Build a Better Bible

Leah Lebresco mentions an attempt to find a more readable Bible (physically readable, that is). This leads me to mention an already created more readable Bible, or at least the gospels. Here is a review from the Bible Design Blog of Chad Whitacre’s The Gospels.

As you flip through the Whitacre Gospels (for lack of a better title), you’re stuck by how novel-like the layout is. If it weren’t for those numbers along the inner margin, you could be reading pretty much anything.

Which is the point. Chad’s experience leading Bible studies plays a factor in the choices he makes. Having used The Books of the Bible, he appreciates the value to readers of an uncluttered experience of the text. We’re accustomed to the books we read looking a certain way, and when they do, we don’t really notice what they look like. The painstaking design choices disappear, leaving us alone with the text.

But in a group setting, you want everyone to be able to find the right spot in the text, so Chad steps back from TBOTB’s approach to chapter and verse numbering to adopt the NEB’s method. Whether you agree or not with the choices he’s made, it becomes clear that Chad has given each one some thought.