which are premium leather, what is the best way to store these? Flat? In a bookshelf? In their original box?

A. The old time preacher in me is saying, "Bibles are meant to be used, not stored!" But I know exactly what you mean. Tolstoy once asked, "How much land does a man need?" My wife has wondered the same thing about Bibles. Growing up, I had just one Bible -- a gift, no less -- and it never occurred to me until my early twenties that it was possible to buy another. Once I got the bug, though, I never stopped, and this site is a testament to that fact.

On principle, I don't coddle the Bible I'm currently using. Typically, you'll find it on a table wherever I happened to set it down last. But what about the ones I'm not using? First off, I never store them upright on a bookshelf the way you would normal books, because the soft leather covers don't seem made for that. Instead, I stack them flat. If the original box is still around, I use it. Hardbacks are obviously an exception to this rule, and so are Bibles in the old Cambridge slip-cases, which are made to stand on the shelf. Everything else is on its side to avoid bending, which can crease covers and rumple pages.

Comments

[Marvin]

Mark, Any comments on ESV's new Literay Bible?
I'm not in the same league as you, I only buy one new Bible a year. This year has been The Message. I thought Peterson did a good job on the Psalms and the gospels, but the OT was very rough.

[Jesus Saenz]

Thanks for the advise, Mark. For many years I too only had and used one Bible. I had wanted a "nice" Bible for a long time but I didn't know what that meant since the bookstore in my church nor one of the larger Christian bookstores I had gone into had premium leather Bibles. Thanks to sites like yours, I had a starting point with what to look for.

I don't think I will keep them in their boxes since I pick up one or the other at any time, though there is one that I use for studying purposes. They are now stacked flat on my bookshelf.

[J. Mark Bertrand]

It's great to see you here, Marvin! I'm glad you've enjoyed your year with The Message. My thoughts on the Literary Bible? It's going to be magnificent. I haven't seen the finished product yet, but I expect it to look great and the content should be excellent. The notes I've seen already in samples are quite good. In an interview, Dr. Ryken talked about this as the culmination of his life's work -- and that's saying something.

Jesus, I'm glad to have been of help. I just hope the site doesn't end up costing you too much!

[Scott Sackett]

Mark,
I was curious about your thoughts on highlighting or underlining in your Bible.

[J. Mark Bertrand]

I do both, Scott. If you check out the article on wide margin Bibles -- http://jmarkbertrand.typepad.com/bibledesign/2007/09/marginal-intere.html -- there's a photo of the inside of mine, complete with notes, underlining, and highlighting. (Click on it and it will expand so you can see better.) I'm more comfortable with discreet underlining than I am with highlighting, but when teaching the added color can make it easier to follow an outline. Ballpoints are good, because the ink tends to be dry and doesn't bleed through the page. The Fisher "Space Pen" is excellent for underlining on Bible paper. With highlighters, the important thing is to get the 'dry' ones, and obviously a small, pen-sized highlighter is going to be better than one of the fat dry-erase marker types.

[Jesus Saenz]

Scott,

I have pretty much always written in my Bibles and I too recommend a wide margin Bible for such a purpose. I do not like markers or hi-liters but I use archival quality pens such as the Pigma Micron, Prismacolor Premier Fine Line Marker or Staedtler Pigment. They use pigment not ink, it is archival quality acid free and they do not bleed. You can get them in different colors and thickness.