Why would you do that? (Part 6: Taking out all the other additives)

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

Why would you do that? (Part 5: Putting the books in a better order)

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

Why would you do that? (Part 4: Books Made Whole)

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

Why would you do that? (Part 3: Showing Natural Breaks)

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