Better Off Red: Red Bibles ... An All-Too-Rare Classic

RedstackCall me crazy, but I have a thing for red. It's the new black. In fact, as much as I love black, I wish everything that came in black also came in a nice, bright red. Imagine how cool a red Moleskine notebook would be. Well, a red Bible is cool, too. And what's more, it's a classic, albeit an all too rare one. This isn't a diatribe on how all Bibles should be red; it isn't a screed against narrow-minded publishers who can't bring themselves to do the right thing and produce red leather bindings. Instead, it's a tribute, an homage to one of my favorites. In the photograph here, I've assembled a stack of red Bibles (with a Book of Common Prayer thrown in for good measure). Let's take a look.Starting from the bottom and working our way up: first, we have a nice Cambridge large-print KJV bound in top grain cowhide. I picked this one up in the late nineties at a Dublin cathedral. For my taste, there's a little too much purple in the red -- veering toward the dreaded "burgundy" -- but the cover is flexible and the type easy to read (if a little old fashioned). On top of that one, we have a smaller Cambridge KJV Cameo reference edition bound in French Morocco. As you can see from the photograph, this Bible sports an unusual finish, as if it couldn't make up its mind to between black and red -- or like a red Bible that fell off the back of the truck and got a good, even coat of tar for its trouble. I don't see them around as much anymore, but it used to be possible to find curious oddities like this by searching through a stack of Cambridge Bibles at the bookseller.

J. MARK BERTRAND

J. Mark Bertrand is a novelist and pastor whose writing on Bible design has helped spark a publishing revolution. Mark is the author of Rethinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World (Crossway, 2007), as well as the novels Back on Murder, Pattern of Wounds, and Nothing to Hide—described as a “series worth getting attached to” (Christianity Today) by “a major crime fiction talent” (Weekly Standard) in the vein of Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin, and Henning Mankell.

Mark has a BA in English Literature from Union University, an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston, and an M.Div. from Heidelberg Theological Seminary. Through his influential Bible Design Blog, Mark has championed a new generation of readable Bibles. He is a founding member of the steering committee of the Society of Bible Craftsmanship, and chairs the Society’s Award Committee. His work was featured in the November 2021 issue of FaithLife’s Bible Study Magazine.

Mark also serves on the board of Worldview Academy, where he has been a member of the faculty of theology since 2003. Since 2017, he has been an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. He and his wife Laurie life in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

http://www.lectio.org
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