Bibliotheca - A New Way to Read the Bible

[Coír Draoi Ceítien]

Have you ever thought that the Bible was too hard to read, for one reason or another? I can say that I certainly have. It feels more like a textbook, with its layout of verses and cross-references, and I have to admit that, as interesting as they can be, some of the supplementary material in it (commentaries and discussions found in various versions) can be quite distracting, breaking me out of the narrative. My eyes are always going around the place. I'm less inclined to pick up a Bible than I am a novel or regular nonfiction book.

It would seem that a guy named Adam Lewis Greene feels similarly, and he has set up a solution through Kickstarter. Called Bibliotheca, the project seeks to present the Bible as a narrative only, stripping it down to a bare-bones text based on the American Standard Version (trying to get as close a meaning to the original Hebrew/Greek text as possible). It's set up on a custom-made font and printed on high quality paper, split into four volumes to replicate the state of the Bible before its present day organization. As of this writing, it's been funded but still remains in the physical development stage. How long it will be available, I don't know, but I think that it's worth thinking about.

There's always a place for a Bible arranged just as it is now, and I wouldn't think of belittling it altogether, but as an experimental alternative and for those who simply want to enjoy the story itself, this is a noteworthy endeavor, and I'll seriously consider whether I want a part of this.

Information can be found here: http://www.bibliotheca.co/#about

[Raven]

   So, is this version removing text deemed by this person to not be necessary to the narrative? If that's the case, I'm not as much into the idea, but I also think there's a place for version that reformat the Bible visually. The whole number system can be really foreign to people, I suppose. It also is very necessary in navigating such a large book.
    I think some parts of the Bible definitely read easier than others as far as narrative, but the Bible is a multi-genre collection containing history, genealogy, poetry, proverb collections, legal writings, philosophical and theologic treatise, biography,  correspondence, prophetic vision -- can't read it all the same way. I don't approach reading poetry the same way I do history or biography, for example. The Bible covers a wide scope of literary genres and in a sense I think that correlates with its coverage of the scope of human experience.
      I tend to skip through the book of Numbers, for example, but I think all parts of the Bible are necessary. I've heard stories about people getting saved because of the genealogies and how God spoke to them through that about mortality or the real human experience of Jesus.
      There are also different traditions and practices of reading scripture. For example, Lectio Divina is a practice of reading scripture slowly and meditatively, often repeating the same verse again and again to meditate on its meaning. It can be a very effective way to read scripture that doesn't involve having to cover a lot of ground, textually.

Again, I think it can be a worthwhile project, reformatting things, so long as we don't pick and choose what we think is important and what isn't.

What are your favorite parts of scripture and which parts do you find difficult?

I really enjoy the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, the books of Samuel and Chronicles, the Gospel of John, the book of Revelation, and a number of the epistles including 1 John and the Timothys.
Nehemiah is also one I've liked more reading it in more recent times.

[Coír Draoi Ceítien]

No, I don't think he means that it's all just story related stuff only. You know all those footnotes in the Bible - the stuff usually on the bottom of the page and sometimes running down the middle? How there's sometimes comments in the middle of a page and articles and essays that take up others? Sure, those are quite useful, but I think they're also distracting.

From what I can gather, if you've watched the video on the site, all the text of the Bible is being kept just as it is. It's the concordance and verse numbering that they're eliminating - just words and page numbers is all there is. Also, you may notice that the four volumes are specifically arranged - "The Five Books (a.k.a. the Pentateuch) and the Former Prophets", "The Latter Prophets", "The Writings" and "The New Testament." It's the format that he's changing, not the text itself. He's making it more like an ordinary book for ease of reading.

Again, there's a use for the traditional Bibles, but this could be more suited to get the attention of a casual reader - which is a good start!

As for my favorite parts of the Bible.....I haven't thought about it that much. I'll have to get back to you on that.