devoid of verse numbers and footnotes, so it reads less like a textbook.
February 19, 2018 6:12 PM   Subscribe

'Manuscripts' Encourages Readers To Approach The Bible Like A Novel [NPR] “But there's also been a surge of interest in engaging with the Bible in the same way you would a novel, free of footnotes and asides. That's the approach taken by the small team behind Manuscripts, a new version of the Bible in the form of individual pocket-sized volumes – the first of which are coming out this month after a successful crowdfunding campaign. "Our research showed us that people were often intimidated by how it's traditionally been presented; as one big book," says Manuscripts creative director Jacob Scowden. "We wanted to give an ease to it, and reemphasize the effectiveness of reading the Bible as individual books."”

• What Happens if You Package the Bible as a Novel Instead of a Textbook? [Slate]
“The reference-book approach has had its critics from the start. The 17th-century philosopher John Locke complained that verse divisions so “chop’d and minc’d” the sacred text that readers “take the Verses usually for distinct Aphorisms” rather than reading them as a whole. But only now have publishers begun in earnest to offer a radically different kind of Bible consumption experience. The concept is to present the Bible in a form that is meant to be consumed as a multicourse meal, not a “chop’d and minc’d” sampler platter. These “Reader’s Bibles” strip away footnotes, sidebars, and chapter and verse divisions; text typically appears in a single column and is formatted to represent each passage’s true genre, rather than making all the books look the same.”
• The Bible Gets a Makeover to Look More Like a Novel [Bustle]
“Despite being one of the most widely distributed books worldwide and America's reigning favorite book, only one in five Americans actually read the Bible regularly. Greene believes that the book's visual presentation may have something to do with it. He thinks that giving it a sleek, novel-like makeover might make people actually want to read it. And I’d have to agree with Greene — the 2,000-odd-page book is not the most approachable work of literature in terms of typography. Its thin, multi-columned pages and font that borders on microscopic give the Bible a dense, textbook-like feel and deliver a reading experience starkly different from that of a novel. [...] The novel-sized volumes also feature hand-sewn bindings, European-style rounded spines, and ribbon bookmarks. With these improvements, Greene hopes to give the Bible a sleek, novel-like feel and make the reading experience more like enjoying a short story collection and less like browsing a dense encyclopedia.”
posted by Fizz (63 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
Although I'm an atheist, I'm deeply and genuinely interested in the Bible. When times are difficult, I often recall verses that I did not know I knew -- for example, last week, it was Rev. 16:6. As a Bible Belter, the Bible is, to me, the language of sorrow, terror, and revenge, spoken in chapter and verse. Perhaps these editions could allow people to establish relationships with the book that aren't like that. (But should they? Well, that is a different question.)
posted by Countess Elena at 6:26 PM on February 19, 2018 [8 favorites]


I was familiar with the genre of “hipster reinvents shit kickstarters,” where some earnest millennial dude makes a supposedly way better, classier, more artisanal version of a random item everybody uses, and then does a kickstarter so they can sell that item at great expense to other hipsters.

But I did not expect to see one done about the Bible. Props for originality. Video is a classic of the genre as well. Enjoy your $63 paperback bible.
posted by edheil at 6:51 PM on February 19, 2018 [6 favorites]


Always been rather a fan of the Jefferson Bible, even as a Unitarian Universalist...
posted by jim in austin at 6:54 PM on February 19, 2018 [6 favorites]


But the minutae and the footnotes are where the "fun" resides. For instance, the promotional image in the NPR article shows Luke 12; In the third paragraph, we learn the price of sparrows. Through the footnotes (that is, in a "proper" NASB's footnotes), we learn that here "cent" is the translation of Greek "assaria", "the smallest of copper coins". Curiously, a little further down the chapter (verse 59 in traditional numbering), we encounter "you will not get out of [prison] until you have paid the very last cent", footnoted as "Gr lepton; i.e. 1/128 of a denarius". Now you've got a bunch of things to take you down a wikipedia k-hole, starting with greek currency as the topic.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 6:55 PM on February 19, 2018 [24 favorites]


Wasn't The Book like this? I never picked one up, but I remember the ads on tv in the '90s.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 6:56 PM on February 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


Yeah, there's nothing new about this concept, though to my recollection previous attempts have been more about the translation and paragraphs rather than stripping out the chapter and verse numbers themselves. Most Christians treat the Bible as a reference book and not something to just sit down and read.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:03 PM on February 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


I read The Book of Revelation once – I never wanted to read it again. I found it a sick text. Perhaps it's the occlusion of judgmental types, and the congruent occlusion of psyches, but there's something not quite right about Revelation. I feel it as an insemination of older, more primal verities into an as yet fresh dough of syncretism – the NeoPlatonists still kneading at the stuff of the messiah. The riot of violent, imagistic occurrences; the cabalistic emphasis on numbers; the visceral repulsion expressed towards the bodily, the sensual and the sexual. It deranges in and of itself, and sets the parameters, marshals the props, for all the excessive playlets to come. In its vile obscurantism is its baneful effect; the original language may have welded the metaphoric with the signified, the logos with the flesh, but in the King James version the text is a guignol of tedium, a portentous horror film.
- Will Self
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 7:09 PM on February 19, 2018 [17 favorites]


Mod note: A few deleted; as usual if you think this band sucks, just skip the post.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:13 PM on February 19, 2018 [17 favorites]


I'm going to do a remix of the Bible that's like a Borges story a la House of Leaves.
posted by gucci mane at 7:22 PM on February 19, 2018 [8 favorites]


The Message: The New Testament in Contemporary Language makes reading the Bible a relative breeze. It's almost a shock how modern and natural the language is. Not even remotely as dense as the King James version.
posted by zardoz at 7:23 PM on February 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


That's how we read it as a family when I was little. I remember begging Mom to let us stay up a little longer so we could find out what happened to Esther.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:28 PM on February 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


Although I'm an atheist, I'm deeply and genuinely interested in the Bible.

My father was agnostic, I *think.* One Saturday two young women came to our door. Although I couldn't hear all of what was said, I did hear one of them ask my father if he had read the Bible.

"Of course I have," he replied.

"Oh, so you are a student of the Bible?" She asked.

"No, but I enjoy a good fable now and again."

The conversation didn't last much longer.
posted by bz at 7:29 PM on February 19, 2018 [16 favorites]


Ctrl-F "Pocket Canons". Huh, no love for Canongate or Grove, who published sets of these back in the '90s?

More about the Pocket Canons series here and here.

Though, to be fair, I only remember these because Nick Cave wrote the introduction to the Book of Mark, and because, hey, interesting publishing idea!
posted by asperity at 7:31 PM on February 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


I wouldn't try to read the Bible without all of the supporting stuff. Heck, I wouldn't read it without some outside support. It's from long-gone cultures very foreign to our own - if you read it like a bestseller, you're pretty sure to misunderstand a lot of things.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:34 PM on February 19, 2018 [17 favorites]


There have been a few precedents. Richard Lattimore, a translator usually associated with Homer, produced a clean, readable New Testament. David Rosenberg approached the Tanakh as a book of many authors with distinct voices; his editing is very free, but the result is compelling.
posted by Iridic at 7:44 PM on February 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


I'd love to read the editorial notes.
- Plot needs work.
- A LOT of work needed on continuity.
- Motivations of this 'God' character seem very unclear.
- Character development requires more than just listing age of death.
- Why did all these children have to get killed by bears? It doesn't seem to advance the story. Gratuitous. Also, bears? In the middle East?
-It wasn't even fig season!? Isn't this guy meant to the hero?
- "Fishermen/fishers of men" line seems a bit on the nose.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:49 PM on February 19, 2018 [33 favorites]


Yeah, there's nothing new about this concept


nihil sub sole novum
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:20 PM on February 19, 2018 [15 favorites]


Slightly related: Review of David Bentley Hart's new translation of the New Testament:
Hart reminds us that, "One thing in startlingly short supply in the New Testament is common sense, and a commonsensical view of the early church is invariably the wrong one." His introduction explains that the New Testament "condemns personal wealth not merely as a moral danger, but as an intrinsic evil"...

There are any number of such points where Hart’' version illuminates the strangeness of the texts. "Makarios" is the word rendered "blessed" in the Authorised Version, as in "blessed are the poor in spirit". Subsequent translations have come up with "how happy are those who…" or "how fortunate" or "how blessed". However, he tells us that the original Greek is associated with the idea of divine blessedness, a special intensity of delight. He therefore chooses to express the idea as, "How blissful those who mourn, for they shall be aided." I do not find this sentence euphonious, literary, or comprehensible, but it does bring me up short, and that is the point of this book.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:47 PM on February 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


Also, bears? In the middle East?

Yep, they live there.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:48 PM on February 19, 2018 [14 favorites]


See also 2008’s The Bible Illuminated: THE BOOK, AKA the Bible packaged as an art/fashion magazine, complete with stylized art photography, lavish use of white space and mascara, and text in sans serif typefaces.

I owned THE BOOK New Testament at one point; for annoying verisimilitude, both the cover and pages were printed on thin glossy magazine paper that tore if you looked at it funny and couldn’t be shelved upright because it sagged under its own weight.
posted by nicebookrack at 9:27 PM on February 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


I'm not religious, but I recently got a copy of the Oxford study bible, and I love it. That said, I haven't sat down and read it in order, and I'm sure part of it is that the footnotes and numbers all over can make it sort of distracting. I never want to discount how much of a difference good typesetting can make. These look awfully expensive, though. Only the Gospels for $26?

The Message: The New Testament in Contemporary Language makes reading the Bible a relative breeze. It's almost a shock how modern and natural the language is. Not even remotely as dense as the King James version.

IIRC The Message gets some criticism because they took major liberties with the translation in order to make it sound modern. The parts I've seen do seem to have crossed the line from "making things more comprehensible" to "dramatically changing the meaning."
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 9:34 PM on February 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


Yaaaaawn...it's been done before. My parents' generation had The Living Bible, and mine spewed forth the New International Version, both of which are crap translations aimed at keeping the illiterate ignorant. Give me the annotated Oxford New Revised Standard Version any day; that's the gold standard.
posted by filthy_prescriptivist at 9:56 PM on February 19, 2018


I did basically the whole Old Testament in audiobook form at one point and what struck me was that I think there's a reason that stuff like this goes with the New Testament. A lot of the worst parts of the church are drawn from bits and pieces of the Old Testament that really only work if you don't take all of it as a whole in huge chunks, not just stories together but whole eras of history in the context of the time. Even there, I was following up a lot of the listening with Wikipedia dives, and I still barely scraped the surface.

I never considered the Gospels that hard to read, and I think most people have made it through at least those bits of the New Testament, but they're the first ones to get this treatment. It isn't really about making these things accessible to people who're already believers, it seems like, to me. It feels like it's about getting more people in, while still leaving the hard bits as incomprehensible as possible.
posted by Sequence at 10:10 PM on February 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


I wouldn't try to read the Bible without all of the supporting stuff

I think there's room in devotional life for both serious Bible study with all your references at hand and casual Bible reading where you just sit down and read through a book without looking anything up. These kinds of translations are totally appealing to me.
posted by gerstle at 10:31 PM on February 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


I would love to read a Bible with a magnitude of footnotes! Something that integrates the fun facts mentioned by the antecedent of that pronoun, with as much content as possible from a stand-alone companion book, such as the one Chrysostom linked to. With best scholarly guesses why certain parts were added or edited, when, to what purpose, what real life events may be referred to, etc. etc. etc.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I love the Oxford and Arden editions of Shakespeare plays and would love to know if there's something similar for the Bible? And what about the Quran?

Recommendations are highly appreciated, thanks! :)
posted by bigendian at 11:32 PM on February 19, 2018 [3 favorites]


Also, bears? In the middle East?

Yep, they live there.


This is good and cool to know. The more bears the better.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:40 PM on February 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


This thread has gone too long without a mention of God Is Disappointed In You.
posted by kreinsch at 12:18 AM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


My AP English Literature teacher in high school assigned us to read the Book of Job over the summer; I think it was so we could all have one biblical reference to pull in if we ever felt like we needed one.
posted by batter_my_heart at 12:29 AM on February 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


IIRC The Message gets some criticism because they took major liberties with the translation in order to make it sound mod The parts I've seen do seem to have crossed the line from "making things more comprehensible" to "dramatically changing the meaning."ern.

Didn't a lot of the translation choices for the King James Bible end up having a subtle but significant influence on the way it was interpreted? I read someone discussing that topic, but, uselessly, can't remember where.
posted by entity447b at 1:34 AM on February 20, 2018


Also, bears? In the middle East?
Weird synchronicity. Someone I work with just sent me this link
posted by Hal Mumkin at 3:39 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


If you actually read the Bible as a linear narrative, the central character starts out as a creative type prone to violent temper tantrums & mass murder. He’s racist, homophobic, petty, vindictive, and often cruel. Like most narcissists, he spends a lot of time upbraiding and punishing others for acting just like him. For reasons left unexplored, lots of people love him and shower him with gifts and affection and even write poems about him. He has a kid about 2/3 the way through the plot, who seems pretty cool and well-adjusted considering who his father is, but he lets that kid get executed on false charges, doing nothing to prevent it. The book ends with him returning to his old pattern of violent temper tantrums and mass murder.

I feel like Paul Thomas Anderson should do the movie.
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:53 AM on February 20, 2018 [22 favorites]


RE: bible literacy

The textbook "Understanding the Bible" by Stephen Harris is really great. It gives you a nice mix of the stories, the social context and the historical record. Me (non-religious) and my mom (catholic) had some great conversations that were inspired by reading it together.
posted by laptolain at 7:35 AM on February 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


I was brought up on the KJV, and it's still what I prefer when I have occasion to read anything from the Bible. I don't claim that it's objectively superior in any way, but I've personally never found it lacking, either. And it's just so pretty.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:57 AM on February 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


bigendian: I would love to read a Bible with a magnitude of footnotes!

I’d recommend The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas edited by Willis Barnstone. It’s a new translation from Greek by a comparative literature scholar and is magnificent. The footnotes aren’t as in-depth as the Oxford Companion , but there are lots of editorial notes and contextualizing essays, plus he renders the Book of Revelation into blank verse which is pretty dope.
posted by donatella at 8:20 AM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


See also Bibliotheca, the whole Bible as five normal-sized books. Crowdfunded, of course.
posted by madcaptenor at 8:22 AM on February 20, 2018


Wonderful, thank you so much, donatella!
posted by bigendian at 8:49 AM on February 20, 2018


I think I'll make a bible where all the misogyny and misogyny-motivated crap translations are removed, and remove all gendered references to God. Fortunately, I'll save a TON on printing and paper. Don't worry, it'll still be $65.
posted by SinAesthetic at 8:49 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


> Also, bears? In the middle East?

Yep, they live there.

This is good and cool to know. The more bears the better.


I disagree. Too many bears. Should have dialed back on the bears.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 8:50 AM on February 20, 2018


eustacescrubb, make it Wes Anderson and we have a deal.
posted by SinAesthetic at 8:52 AM on February 20, 2018


The Brick Testament, a Bible illustrated with LEGO blocks. (Definitely not for children. There's a separate kid's edition with no sexual content and limited violence.)
posted by fuse theorem at 8:55 AM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


As a bald person, I approve of Middle-Eastern bears.


It should also be noted that, at the time when the Books of Kings were likely composed (7th to 6th century BCE), the region was much more heavily forested. In fact, during the millennium before the birth of Jesus, deforestation resulting from timber harvesting for things like shipbuilding likely contributed to the development of the semi-arid to arid ecosystem we find today. So, if anything, there were more forests and more bears back then.

And KJV or GTFO

posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:07 AM on February 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


So, if anything, there were more forests and more bears back then.

Human-caused climate change is in the Bible. Don’t tell the evangelical right...
posted by eustacescrubb at 9:26 AM on February 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


So hipster, the original writers were doing it before these guys.
(Kinda ironic, no?)

That said, it does bother me, this continued decontextualization. It's bad enough that so many churches pretend the way they thought back then or the society they lived in was anything like the modern world, but now to have texts made that explicitly are designed to further remove the context.

Oh well.

That said, when I was a kid, the Bible I remember most is one called "The Greatest Is Love" (Probably NIV translation) I think it was a paperback, and it had this dark purple/violet/fuschia type color background with the shadow of a kid or parent and kid or... something. Anybody remember anything like that? I've tried to find pictures online of that, but can't find it, which is a shame.

NRSV for life.
posted by symbioid at 9:39 AM on February 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


I guess what I'm trying to say is that I love the Oxford and Arden editions of Shakespeare plays and would love to know if there's something similar for the Bible? And what about the Quran?

I don't know if there's something more in-depth, but the Oxford Study Bible is the one I've come across in academic settings, and it seems to be the gold standard for scholarly bibles. TONS of fascinating footnotes, and the translation (New Standard Revised Version) is great, with lots of attention to detail. (For example, the Old Testament is called the Hebrew Bible so that it reflects its origins and continuing use as a Jewish text. Gendered pronouns were reworked because many had previously been translated as masculine when the original text used a gender neutral pronoun, but they also worked hard to preserve the language of a patriarchal society. Really interesting stuff.)

Also, I haven't read it personally, but there's a new study Quran that's supposed to be very good, which also has tons of notes and analysis, along with what is supposed to be a very good translation.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 10:13 AM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


Also, books by Robert Alter are worth mentioning. The Art of Biblical Narrative was recommended to me by people on this site, and it's a really in-depth analysis of the text.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 10:17 AM on February 20, 2018


There's also the New Oxford Annotated Bible, which I believe is well regarded. The text is the NRSV.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:21 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh yeah, whoops, that's what it's actually called. It's the New Oxford Annotated Bible. I don't think there is a book called the Oxford Study Bible, that's just what I've always called it in my head.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 10:45 AM on February 20, 2018


There is one called that, but I *think* it's basically an older version of the Annotated.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:00 AM on February 20, 2018


bigendian: I would love to read a Bible with a magnitude of footnotes!

Someone on Metafilter pointed me to Asimov's Guide to the Bible, which is basically 100% footnotes. (Yes, that Asimov). It is absolutely fascinating.

For example, it brings up the theory that when we read that X killed his brother Y and took his wives, what really happened was that the tribes X and Y were allies, but then one tribe wiped the other out. It also goes into the difficulties the Israelites had conquering the land after they came back from Egypt, as they probably only had bronze weapons and the tribes in the land had iron-age tech.
posted by Triplanetary at 12:25 PM on February 20, 2018


The only Bible study guide I need is Ken's Guide to the Bible, which includes a handy iconography to see the bits where there are things like: weird shit, misogyny, family values, and Jesus urging people to eat.

(Well, maybe not the only one, but it is entertaining...)
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:34 PM on February 20, 2018


I think Asimov's has been a bit dated by more recent scholarship (he wrote it in the late 60s), but it's very readable.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:36 PM on February 20, 2018


Someone on Metafilter pointed me to Asimov's Guide to the Bible, which is basically 100% footnotes. (Yes, that Asimov). It is absolutely fascinating.

Asimov's Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan is similarly thorough.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:40 PM on February 20, 2018


asperity, I didn't give it enough context but the Will Self piece which I linked and excerpted above is from his introduction to the UK Pocket Canon Revelations. I never laid hands or eyes on the other ones, but having seen your linked list will definitely have to go fish round Amazon for Doris Lessing's take on Ecclesiastes.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 1:59 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


Asimov's Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan

...how did I not know of this book's existence until just now? Sadly, I can't seem to find it online for less than £60. Oh, but wait--I have free university interlibrary loan privileges through work. Huzzah!
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:07 PM on February 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


That said, when I was a kid, the Bible I remember most is one called "The Greatest Is Love" (Probably NIV translation) I think it was a paperback, and it had this dark purple/violet/fuschia type color background with the shadow of a kid or parent and kid or... something. Anybody remember anything like that? I've tried to find pictures online of that, but can't find it, which is a shame.

Is this the one, symbioid? It is definitely fuchsia.
posted by betafilter at 2:19 PM on February 20, 2018


Asimov was a big G&S fan, he even wrote a short story in which their work is a critical plot point.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:35 PM on February 20, 2018


Oh, but wait--I have free university interlibrary loan privileges through work. Huzzah!


THE JAPANESE EQUIVALENT FOR "HEAR, HEAR, HEAR!"
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:01 PM on February 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


But the minutae and the footnotes are where the "fun" resides.

I spent maaaaaany hours in church as a teenager reading through the endnotes in my Bible, tuning out the preaching, looking for something interesting, flipping back and forth between footnote and verse. It made me look extremely pious and was a great way to make the time pass quicker.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 1:01 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


> Gendered pronouns were reworked because many had previously been translated as masculine when the original text used a gender neutral pronoun
Since I'm a Hebrew speaker, I was trying to figure out what gender-neutral pronoun might appear in the original text that leads to be possibility of a gendered pronoun in English, and only after a good while did I realize you might mean in translation from some other language.
posted by cardioid at 5:45 AM on February 21, 2018


I can see this working for the gospels, the letters, the "historical" books, and even the more poetic sections like the psalms and some of the prophets, but how on earth does this work for things like Deuteronomy and Numbers?
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 6:44 AM on February 21, 2018


As long as they don't try this with the Talmud, I think I'm okay with it.
posted by epanalepsis at 1:24 PM on February 21, 2018


I can see this working for the gospels, the letters, the "historical" books, and even the more poetic sections like the psalms and some of the prophets, but how on earth does this work for things like Deuteronomy and Numbers?

If their goal is to present information in a modern-human-readable way, then maybe some of this stuff is best expressed as tables and charts.
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 7:20 AM on February 23, 2018


That's basically how they handled it on OMGWTFBIBLE, a podcast where they read and discussed the Torah. It seemed to me that they started the podcast with the attitude that they were going to irreverently make fun of the inconsistencies and wackiness in the books, but the Jewish community they were part of responded to this not by getting angry, but by being like "Y'know, it's interesting you bring this up. Here's what some medieval scholars thought about what you're saying..." and that ended up defusing a bunch of the irreverence, and the end result was that it was just fascinating instead.
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 7:25 AM on February 23, 2018


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