The Books of The Bible Blog

More new editions and special chat this Friday

2008-05-07T15:49:00.003-06:00

A few weeks back, we announced that the Matthew group of the New Testament had been released for Amazon's Kindle for $.99. You can now download the John and Mark groups with the Luke group coming in the next few days.
Also, for those of you who haven't checked out the de-versify facebook group, now's the time. We'll be hosting a live chat on facebook this Friday at 4PM Mountain Time. If you haven't signed up for facebook, it takes just a couple minutes. Hope to see you there!

New Edition of TBoTB

2008-04-25T10:00:00.002-06:00

For those of you who are early adopters of Amazon's Kindle Reader, we've released the Matthew section of the New Testament for $.99. Why $.99? We figured after dropping $400 on the reader, you could use a deal.

Accommodate my Bible: Guest blog by Chris Smith

2008-04-22T13:50:00.003-06:00

So you've got a copy of The Books of The Bible, and it's already making a huge difference in the way you engage Scripture. You're reading bigger chunks, even whole books, at one time; you're getting new kinds of insights, and seeing connections you never saw before. You're actually ahead on your reading plan.

But there's one problem. You've become a books-of-the-Bible person, but it's still a chapter-and-verse world.

There's something you can do about that. Ask and expect to be accommodated as you bring The Books of The Bible along with you to all of your regular activities.

If you're in your small group and the leader directs everyone to a passage using just the chapter and verse reference, speak up and say, with a perfectly straight face, "I'm sorry, but my Bible doesn't have any chapters and verses. Could you describe what episode you're referring to, and where it comes in the book?" The explanation your leader provides in response will make the discussion more meaningful for everybody.

Take your pastor aside some week, show that your Bible doesn't have any chapters and verses, and ask that for your sake, the scripture lesson be identified by content ("the discussion of prayer in the Sermon on the Mount") as well as by reference. You can even invite your pastor to do an experiment one week, and not give anybody the chapter and verse reference for the scripture lesson. Instead, see if it isn't more meaningful to lead them to it through the book's structure: "Has everybody found Matthew? Good. Now Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus, then the story of his birth and early ministry. Flip through those, and you'll come to a collection of his foundational teachings. There Jesus first tells us what it means to be blessed; then he tells us how we can truly fulfill the law; and then he tells us in what spirit we should give and pray and fast. We're going to look this morning at what He says about prayer. Does everybody have the place?"

It might feel somewhat provocative, even subversive, to ask to be accommodated to this extent. But by gently persisting, you will be helping to introduce new habits of Scripture engagement that will benefit everyone. Individual requests like these drive broader change. The social flow has to redirect itself around those who are standing gracefully in its way. You'll be like the people who always asked "Is this a smoke-free facility?" before deciding to eat in a restaurant or stay in a hotel. Look how far their expectation of being accommodated has brought us.

Chris Smith is consulting editor on The Books of The Bible. His book detailing his work, The Beauty Behind the Mask is available on Amazon.com

Awakening '08

2008-04-02T22:35:00.002-07:00

John and I are at Awaken '08 in Pasadena this week. We've been sampling TBoTB, Kingdom Come-Kingdom Go, The Book of Psalms, Amos, etc. We'll be in Denver next week, then Grand Rapids the week after. Knee surgery will be a welcome vacation come month end.

We've been meeting tons of great people from all around the country. Bob from California told me about an experience he had with an agnostic friend. The person had been given a very large study Bible. He told Bob he had been reading it and wanted to get together to talk about it. When they did, his friend kept pointing at different parts in the Bible saying, "I disagree with this. I disagree with this. I disagree with this."

The thing Bob noticed was that his friend wasn't pointing at Scripture. He was pointing at the notes.

I'm just sayin's all.

If you're going to be at either of these conferences, stop by our booth. If you're going to be a both, we'll definitely have something special for you.

Organic References

2008-02-05T14:32:00.000-07:00

As I continue to have more experiences with my copy of The Books of The Bible in various Bible study and church settings, I’m finding that the passage referencing issue keeps coming up. It is so tempting—repeatedly tempting—to revert to at least a chapter reference when you want to point someone to a certain place in the Scriptures. This pattern is deeply imbedded in our Bible practice.

In the local assembly of Jesus-followers of which I’m a part, we’ve been reading and discussing the servant passages in Isaiah and exploring how the gospels use them in reference to Jesus. When I was teaching on Matthew’s telling of Jesus’ baptism, my first instinct was to simply rattle off the four references (42:1-9; 49:1-13; 50:4-11; and 52:13-53:12) and start pointing out the connections. It is so fast. Zoom. Zoom. You’re there.

But it’s actually so much richer to take a moment to see each of these in light of their setting in Isaiah. For example, I could have simply noted that when Jesus is baptized by John (in Matthew’s first main section, at the end of the part about the Baptizer, right before the temptation story), the words recorded from the heavenly voice seem to combine two key passages. “You are my son” from Psalm 2 refers to Israel’s king as the one who will rule the nations with a rod of iron. But the next part (“whom I love; with him I am well pleased”) seems to clearly pick up on language from the first servant song: “Here is my servant . . . my chosen one in whom I delight.”

OK, so the passage tells us that Israel’s promised king, God’s son, is also the servant that Isaiah proclaimed. Nice. In my notes that I handed out that day, I could have simply listed the four servant songs, we could have read them, and that would be that. But wait. Isolating Isaiah 42:1-9 and reading it alone doesn’t really cut it.

When I read “Isaiah 42” in The Books of The Bible, I can easily see that there is a lengthy oracle that precedes it. It focuses on God’s supremacy over the false gods of the nations. It’s a set-up for the presentation of the servant that follows. This chosen servant of God does not come to smash the nations with their idols, instead he is shown as the one who will bring them light. He will free them, and they can put their hope in him. The servant reveals God’s true intention, not just for Israel, but for the world.

Much more could be said. The c&v Bible is particularly bad with the last servant song: how many times have you heard people refer to “Isaiah 53,” ignoring the fact that the song begins in chapter 52? But the point is that the format can either help or hinder the likelihood that I will read in context. Yes, it’s possible (if difficult) to try and read past or over the often incorrectly placed chapter and verse breaks. But why should readers have to do that?

The Bible’s books have natural, intentional, literary breaks. Let’s start talking about them. And let’s start practicing referring to them in natural, contextual, literary ways.

-Glenn

Ursula’s Plea

2008-01-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

The current issue of Harper’s Magazine (Feb 2008) features an article by Ursula Le Guin called “Staying Awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading.” What we read here is right in line with what we explored earlier with C.S. Lewis’ comments about ‘receiving’ a book rather than ‘using’ it. Le Guin’s contention is that it’s no surprise not everyone is up to reading:

“In its silence, a book is a challenge: it can’t lull you with surging music or deafen you with screeching laugh tracks or fire gunshots in your living room; you have to listen to it in your head. A book won’t move your eyes for you the way images on a screen do. It won’t move your mind unless you give it your mind, or your heart unless you put your heart into it. It won’t do the work for you. To read a story well is to follow it, to act it, to feel it, to become it—everything short of writing it, in fact.”

Entering into a story on its own terms. Imagine. Giving a story your mind—more, your heart. A two-way set of expectations. Not just readers with their requirements, but stories looking for good readers. Readers who honor the covenant between author and audience. Le Guin continues, “Reading is not ‘interactive’ with a set of rules or options, as games are; reading is actual collaboration with the writer’s mind.”

This is as far away from our snippet-searching, give-me-a-verse-for-today typical Bible ‘use’ (one can’t really call it reading) as it could be.

Ursula Le Guin, advocate for mo’ betta reading.

-Glenn

Another reading alternative

2008-01-08T13:23:00.000-07:00

Glenn mentioned last time that reading the Bible in TBoTB format might cause such unintended
side effects as enjoyment, understand and consuming vast quantities of Scripture in one sitting. Dr. Winn Griffin has stepped up to the plate with a 100 day Bible reading challenge. Looks pretty interesting. I signed up earlier today. Way to go Winn!

I Hereby Resolve

2008-01-03T21:19:00.000-07:00

I know, you know, we all know that most new year’s resolutions are quickly made and quickly broken. Including resolves “to read through the Bible this year.” It is, of course, a worthy goal. Have you ever done it? Every educated person should. There are lots of great reasons to do so, but one is simply that it is the single most influential book in Western Civilization, influencing every possible arena of life and culture.

But is there any reason to believe this resolution would turn out any differently than all those failed promises of the past? Well, yes, there is.

The Books of The Bible offers you an genuinely different reading experience. Now you can read the Bible naturally, as the collection of stories, songs, wisdom sayings, and prophetic visions that it really is. You don’t have to fight through all those additives that complicate the Bible. You can just sit down and read.

Simple.

What you’ll find is that the Bible is actually quite readable when you agree to take it in the way its authors intended, as complete books.

So how about it? You could get a couple of your friends and agree to read through it together. You can compare notes along the way. I guarantee you’ll have plenty to talk about.

An easy way to get started is to check out the reading plans on this site. You’ll have a choice between two different ways to read through the whole book in one year, reading just 15 minutes a day, six days a week. And actually, you may just want to skip the plan and start reading. I’ll bet you’re amazed at how quickly you make your way through it, and you will undoubtedly read more than a mere 15 minutes per sitting.

I hereby resolve to read through the Bible this year.

I hereby commit myself to mo’ betta Bible reading.

I hereby open myself to a new experience with the sacred text.

Care to join me?

-Glenn

An Invitation to Read the Sacred Books

2007-12-18T13:34:00.000-07:00

*Editor's note: As we journey through this season of expectation for the coming of our king, we thought it would be appropriate to do something a little different. As we approach Christmas, take care in reading the precious gift of Scripture. Please enjoy this adaptation of an essay in http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifThe Sacred Books, now on sale for just $1.99 each at IBSDirect.com. -Paul Berry

A long time ago the followers of Jesus collected their sacred writings together. They called them ta biblia— “the little books.” This collection is what we now call the Bible. The Holy Scriptures. It is comprised of the First Testament and the New Testament.

The Bible is a large collection of different books and writings that together tell a single story. It is a story spanning a long period of time and it tells of many people, places and practices.

Like any ancient story, it takes a little getting used to. It may be a little confusing in places. Things were different back then. Very different.

Of course, things were also the same.

Some things don’t change.

Since the Bible is such a big collection, it may help to know the overall direction of the story. I find it useful to arrange the drama of the Bible into the following six acts:

1. Intention: God’s Song of Creation
2. exile: from beauty to brokenness
3. Light and Dark: The Calling of Israel
4. Lost and Found: The Surprising Victory of Jesus
5. New Journey: The People of God for the World
6. Reunion: God’s Return to Us

There are lots of kinds of literature in the Bible: historical narrative, love poetry, apocalyptic vision, song lyrics, prophecy, wisdom sayings, letters and more. It’s worth paying attention to this. For instance, you can’t read song lyrics like a letter, or the metaphors of apocalyptic literature as if they were historical narrative.

The overall approach you take to the Bible is also important. It is not a collection of important facts or spiritual principles, although it does have some of these. It’s not a law book, although it also contains some of these. And it’s not a presentation of some timeless system of salvation, religious or otherwise.

It’s a story.

If you know stories, then you know they’re all about time and place and people. The events described in The Sacred Books took place over a long period of time with particular people and in particular places.

This also makes it history.

It happened.

It’s important that you read it as a story. A lot of people read it as something else. It’s too bad, because this makes them go off on all kinds of false trails and distracting tangents. Basically taking a piecemeal approach and missing the forest for the trees.

My advice is that you stick with the story, and don’t assume you already know what it’s going to say. Sometimes the telling of this story by others has somewhat distorted what the sacred books actually say.

An ancient Jewish midrash (or commentary) on the book of Genesis has God saying, “I will make Adam first and if he goes astray I will send Abraham to sort it all out.” Well, astray he went. So Abraham’s family, Israel, was called and sent on a mission from God to sort it all out. This story of Israel takes up a very good portion of the whole book. Then when Israel was having a tough time of it, Jesus came along claiming he wanted to get this mission back on track. Paul followed later and, after a personal encounter with Jesus, got his life turned around. He then set out to tell the story to the rest of the world because it all had to do with them too.

The whole thing meanders around, with lots of fits and starts, making you wonder if it is ever going to get there. But it does come together. At the very end you’ll notice it sounds strangely familiar to the very beginning. It turns out that when God intends something, he doesn’t give up until it happens the way he wanted. A divine perseverance, you might call it.

Just one more thing before you start. Who’s reading this story and how they read it is probably as important as the story itself. The Bible says that two people can hear the exact same message and one will benefit from it while the other will gain nothing, in fact, may even be worse off than before. Jesus often said: “Whoever has ears, let them hear.” He was clearly assuming it was possible for a lot of people (who by all appearances were listening to him, and presumably with ears) to somehow not hear.

I’m ashamed to tell you how often my own ears have been plugged up.

I’ve found it’s worth a prayer to ask for help. (The story itself tells about many mighty works of God, so what’s one more after all those other ones?)

Above all, don’t ever forget . . .

. . . it’s a story.

And it’s inviting you in to take your part.

Whoever has ears, let them hear.

—Glenn

(adapted from The Sacred Books, copyright © 2005 by International Bible Society)

On the Difficulty of Paradigm Shifts (Part 2: A Modernistic Bible)

2007-12-05T11:36:00.000-07:00

The biggest challenge in any paradigm shift is getting one’s mind to accept the fundamental reorientation. For instance, relativity theory in modern physics invited people to consider that some of their basic, intuitive perceptions of the world were not correct. For both scientists and the larger society the transition was difficult.

In the Bible reading world, change is also hard. The chapter and verse system (c&v) has been comprehensively applied and is deeply ingrained. By now our use of it is second nature, reflexive. It has become more than the way we see the Bible—it has become part of the Bible itself for many of us.

Losing it can seem unimaginable. Or, perhaps it can seem imaginable only in part. Some folks have said to me, “Reading without c&v is OK, I can see that. But studying the Bible without it? I can’t see how.” It is exetremely interesting that we seem to believe that we can study the Bible without reading it. But this is what the additives have led to.

One essential element in paradigm shifts is coming to see that the old paradigm is deficient. Openness to new paradigms comes from acknowledging the limitations and even failures of the previous way of seeing things.

I have already mentioned all the specific problems with c&v (see the Why Would You Do That? blog from June 26, 2007). In many ways, a c&v Bible is a modernistic Bible. It is not an accident that the c&v imposition historically came along with the rise of modernism. It is a systematician’s dream. In speaking of the rationalistic character of modern culture in another context, Eviatar Zerubavel has written that it is “precise, punctual, calculable, standard, bureaucratic, rigid, invariant, finely coordinated, and routine.” A modernistic emphasis on the measurable leads directly to a sense of control and manipulation.

Isn’t this realistically what we’ve done with the Scriptures? A modernistic Bible is a Bible we can handle. We can navigate it quickly and powerfully through an in-depth system of shortcuts and time-savers. We can find the little pieces we want and move on. And so this immense, mysterious, living book of books becomes bite-sized and manageable.

But the downside to this control we think we’ve gained over the Bible is real. The damage is significant. We have lost touch with the books, letters and songs that the biblical authors have actually written. It is our little systems that we know more than the Bible itself.

It is time to emancipate ourselves from this mental slavery. There is another way. We do not have to rely on chapters and verses. The biblical authors themselves didn’t need them. The church has done without them for most of its history.

This paradigm shift is not easy and it will not happen overnight. But it can be done. The next time you read a passage from the Bible, take a minute and imagine how you might refer to it without a chapter and verse reference. How might you tell someone else what and where you’re reading? How and where does that passage fit into its immediately larger context? What would a natural, organic reference to it be?

Free your mind.

-Glenn

On the Difficulty of Paradigm Shifts (Part 1: Ground-breaking)

2007-11-27T09:14:00.000-07:00

In his landmark 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn introduced us to the term paradigm shift. Kuhn applied the phrase strictly to worldview upheavals in the hard sciences, but since then it has passed over into more colloquial use. We now commonly use it to refer to any comprehensive change in our understanding. Paradigm shifts have to do with “seeing” things differently, and doing so in a radical (in the sense of root) way.

Many of us think of ourselves as modern (or perhaps postmodern) people who take constant change in stride. We “ride the waves of progress and innovation.” We are repeatedly told to be flexible, always on the move, always reacting to (or better yet anticipating) the next new thing. There is a lot of talk about how to handle or overcome those who are “resistant to change.”

But the fact is, change at certain core levels is hard for every one of us. There is an uncomfortable insecurity when the ground beneath us moves, when the things we’ve taken for granted are challenged.

“Messing” with the way the Bible is presented affects how we experience it. The Christian community has developed and standardized an interaction with the Bible based on the chapter & verse additives. This window into the Bible has largely been taken for granted for some time now.

What happens when that window disappears? As I continue to read and interact with The Books of The Bible I have to admit a feeling of disorientation mixed with my excitement and pleasure. I’ve gotten as used to the the c&v system as anyone else. My own lack of knowledge of the structure of whole books has been revealed. My own impatience rises up when I want to find something quickly. I too have my pet verses that I would prefer not to read in context.

This new visual presentation has the potential to bring a paradigm shift to the world of Bible reading and understanding. We shouldn’t underestimate the magnitude of changing this window, of seeing the Bible in a new way. If we take this seriously, it can change our preaching and teaching, our writing about and quoting of Bible passages.

If you begin reading whole books of the Bible, as the literature they really are, be ready for some very exciting things to happen. But also be ready for some disconcerting movement of the ground under your feet.

yours, for mo betta and very different Bible reading,

-Glenn

It’s Bible Time! (Part 2: The Speed Trap)

2007-11-07T08:10:00.000-07:00

Our culture makes a lot out of time. Mostly out of “saving it” and going faster and faster in everything we do. We’ve made a consumer virtue of impatience. We can’t stand to wait, whether its for computer downloads or paying for our groceries. Advertisers constantly tell us we don’t have enough time, and we certainly can’t be satisfied with something taking the same time it always has. Their new product is better because it’s faster. This equation is never questioned.

The whole thing has been a disaster for our Bible reading.

Some have tried to accommodate the trend and have produced versions like the “One-minute” Bible (for busy people). Hey, a little bit ‘o Bible’s better than none, right? (Marketing Alert! New product idea: the “Bit-O-Bible”.) The Books of The Bible takes the opposite approach, hoping to attract people to reading whole books, typically in more than sixty seconds.

It’s not just that we could stand to give more of our time to digesting these sacred words, we could also stand to read more slowly. Quantity of overall time is one thing, pace is another.

The fact is, the chapter and verse system has fed the speed machine. It allows the topical speed study. Quick, look up everything the Bible says about money, prayer, beer, or whatever. Read the verses, string them together, and presto! you’ve got the Bible’s teaching on that subject.

Only you don’t. You haven’t read in context. You haven’t taken the Bible in slowly and surely. You’ve taken it in speedily and on the surface. What if you were to take the time to find those selected “verses” more naturally in the larger paragraph? What if you were to take the time to locate that paragraph in the larger section of which it is a part? It would be a slower knowledge, to be sure, but also a better knowledge.

In our age of instant gratification, there’s much to be said for doing things more deliberately, including reading the Bible. Slowly has to do with savoring. With soaking it in. With pondering. With letting the Bible work its way deep into us.

Read in the right lane. Let the frustrated, impatient speeders go by. God has given us plenty of time— all the time we need. Let’s go ahead and take it.

yours for slo mo Bible reading,

-Glenn

This week’s recommended reading: Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book

It’s Bible Time! (Part 1: No Time)

2007-10-30T14:02:00.001-07:00

Bible reading is extremely time-consuming. It takes a staggering 80 hours to read the whole thing at a moderately slow pace. Think of it, the equivalent of two 40-hour work weeks!

Its longest book, Samuel-Kings, takes 9-1/2 hours to tackle. Can you imagine? 9-1/2 hours on one book?

Only 38 of its nearly 60 books can be read in an hour or less.

John’s soaring gospel of new creation? 2-1/2 hours. Ecclesiastes honest wrestling with life’s paradoxes? 30 long minutes. Amos’ withering critique of a wealthy, self-indulgent society? The same. Paul’s theological masterpiece in the letter to the Christ-followers in Rome? One hour. Galatians’ punchy critique of ethnic or social divisions within the new people of God? 20 minutes. Revelation’s apocalypse of hope and encouragement in the rule of the Messiah? A whopping hour PLUS 10 minutes.

And that’s just a few samples. Try to imagine the rest.

It’s true that its five shortest books take just 5 minutes each, but that’s not counting set-up and take-down time (finding your Bible, getting a comfortable seat, finding your place, turning off the light when you’re done, etc.). It is still a significant investment for busy people.

The 70’s Canadian rock band The Guess Who gave us the song “No Time,” which summarizes the situation nicely for us:

No time left for you

On my way to better things
There’s no time left for you

I got, got, got, got no time.

Or do you?

-Glenn

C.S. Lewis On Using a Book vs. Receiving It

2007-10-23T12:55:00.000-06:00

Writing in “An Experiment in Criticism,” C.S. Lewis claims a work of art can be either ‘received’ or ‘used’. What’s the difference? “When we ‘use’ it we treat it as assistance for our own activities.” ‘Using’ a text means that we have already decided what we want from it. We have an agenda. We come to the text already looking for something, expecting to find it. It is a position of mastery. We are standing over the text, telling it what we want it for. It is a position of impatience. We don’t have time to learn what a text is about on its own terms.

Literary type? An academic exercise.

Historical setting? Not relevant to me and my current needs.

On the other hand, when we ‘receive’ a work of art, “we exert our senses and imagination and various other powers according to a pattern invented by the artist.” Receiving a text is a stance of humility. It is a giving up of oneself to the text. It is letting the author and his choices direct our reading. As Lewis says, “The first demand of any work . . . makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive.”

Lewis explains the superiority of ‘receiving’ this way: “The one, to use an old-fashioned image, is like being taken for a bicycle ride by a man who may know roads we have never explored. The other is like adding one of those little motor attachments to our own bicycle and then going for one of our familiar rides.”

Bible formats are based on understandings of what kind of book it is. Is it a user’s manual? A reference work? A love letter? A magazine? What kind of writings do we really have in the Bible? Our answer to this will lead us to either ‘use’ or ‘receive’ the Bible.

A Bible that is covered over in an imposed system of chapters, verses, section headings, and cross-references is a Bible that invites being ‘used.’ It is an offer to race around picking up bits and pieces of predetermined religious teaching here and there. It is a format that seeks to override the original work of the authors.

A Bible without the additives is an attempt to ‘receive’ it as a varied collection of real books. It presents an offer to more slowly and intentionally take in the Bible on its own terms.

-Glenn

C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge University Press, 1961), pp. 88-89.

Know the Bible? (Part 3)

2007-10-16T10:18:00.000-06:00

What if we didn’t have a choice?

What if none of our Bibles had chapters and verses?

What would we do?

Imagine if “the people of the Book” knew their Bibles well enough to find passages based on their knowledge of whole books. This doesn’t mean knowing every word. This means knowing the general outline or “flow” of the content of individual books of the Bible.

“Bible memorization” is commonly used to refer to committing a series of Bible “verses” to memory. Our focus has been on getting word for word accuracy of little bits of the Bible. And that’s fine as far as it goes. But what about “knowing” the Bible a different way? What about having the kind of familiarity with the Bible that would allow us to talk about it by referring to the internal structure of its books. This is not just vagueness and imprecision. This is the kind of knowledge that comes from giving something that is worthy the attention it deserves over time.

Impossible?

Why?

Why, if we can learn the arcane statistics of our favorite sports celebrity, if we can learn the intricacies of our computer’s software, if we can go on and on about the details of all our special interests, hobbies, businesses, etc., then why can’t we come to be intimately familiar with this collection of sacred writings?

The fact is, we can do this. We can learn the seven major sections of the first half of John’s gospel. The general whereabouts of the Jacob and Esau stories in Genesis. The church’s issues Paul responds to in I Corinthians. The order of the collection of Ezekiel’s prophecies to Israel, to the nations, and then his promise of hope and restoration. Etc. Then when it comes time to ponder the smaller sections of the Bible, or taking in our pastor’s sermon on one passage, we will have the ability to reflect on it based on that little piece’s place in the whole. We will know its context.

And when we hear somebody else versejacking (somebody else, because we don’t do it anymore, right?), we will at least have a chance to evaluate whether or not the meaning they are assigning that smattering of words is appropriate to what’s really happening in that section of the Bible.

Want to really know the Bible?

Forget chapters and verses, and re-discover the real beauty behind the mask.

-Glenn

Know the Bible? (Part 2)

2007-10-10T11:29:00.000-06:00

Luke, Matthew, Mark, John, Paul, Peter, Apollos, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Justin, Polycarp, Origen, a couple of Clements, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Athanasius, Augustine, Gregory, Jerome, Cyril, Basil, Ambrose, Anselm, Bernard, Wycliffe, Thomas a Kempis, Erasmus, Tyndale, Luther, and Calvin—just a few of the people who couldn’t study the Scriptures very well because they didn’t have the benefit of a shared, numbered chapter and verse system to navigate by.

And then there’s this fellow:

“He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me.”

Perhaps there’s more to Bible study than following a string of numbered references. Perhaps there’s another way to know the Bible.

-Glenn

De-versify.com

2007-10-03T10:34:00.000-06:00

Glenn's out this week at the Emergent Gathering, so he asked me to give a brief update on de-versify.com. The site is up and running, check it out and tell us what you think. The communities on Facebook and Myspace pages are growing bigger all the time. It's all pretty exciting.
As soon as we get everything in place, we'll start accepting entries for the worst chapter break contest. We're still deciding what to give the winner, but trust me, it'll be sweet. After that, we'll also do a worst verse break contest, so start making your list! We'll let you know right here as soon as it's ready.
Best of all, in my opinion, will be the "Tell Your Story" section. We'll blog the stories of people from all over as they encounter The Books of The Bible, small groups, churches, and individuals who are using it themselves and are giving it away to others. If you've got a story, send it our way at the contact page. We'd love to hear it.
For mo'betta Bible reading,
-p

Know the Bible?

2007-09-26T09:00:00.000-06:00

Next week we’ll begin a brief series of blogs on the topic of what it means to know the Scriptures.

I’ll start with a little story I picked up on another Bible blog. The author was making a point about the impracticality of a Bible without the chapter and verse numbers. He imagined a conversation that went something like this:

“I read this amazing passage today in John’s gospel. It changed my whole perspective.”
“Oh really? Where? I’d love to look that up and read it.”
“Oh, someplace in the middle somewhere.”

Real helpful.

So the idea here seems to be that “someplace in the middle somewhere” is all we have if we delete chapter and verse numbers, and obviously that’s not helpful.

What I hope to show over the next couple weeks is that this perspective on the only reasonable way to navigate the Bible is superficial, and in fact assumes that the Bible can’t really be known, or referenced, apart from the c&v system. But for now, here’s something to start pondering:

You have heard that it was said: “If you know the Bible, you’ll know the chapter and verse references.”

But I am proposing something new:

Know chapter & verse, no know the Bible.
No know chapter & verse, know the Bible.

Whoever has ears, let them hear.

-Glenn

This Bible Is Not For You

2007-09-18T10:24:00.000-06:00

If you already have your own copy of The Books of The Bible we sure hope you’re enjoying it as much as we are. Perhaps you’ve discovered a new kind of Bible reading experience. Maybe you’re even reading more each time you pick up the Bible, now that there are no artificial numbers in the text encouraging you to stop so soon. We know this is the case for some of you, because you’ve written in to tell us. We think this is all pretty great.

But that’s not really why we produced this Bible.

We’re a Bible society. The whole point, actually, for anything we do is supposed to be that new readers will discover the Scriptures. That’s why we give away a lot of Bibles outright. That’s also why we try our best to keep the cost of our Bibles down. Not so Christians can get a good deal on their own new Bible, but so that Christians can easily afford to give Bibles to other people.

And that’s the idea we had when we first started this project. We wanted a Bible that would be inviting to read, especially for those who haven’t read it before. So, give a Bible to someone who’s never read it. This one may surprise them, since it reads like a real book.

The Bible itself, of course, is a missional book. As we say in the introduction to The Books of The Bible: “. . . reading is a means of entering into the story. The Bible is an invitation to the reader to first view the world in a new way, and then to become an agent of the world’s renewal.”

In keeping with our motto: mo betta Bible outreach leading to mo betta Bible reading leading, ultimately, to mo people finding their places in the story of betta (i.e. new) creation in Messiah Jesus.

-Glenn

Spread the Word!

2007-09-12T10:29:00.001-06:00

Historically, the Bible society movement was founded on the belief that Bible distribution, leading to more and better Bible reading, would in turn lead to more and deeper evangelism (see my March 20, 2007 blog in the archives). A Bible society is not a commercial, competitive business venture. Anything that’s good for the Bible and for its readers is something we’d like to see spread. In this spirit, we are hopeful that others will freely borrow ideas from The Books of The Bible. We’d love for readers of all translations to have Bibles that invite them to move beyond snacking on Bible verses to eating whole books.

The history of the Bible shows that changes in formatting were introduced by those who copied, printed or published Bibles. There was no church council that met and mandated the additives. It’s quite appropriate for Bible publishers to be the ones who undo the changes that in fact hinder good Bible reading.

No doubt Bible readers have become used to many of these changes, even to unnecessarily rely on them. But it’s a sacred text that we are publishing. Our obligations go deeper than consumer preferences. Anyone who sells Bibles has the responsibility to lead Bible-buying markets well, not just follow them wherever they may go. As a publisher we have the power to shape expectations as well as meet them.

Here at IBS we’ve had our consciousness raised on this issue, largely because of our work on The Books of The Bible. We’ve come to believe that the first rule of Bible formatting should be: do no harm. The visual presentation of the text on the page should not obscure the Bible’s inherent literary forms. Additives should not distract from or disrupt continuous reading. We’re not perfect, but we are beginning to think this through. We hope to apply this thinking to more Bibles in the future, even Bibles that still have some of the additives. And, as I said above, we really would like to see this movement grow.

Here’s how you can help. In today’s market-oriented environment, publishers will listen when those who purchase Bibles speak. Simply contact the publisher of your favorite Bible translation and encourage them to consider producing their own editions without all the additives. Most publishers can be easily reached through the “Contact Us” section on their website.

Go ahead and speak up. Let’s challenge the dominant Bible-publishing paradigm.

De-Versify Now!

-Glenn

But is it practical? (Part 4)

2007-09-04T11:34:00.000-06:00

It has been asked how editions of the Bible without chapters and verses (and we hope to see many versions appear in this format) could be used in discussion groups whose members were all encouraged to bring their own different copies? Here are some observations and suggestions.

- The feedback we've been hearing from many people is that once they get their hands on a visually coherent presentation of the Scriptures, they simply don't want to go back to using a visually disintegrated one. Thus, even if they first get a copy of The Books of The Bible thinking it's going to be a "reading Bible," pretty soon they start taking it to church and Bible studies. And so practices will have to be adopted that will accommodate editions without chapters and verses in those contexts. Indeed, the process that will create them has already been initiated. It will be fascinating to watch this process unfold and see what practices develop. What might some of them be?

- If a member of a study would like to bring in a passage for consideration, this member could be asked to read the passage out loud, in its immediate literary context. Other members wouldn't have to take the time to turn to the passage themselves, if this would hold up the study and break the flow of discussion. Instead, they could check the passage in their own edition afterwards, and there could be a follow up the next week if necessary. (We don't need to limit our conversations about a particular point to one meeting only.)

- Many difficulties can be avoided through anticipation and preparation, such as I describe in the case of Scripture reading in worship services in "But Is It Practical? (Part 3)." For example, if a Bible study leader would like to bring in supporting passages to provide a wider canonical perspective on a given text under consideration, or to do a topical rather than an expository study, a list of passages could be sent out for participants to look up and consider in advance of the study.

No doubt other approaches will be developed in the future. Or perhaps they're already in use, in a living room near you.

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.

But is it practical? (Part 3)

2007-08-28T15:09:00.000-06:00

"Come on, now," I recently heard someone protest when they heard about The Books of The Bible, "if we get rid of chapters and verses, don't tell me the pastor's going to stand up and say, 'Everybody open to the place in John where Jesus changes the water into wine.' "

Well, I'm a pastor. And I'd love to have a congregation that was biblically literate enough to be able to do that. (I think many of our people actually could already.) I'd love for them all to be able to say to themselves, "Now John begins with the 'book of signs,' and changing the water into wine was the first sign, so it must be right . . . here." Hey, I'd even settle for them knowing this is recorded somewhere near the beginning of John. What is the goal of our preaching and teaching, if not to train our people in the word of God? How can we be content with such a low level of biblical literacy that we don't expect our people to be able to find things without following the numbers by rote?

But I'll bet things really aren't that bad. Let's do a little experiment. Everybody open to the place in Genesis where Joseph gets sold into slavery by his brothers. I'm not going to give you a chapter and verse reference. Just find the place, based on what you know about the book.

No, really, everybody open to the place in Genesis where Joseph gets sold into slavery by his brothers.

That wasn't so bad, was it? I'll bet it went something like this: "Abraham, too early . . . Jacob, too early . . . hey, here it is." You know your way around the Bible better than a lot of people are giving you credit for. We don't really need to keep using chapters and verses the way we have been in a lot of cases.

But beyond this, how often would it really be so hard to give notice of the sermon passage before the pastor stood up to preach? You pastors do prepare your sermons in advance, don't you? (Please tell me that you do.) Then aren't there a lot of ways besides chapters and verses to let people know what you're going to be preaching about, enough in advance that they can even prepare their own hearts and minds by reading and reflecting on the passage?

In my own church, I send an e-mail newsletter out to the congregation every Thursday. In it I always tell them what passage I'll be preaching from. Often I will provide the text of the whole passage in this e-mail. This newsletter also gets posted on our web site.

And in our bulletin, now that most of the people have their own copies of The Books of The Bible, we list the scripture lesson this way:

John 2:1-12

The Books of The Bible, p. 1743 ("On the third day a wedding took place . . .")

Yes, we still give the reference in "feet and inches," for those who haven't gone metric yet. But I have to tell you, people seem to be finding the lesson a lot faster with the page number and callout phrase than they used to by book, chapter and verse. It all feels pretty practical to me.

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.

But is it practical? (Part 2)

2007-08-21T07:40:00.000-06:00

Now that people are finding out about The Books of The Bible, I've been hearing them say things like, "This would be great for personal devotional reading, but I don't think it would really work well in groups." I've wondered exactly what they meant by this.

To be fair, let's assume that everybody in the group has a copy of The Books of The Bible. If they're studying a particular biblical book together, this will allow each of them to read all the way through it first, enjoyably and meaningfully, as the foundation for the group's discussions. How is that a problem?

I've had several other people say to me, in fact, "This is great, now I won't have to print out my own copies of the text without chapters and verses." Apparently there were all of these bootleg versions of the Bible being created out there to get around the problems of the customary presentation. Now you can all come in from the cold.

But what about when the group begins taking up individual passages within a book? You're in 1 Corinthians, for example, and talking about lawsuits between believers. Everybody opens to page 1523 and Paul's teaching is right there. In fact, it's now clearly set off from his next topic, Christians going to prostitutes. If you were taking a chapter-by-chapter approach, these two items would be thrown together instead. The night you tried to talk about them both, you'd probably have a pretty high-energy discussion, but it wouldn't be very coherent. In The Books of The Bible, on the other hand, you see clearly that you'll be taking about one subject this week and the other the next week. How is that a problem?

Perhaps what people actually mean when they say "I don't think it would work well in groups" is something like this. In devotional reading, you just pick up where you left off the last time. All you need is a bookmark. But in a group discussion, an idea may occur to you spontaneously that makes you want to direct the others to another place in the Bible that you think relates to the topic at hand. How do you get them there quickly, so that the discussion doesn't bog down? (And so that you don't lose your own train of thought!) Isn't it easier to say, "Turn to Matthew 5:39" than to have to say, "I think something else that relates to this is on page 1631. It's in the first paragraph. No, not that indented paragraph, the one right above it . . . ."

In other words, the real objection to using The Books of The Bible in groups seems to be that it doesn't allow us to cite passages spontaneously without regard to their context. With chapter and verse numbers eliminated, the only way to do that is to describe their position on the page. And that can be clumsy, even comical.

So we want to keep using the chapter-and-verse format in groups because it allows us cite passages without regard to their context? Now that really is a problem.

Wouldn't everyone in the group benefit much more if we said something like, "In the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus was contrasting the ways of the kingdom with religious tradition, he said something that I think relates to the lawsuits we've been talking about tonight. This is on page 1631. When Jesus told us to turn the other cheek, he also said, 'If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.' What do you think he meant by that?" By the time that last question has been asked, the others in the group will probably already have located the statement and will be considering it in its context.

Do you see what's going on here? Mo betta Bible reading. In groups.

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.

But is it practical? (Part 1)

2007-08-14T08:18:00.000-06:00

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.

Why would you do that? (Part 7: Always showing the text in one column)

2007-08-07T15:06:00.000-06:00

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 . . .