Hello, everyone. Glenn Paauw has asked me to share some of my own thoughts with you, as a member of the team that helped IBS develop The Books of The Bible. If you've been following Glenn's series on "Why would you do that?" I'm sure that, in terms of the thinking and goals behind this edition, you really "get it" by now. But you may still have one hesitation: "Will this really be practical?" In other words, you may be thinking things like:
- "I'd probably enjoy using this as a reading Bible, but I don't think I'd use it as my study Bible."
- "This would be great for personal devotional reading, but I don't think it would work well in groups."
- "Come on, now, if we get rid of chapters and verses, the pastor's not going to stand up and say, 'Everybody open to the place in John where Jesus changes the water into wine.' "
I'd like to share some thoughts about each of these concerns, starting in this posting with the first one.

What exactly is the distinction between a "reading Bible" and a "study Bible?" (I've actually thought about this a lot, since I've been asked several times whether The Books of The Bible "isn't just a reading Bible.") The only conclusion I've been able to come to, based on the distinction that's being drawn, is that a "study Bible" is one you don't read.

Think of that--a book that you don't read! That's like a pool you don't swim in. You might check the pH from time to time and add chlorine if necessary. But you never jump in with both feet and come up beaming, shaking the water from your hair. You just "study" the pool.

Or it's like a meal that you don't eat. You might measure the internal temperature of the meat with a thermometer, or calculate the nutritional value of the food. But you never sit down at the table, brandishing knife and fork overhead for immediate use after a heartfelt but brief prayer of thanksgiving. You just "study" the meal.

That sounds awful to me. So why are we so eager to subject small sections of the biblical text to minute analysis, but never really read the books that make up the Bible? For that matter, why don't we realize that an eager, inquisitive reading through these books must provide the foundation for any study we wish to make of the smaller parts within them? I can't think of a better and more practical "study Bible" than one that makes it comfortable and enjoyable to do this foundational reading.

As Richard Moulton wrote in his preface to the Modern Reader's Bible,
The revelation which is the basis of our modern religion has been made in the form of literature. . . . And the best treatment for this literature is to read it. For those who wish there exists a vast apparatus of all kinds of helps in Bible study. But let us not forget the subtle and besetting danger in all literary study--that the process of studying tends to eclipse the literature itself. Scholarship can do much for the Bible: but imagination and literary receptivity can do more.

Pass the potatoes!

Chris Smith

Chris Smith is the pastor of University Baptist Church in East Lansing, MI and author of "The Beauty Behind the Mask: Rediscovering the Books of the Bible" from Clements Publishing.

In this our last entry in the "Why would you do that?" series, we look at the importance of presenting the Bible's text in a single-column. People have asked, "Why is that a big deal?" And our accountant pipes in, "Yeah! It's costing us a lot of money to print all those extra pages." Others have pointed out it makes the whole book bigger, bulkier and harder to carry around. And it's true, always showing the text in a single column gives you a Bible with a lot of extra white space.

So why insist on it? It's more than just the fact that regular books are printed in a single column and we wanted reading from The Books of The Bible to be like reading other books. The key is that the literary forms of the biblical books are a big deal, so showing them is too. When you start saving all that space and money in a two-column setting, you are also making it harder to see that proverbs are different from poetry, poetry from letters, letters from narrative, etc., etc., etc. (We won't even discuss the recent three-column settings. For shame.) Narrow columns have a way of obliterating the visual cues (spacing, indents, etc.) that can unveil literary type.

Take your typical poem in the Bible. The key element of Hebrew poetry is the parallelism of the lines. By relating two lines (or sometimes three) to each other, biblical authors take the idea expressed in the first line to a deeper level, or challenge it, or express it another way. When a single line of this poetry can fit on a single line of the page, the reader can clearly and easily see how sets of lines work together.

But look what happens when you try to squeeze this poetry into a narrower column. Suddenly that one line can't fit, so you have to run it over to the next line. But to differentiate it from the second line of the couplet, you have to indent it. If it's a long line, sometimes you can even have two run-arounds and you have to indent that second one too. When you look at a whole page of this, you see a jumble of indents and lines. The visual message is simply confusing. The original literary form has, as I said, been obliterated. This, you can be sure, is no help to readers in understanding the parallelism that the author intended.

Similar things happen with other literary types. A commitment to a single-column text reflects a commitment to the experience of the reader. It's a way of saying that Bible engagement matters more than finances. It's an expression of respect to the sacred writings.

-Glenn

As we noted in an earlier post, chapter and verse numbers were added to the Bible relatively late, and they have their own problems. But the Bible has acquired lots of other additives too. Look at most Bibles today and you'll see some combination of footnotes, section headings, call-outs, sidebars, cross-references, and most with red letters for good measure. The fancier editions include photos, illustrations and full-color inserts. Bibles for teens have dating & make-up tips thrown in to confirm that the Bible is—no, really, it is—relevant for people today.

Open a typical niche or study Bible and reflect on the page you see for a moment. What visual messages does it send? What has the design focused on? What items get color treatment? Where do the special borders go? Where is all the energy and excitement directed? Got the visual cues down? OK, here's my question: if it's the Bible text that is sacred, why have we done all we can to direct readers to our own blurbs.

What have our Bibles become?

Having watched, and (let me be honest) been a part of these Bible publishing trends for nearly twenty years, my gut feeling is that we have a problem with the Bible. Maybe several. First, we're actually quite nervous about it. Does the Bible measure up? Oh, of course we'll all typically say the right things. But really, does the plain, unadorned text of the Bible cut it? We publish the Bible as if we're not sure. We publish it as if we need to do something to help it.

I think another key problem we with have with the Bible is that in our rather impatient eagerness to apply it practically to our lives today, we expect this collection of writings from very different times, places and cultures to speak immediately and directly to us now. The result is that we skip (and frankly, many application-oriented Bibles encourage us to skip) the crucial step of first understanding the Bible in its own setting. This may be part of why people are so indifferent to gaining insight into the various literary types of the Bible's books. This is also part of why people like "Bible verses" so much; it allows them to get their instant shot of spirituality without bothering about all that messy and complicated context, interpretation and, horrors, maybe even theology.

Are we interested in the Bible on its own terms?

Perhaps we add things to make it all go down a little easier. The additives allow us to avoid having to face that plain, unadorned text. Give me that section heading so I know what to think about this paragraph. Let me jump around from cross-reference to cross-reference so I can keep this study moving, or I might get bored. Tell me how to apply this verse to my life, even if you don't know my life. Distract me with hipster, magazine-like sidebars. Anything so it's not just me and that text alone in the room.

So what have we done differently with The Books of The Bible? Think of watching a DVD. You sit down and watch the movie. Period. Then, if you want to, you go watch the director's comments, the "making of" backstory, or whatever else is included as extras.

We designed The Books of The Bible so you can sit down and read the Bible. Period. We've got a few extras. The books start with brief introductions answering the basic questions to ask of any book (see Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren's How to Read a Book). The translators' notes are at the end. But when you're on a page with the sacred words, it's just you and that text alone in the room.

-Glenn

Why would you do that? Part 5 Revisited: Putting the books in a better order (in the spirit of St. Jerome, a "helmeted" defense!)

So why can't we just keep the traditional order of the books? Well, strictly speaking, the traditional order is . . . a bunch of different orders. There is no single "traditional order of books." (There is the common modern Protestant one that essentially got "hardened" by the invention of the printing press, but that is just one of many "traditional" orders.) The overwhelming weight of the whole tradition (including biblical manuscripts and lists of books in other writings) is behind a variety of book orders.

It's important to keep other terminology straight too. I often hear people refer to "the canonical order of the books of the Bible." The use of this phrase implies that book order is on the same level as the question of which books are in the canon, or that the settling of the question of the boundaries of the canon also involved choosing a particular order. But the various decisions throughout the history of the church which defined the canon did not specify any particular order for the books.

Folks will also often talk about "THE Hebrew order" or "THE Greek order." But wait! What are these definite articles doing here? There were, at best, orders of categories. For the Hebrew First Testament: law, prophets, writings. For the Greek First Testament (the Septuagint): law, history, poetry, prophets. Within these categories, lots of different book orders exist (except for the law). Similarly, the New Testament books seem to have been gathered first into larger groups (Paul's letters, gospels and the other writings), but within these groups again variety reigned. So when it comes to the arrangement of books in the Bible, the order of the day, so to speak, is diversity.

Now for some questions for those who would question any contemporary re-ordering:

Why was it acceptable for the translators of the Greek First Testament to change the order of the books?
Why has it been acceptable for us to follow a Greek order rather than a Hebrew one?
Why do both the Hebrew and Greek versions show so much variety?
Why was it acceptable for Bible commentators and copyists throughout history to vary the order?
Why was it acceptable for the Reformers to introduce a new Bible (the Hebrew canon but in a Greek order) as late as the 16th century?
What, precisely, does the common modern order have to commend it?
What is the advantage in mixing the lyric and wisdom books?
What is the advantage in having the prophets so far removed from the history books?
What is the advantage of having the prophets out of historical order?
What is the advantage of having Paul's letters in order of size?
What is the rationale for the order of the gospels?
Why should Luke and Acts be separated?
Would Luke approve of this?
If it was acceptable for generations of God's people to rearrange the order, why is it now, for the first time, inappropriate for us to do so?
If the tradition itself was always changing how does it honor tradition to freeze forever one version of it?
Finally, if the Holy Spirit has been active in the development and arrangement of the Bible throughout history, is he not still active today? Are we not part of a living tradition?

I was just wondering.

-Glenn

So why can't we just keep the traditional order of the books? Well, strictly speaking, the traditional order is . . . a bunch of different orders. There is no single "traditional order of books." (There is the common modern Protestant one that essentially got "hardened" by the invention of the printing press, but that is just one of many "traditional" orders.) The overwhelming weight of the whole tradition (including biblical manuscripts and lists of books in other writings) is behind a variety of book orders.

It's important to keep other terminology straight too. I often hear people refer to "the canonical order of the books of the Bible." The use of this phrase implies that book order is on the same level as the question of which books are in the canon, or that the settling of the question of the boundaries of the canon also involved choosing a particular order. But the various decisions throughout the history of the church which defined the canon did not specify any particular order for the books.

Folks will also often talk about "THE Hebrew order" or "THE Greek order." But wait! What are these definite articles doing here? There were, at best, orders of categories. For the Hebrew First Testament: law, prophets, writings. For the Greek First Testament (the Septuagint): law, history, poetry, prophets. Within these categories, lots of different book orders exist (except for the law). Similarly, the New Testament books seem to have been gathered first into larger groups (Paul's letters, gospels and the other writings), but within these groups again variety reigned. So when it comes to the arrangement of books in the Bible, the order of the day, so to speak, is diversity.

Now for some questions for those who would question any contemporary re-ordering:

Why was it acceptable for the translators of the Greek First Testament to change the order of the books?
Why has it been acceptable for us to follow a Greek order rather than a Hebrew one?
Why do both the Hebrew and Greek versions show so much variety?
Why was it acceptable for Bible commentators and copyists throughout history to vary the order?
Why was it acceptable for the Reformers to introduce a new Bible (the Hebrew canon but in a Greek order) as late as the 16th century?
What, precisely, does the common modern order have to commend it?
What is the advantage in mixing the lyric and wisdom books?
What is the advantage in having the prophets so far removed from the history books?
What is the advantage of having the prophets out of historical order?
What is the advantage of having Paul's letters in order of size?
What is the rationale for the order of the gospels?
Why should Luke and Acts be separated?
Would Luke approve of this?
If it was acceptable for generations of God's people to rearrange the order, why is it now, for the first time, inappropriate for us to do so?
If the tradition itself was always changing how does it honor tradition to freeze forever one version of it?
Finally, if the Holy Spirit has been active in the development and arrangement of the Bible throughout history, is he not still active today? Are we not part of a living tradition?

I was just wondering.

-Glenn

The Bible was written as individual books, letters, collections of oracles, etc. When we encounter all of this in one book, however, the order of the presentation shapes and directs our reading of them. The Bible Design Group realized that the arrangement of the books can either help or hinder understanding. So rather than simply pass on the common current order, we decided to be intentional in the order we presented. We weren't trying to put the whole Bible into chronological order. There's a lot more to understanding the Bible than chronology. Other elements like literary type, historical circumstance, and theological tradition are also important.

In the First Testament we thought it best to follow the general shape of the ancient Hebrew versions (which predates the order followed in most Bibles today). What we call the Covenant History in The Books of The Bible forms a natural, continuous historical narrative (Genesis through Samuel-Kings). The Prophets follow next, putting them close to the books describing their historical situation. Rather than group them by size (major and minor), it seemed to make more sense to present them in their historical order. The third group, the Writings, are most logically and helpfully grouped by literary type.

In the New Testament we have proposed a fresh expression of the longstanding concept of the fourfold gospel. But rather than blur the gospels all together at the front, we have placed each gospel at the head of a group of related writings. This preserves the ancient priority of the stories of Jesus yet allows each gospel's unique perspective to stand out more clearly.

Luke's two-volume story of Jesus and the early church is first, since it provides an overview of the New Testament period. The letters of Paul (a companion of Luke) come next. To help readers gain an appreciation for the development of Paul's thought, we have presented them in the order we believe he's written them. It's true there is debate about some of this, but even if there's a quibble here or there about dates, it seems better than having them in order of size. This group is followed by Matthew and two other books addressed to Jewish believers (Hebrews and James). Then comes Mark, which seems to tell Jesus' story from Peter's perspective, together with the letters of Peter, and that of Jude (which has similarities to Peter's second letter). At the end is John, presenting a mature reflection on the life of Jesus, along with John's letters. Revelation is appropriately last, describing how God's new creation will ultimately be realized, and allowing each of the two major divisions in the Bible to end with an apocalypse (Daniel in the First Testament, Revelation in the New).

All in all, an arrangement we believe is respectful of tradition, yet leads to greater understanding. Or, in terms of what we've been saying: betta order leading to mo betta reading.

—Glenn

This one's not too hard. Some of the longer books in the Bible were physically separated into shorter parts for the simple reason that they were too long to fit in the document form of their day (papyrus scrolls). Definitely one of those limits-of-technology things. Later translators then gave these individual scrolls names of their own, in effect making them separate books. The separation stuck, the names got handed down, and it became easier to think that these really were different books. (It's interesting that the names weren't always the same: some traditions speak of 1-4 Kings, not 1&2 Samuel and 1&2 Kings.)

But of course they're not really different books. Samuel-Kings is a continuous narrative. Ezra and Nehemiah were joined together in much of Jewish tradition. Likewise, Chronicles was also unified. In fact, Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah is all a continuous narrative, as the overlapping text between Chronicles and Ezra makes clear. Luke-Acts is a single, two-volume work. Luke himself tells us what he's up to in his introductions to each volume.

These books should be repaired. There's no longer any reason for the artificial divisions to remain. Today's current book form can fit the longer books, and our new form of the scroll (electronic text) can definitely accommodate them. (Although it's interesting to see some expressions of electronic Scriptures atomizing the text even more than printed Bibles). So we've initiated a restoration project, allowing today's readers to experience these texts as whole books.

By the way, higher critical speculations on how earlier parts of books may have existed separately and then put together later don't really affect this issue. Many biblical books themselves acknowledge that they use material from other books that we don't have today ("The Book of the Wars of Yahweh," "The Book of Jashar," etc.). This doesn't change the fact that now this earlier material is incorporated into a different book. Even if, say, Ezra-Nehemiah was compiled at a different time than Chronicles, the text we have explicitly connects the ending of Chronicles with the beginning of Ezra. We are following the lead of the text itself, not randomly putting books together.

The exciting thing is that now readers can be more easily encouraged to ponder the message of these whole books. What does the entire Samuel-Kings story tell us, especially in light of the entire covenant history? What is the point of Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah's sweep of history going all the way back to creation? How do Luke's two volumes work together to present the drama of the birth of Christianity?

Restoring whole books. We like to think of it as a healing ministry for the Bible itself.

-Glenn

OK, so we've taken out the chapter and verse division. The flip side of taking out c&v is to identify natural, inherent ways of organizing things. Just as we seek to discover authors' intentions in individual words and passages, we can look for their literary-structural intentions.

Some folks will say, "If you want to show the original form of the Bible, you have to show it all as rows of letters with no spaces, punctuation or indents, just like ancient Bible manuscripts." But this is mistaken. The production of ancient documents was not at all like modern printing and publishing. Writing materials were difficult to come by and copying texts was time-consuming, labor-intensive work. The books of Moses were not formatted for easy reading and then mass produced so every Israelite could read "My Daily Manna" while they ate their daily manna. The rare copies of these texts were "published" when they were read aloud to the community. We can't look at ancient manuscripts and expect to see literary structures reflected in the design or layout.

What we do instead is explore literary signals. There are lots of things to look for: shifts in literary type, changes in topic, progression in plot, and, very importantly, key repeated phrases at literary seams. Because most of us have not been encouraged to read whole books of the Bible, nor to read them as literature, we are not used to paying attention to these things.

But look what's there! Genesis is organized around the phrase "this is the account of." Matthew summarizes and marks things out by repeating "When Jesus had finished saying these things." Each of the five books of Psalms ends with a special blessing. New Testament epistles contain the regular elements of first-century letters. And so on. There are natural organizing features throughout the Bible's books. What happens when readers pay attention to all this? They begin to read whole sections as whole sections. They begin to see how these natural sections fit together. They can follow the sustained and reinforced messages of biblical authors over the course of whole books.

Admittedly, not everyone is going to agree with all the text breaks we've identified in The Books of The Bible. Of course, not everyone agrees with word choices and section headings that translators dictate either. Or sermon applications that pastors make. Or lots of things people do to and with the Bible. This is what happens when God gives us his revelation. We get to be genuine human beings, imaging God and using the gifts and abilities he gave us to interact with it.

We are open to reasoned input on ways to improve our work. There are great dialogues already happening, both on the internet and in person. But we believe firmly there is more to show in Bible texts than just paragraphs. Biblical authors structured their writings on larger levels. If we read with an eye for them, we can discover them. If we discover them, we can publish Bibles that reflect them.

A whole new level of Bible reading! Not just snippets of devotional words for the day, or isolated verses to memorize or debate, but the bigger messages of whole books. Mo betta Bible reading.

-Glenn

Some of the folks we presented The Books of The Bible to in our development stage were shocked. Why would you do that? Why take out the chapter and verse system (c&v)?

First of all, I should say I do understand the reaction. We're all used to what we're used to. Who moved my cheese and all that. Bible readers have become accustomed to seeing their Bibles in and through this system. Those who go to Bible studies or listen to sermons have become accustomed to having this system used as the main way to talk about the Bible. We've institutionalized and embedded it as THE way to reference, read, interact with, devotionalize and argue about the Bible. Most people have come to take it for granted as part of the Bible text itself. We've had a hard time imagining the Bible without it.

But of course it's not part of the text. As I said last time, these additives are neither original nor natural. We've had the Bible for much longer without c&v than we've had it with it. And of course the problems with c&v are almost too numerous to list. But just in case you don't believe me, let's give it a shot:

* the impression given by c&v is that the reader is encountering a reference manual of some sort, so it immediately misrepresents the nature of the Bible;

* c&v imposes a kind of numbing "sameness" on the biblical material, flattening it out and disguising the real variety of material;

* c&v is off-putting and confusing to new readers of the Bible;

* chapter divisions typically don't correspond with the authors' divisions of thought;

* chapter divisions can direct people to make sense of only a piece of a longer section as if it were complete in itself;

* chapter divisions can direct people to read two or more smaller sections as if they really belong together in a single section;

* even when chapter divisions do align with the natural breaks in the text, they are all about the same length, thus allowing only divisions of a certain size to be shown and ignoring divisions of both a larger or smaller size;

* chapter divisions encourage the reader to stop upon reaching the end of the chapter;

* verse divisions imply that the Bible is a collection of independent and free-standing statements;

* verse divisions are often placed at awkward or inappropriate places;

* verse divisions lead to "verse-jacking", an intrusive breaking into the biblical text, typically leading to the robbery of selected words in which the original context and meaning are left behind;

* verse divisions encourage a relativistic reading of the text in which the original meaning fades back and all that matters is what the isolated words say to me, now.


In short, c&v presents a serious distortion of the biblical text. So now when people ask me, "How can you mess with the Bible like that?" I say, "Exactly."

-Glenn

P.S. I know this is going to be a problem for the "John 3:16" guy at all those televised sporting events. We might need to give him some new ideas. Since we're promoting the reading of whole books of the Bible, maybe his sign should just say "John." Or maybe "Jesus (heart sign) the cosmos". Or . . .

Why would you do that?
Part 1: Changing the way the Bible looks

The two thousand year trend in the Bible world has been the slow and steady accumulation of additives. Scribes added notes in the margins. Longer texts were split apart. Eventually chapter divisions were added, then assigned numbers. Even later, numbered verse markings were inserted. Section headings, cross-references and footnotes followed. Very late in the Bible's history the words of Jesus were painted red. Most recent is the development of "side bars" or colorful mini-commentaries planted in and around the Bible text. It is important to know that all of these additives are, of course, neither original nor natural.

The big idea at the heart of The Books of The Bible project is that visual presentation makes a big difference, for good or ill. For a long time all the attention has been focused on translation and on what we call "Bible helps." What has been neglected is the huge role played in Bible reading by the way the words look on the page—the way they are collected and arranged, spaced and sized, divided and numbered. These visual cues exert their influence powerfully, but often unconsciously. We think we're just reading the words. But what we take in, and how, is shaped in all kinds of ways by these cues.

It's time we stopped to think about how all these additives actually influence our reading of Scripture. What reading (or nonreading) habits have we developed because of the additives? We'll be looking at examples of the influence of specific additives in future blogs. The point here is just that what we see on the page—the numbers, indents, space, color, columns and distractions—all matter. Communication is a complicated, multisensory event. Bible publishers obviously don't, can't and shouldn't control all the factors that go into what happens when a reader sits down with a sacred text and attempts to take it in. But some of the factors that Bible publishers do control have not been thoughtfully considered.

If Bible engagement, not just Bible sales and distribution, is the real goal, then these issues have to be taken seriously. What do we want to happen when someone reads a Bible? What, really, do we expect to happen when someone opens the Bibles that are actually produced these days? What does the reader see when they open these Bibles? How is their experience shaped, directed, or even dictated by what they see?

Church councils and professional theologians are not the ones who imposed these various foreign structures and additives on the Bible. Most of it was done by Bible copyists, printers and publishers. For our part, we believe it's past time for the additives to come out.