Why would you do that? (Part 7: Always showing the text in one column)
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
Bonus sneak peek at upcoming blogs:
But is it practical? A three part series by Bible Deign Committee Member Chris Smith
Hey Augustine! You can’t study a Bible like this, right?
The Speed Trap: the problem with finding things too fast
C.S. Lewis on using a book vs. receiving it
People of the Book. Who? Us?
Gnowing the Bible like a gnostic
Why reading whole books matters
Why literary type matters
An open letter to Bible publishers
The Books of The Bible and Bible reading communities
The Books of The Bible and daily devotions
The Books of The Bible and the story of the Bible
The difficulty of paradigm shifts
and more . . .
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
Bonus sneak peek at upcoming blogs:
But is it practical? A three part series by Bible Deign Committee Member Chris Smith
Hey Augustine! You can’t study a Bible like this, right?
The Speed Trap: the problem with finding things too fast
C.S. Lewis on using a book vs. receiving it
People of the Book. Who? Us?
Gnowing the Bible like a gnostic
Why reading whole books matters
Why literary type matters
An open letter to Bible publishers
The Books of The Bible and Bible reading communities
The Books of The Bible and daily devotions
The Books of The Bible and the story of the Bible
The difficulty of paradigm shifts
and more . . .
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