Holy. Now where’s the Koran Magazine?

Quite a nice design. Other Bibles like The Message and The Story have geared themselves towards actually reading vs. looking up verses in church, but the addition of photos, pull quotes and the magazine feel seem oriented towards making the Bible more approachable.

I do like how The Story includes (parts of) the Old Testament as well, it is abridged though, so it doesn’t give the gospels from 4 angles.

What’s with the “3 pack holy family set?” Is that a picture? Something that comes with the Bible?

/ducks from onslaught of pestilence, famine, disease,war

jk I can see where some might be upset at altering the Bible but it is funny now that I see it, eliminating the verses format is really good

For some quick background: Neither chapters nor verses were original to the Bible (or punctuation for that matter – Biblical Hebrew and Greek didn’t have punctuation). Chapters and verses were added by later editors during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries to make it easier to look things up.

Small correction, it is not the best selling bible on Amazon. It might be a best selling Christian reference book (which is where Amazon categorizes it). Even then at Amazon.com Sales Rank #1,806 in Books, it is behind Bibles such as “The Green Bible” at #950 in Books.

The title is (deliberately?) misleading—it’s not actually illuminated at all, and there’s a common meaning for that word, particularly in the context of classic texts. Either foolish or fiendish.

I also have problems with the whole pre-highlighting thing., which amounts essentially to pre-interpretation I don’t think we should celebrate the fact that so many people seek, essentially, a digest, but I guess that’s a secondary comment.

This reminds me of the woman on 60 minutes this week who was explaining that she didn’t have time to investigate the 13 houses she was buying, because it wasn’t her real job.

BTW, I think these little posts are quite nice, but I think their titles (imgname-1212932948904.png) are horrendous.

It’d be simple to trim the number string and make that the title variable, for a start. Would look much nicer on a desktop manager/browser window.

+1 to GeeIWonder’s comments.

Also, do we really need to emulate magazines to get people to read the bible? Surely the print world can offer something better than that?

From Mike:

“Chapters and verses were added by later editors during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries to make it easier to look things up.”

This is definitely an understatement. The Bible was meant to be read and studied…not flipped through and grazed over like a National Geographic magazine. I’m all for making real-world connections between Biblical times and now…but this is just silly.

I am not really a fan of 3 columns per page book. However, if the size is substantial for book reading and other projects – why not,?”

If it gets more bums-on-seats at the local holy house then its a success. Christianity has sucessfully used gimickry for centuries to spread its message. The church does have a very strong brand though.

CJ Curtis – Why would you be ‘for making real-world connections between Biblical times and now’ ? If you picked up a National Geographic you might make real-world connections with the real world instead. A lot more practical and fun for humanity.

Chris:

Most people believe there is a God…I am one of them. I know a lot of people don’t and that’s their business. But things like the “Illuminated Bible” blur the lines between the two.

There are thousands of great books out there that attempt to make the Bible easier to understand and that’s great. But people, companies or churches that use what you refer to as “gimickry” to sell religion are, in my opinion, more confused about their beliefs than someone that simply denies that God exists at all.

Anyone who refers to the Bible as “sensationalistic” is missing the point, and obviously hasn’t spent a lot of time studying it. For the sake of argument, forget about the issue of whether the Bible is explicitly true. It still stands alone as the most incredible collection of books ever written.

CJ Curtis – Sincerely no agression intended. I agree that the Bible ranks amongst the greatest literature of all time and that this trash will do nothing except a diservice to it. I find it very difficult to take seriously.

Suppose that I shouldn’t judge a book by its jpeg though..

Chris:

None taken…or intended. You know what they say…the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I think this is a good example.