The Books of the Bible Bible

by Joe Thorn on January 8, 2008

I am spending some time reading The Books of the Bible, a very interesting production of the Scripture by the International Bible Society. The goal was to present the Scripture is a more readable way by returning it to a format that reflects the biblical authors’ intention. From the website:

  • chapter and verse numbers are removed from the text (a chapter-and-verse range is at the bottom of each page)
  • individual books are presented with the literary divisions that their authors have indicated
  • footnotes, section headings and other supplementary materials have been removed from the text (translators’ notes are available at the back of each book)
  • the books of the Bible have been placed in an order that provides more help in understanding, based on literary genre, historical circumstance and theological tradition
  • single books that later translations or tradition divided
    into two or more books are made whole again
    (example: Luke-Acts)
  • single-column setting that clearly and naturally presents the
    literary forms of the Bible’s books

It’s TNIV (I am not a big fan for all the reasons many of you could guess), but I dig the format. Worth checking out for personal reading. The website has sample books available as PDFs.

{ 3 comments }

1 David January 8, 2008 at 4:38 pm

I love this project.
I bring mine to church every Sunday to follow along with the teaching. I think my biblical literacy is actually increasing in the absence of verse and chapter markers.

2 David January 9, 2008 at 12:16 pm

Someone make this using the ESV, and I am all over it

3 Chuck January 10, 2008 at 10:21 am

How are you liking the TNIV? I have tended to find it more literal than the NIV and more to my liking in many ways. I find I read the TNIV and ESV the most recently and switch back and forth in an irrational manner.

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