Can A Reader’s Bible Be Your Only One?
In an earlier piece, I argued that the defining characteristic of a true Reader’s Bible is the omission of verse numbers in the text. Given that absence, can you rely on a Reader’s Bible as your only one, or is it doomed to be a specialty edition?
So many readers are searching for the One. Few of us set out to collect Bibles. The logic and utility of multiple editions is an acquired taste. You accumulate a bunch of copies, people start asking what’s wrong with you, and you come up with an apologetic that makes it sound like you never imagined there was just one Bible that would do, as if you’d embarked on the journey knowing that the end result would be a library of editions. Be honest with yourself for a moment: at the beginning, didn’t you have a vision of the One? Didn’t you dream of a perfect Bible, a single edition you could hold in your hand and be utterly satisfied, a friend to carry day by day the rest of your life? For a lot of us, that’s how it started. And if you’d asked us — myself included — in, say, 2005 whether the One might not have cross references or subheadings or even verse numbers in the text, we would have been appalled. “Don’t you get it? The One has everything.”
And this, in a nutshell, is why you have never found the One. Because there is no edition that can contain everything, and the desire to pack it all in makes whatever it does have worse. Ironically, we could never find the One until we gave up on having it all. The thing that red-pilled us was the Bible app on our phones. The apps started out quite primitively. They looked terrible. To love an app, you’d have to be the kind of heartless automaton who cannot sense beauty in either form or function. But that changed, and as the apps got better and better, and you felt less awkward relying on them, what you wanted from the One started to change, too. The One didn’t need to include everything. That was the App’s job. Instead, the One just needed to do its single job beautifully. The question is, what job? For me the answer has always been reading. The perfect printed Bible in the age of Apps is the one that focuses on the tactile experience of deep reading.
At this point, I tend to lose people. It sounds like I’m saying a Reader’s Bible could work as your only Bible, and that’s crazy. How would you find passages? How would you look things up? Sure, it makes sense to have one. It’s perfect to keep by your bedside or your favorite chair, perfect to savor with a cup of morning coffee. But if you’re carrying a printed Bible out into the real world, surely it still needs all that stuff in the margins. And if you’re teaching or preaching from it, the need intensified considerably. Doesn’t it?
For the past two or three years, I have been using a Reader’s Bible as my main edition. I say main rather than only because I am hopelessly down the rabbit hole of consulting multiple copies constantly. A variety of different translations and formats are being constantly consulted in my world … but only the ESV Reader’s Bible is being used. It’s the main edition I’ve relied on. The copy I have is the excellent edition put out by R. L. Allan bound in limp mid-brown goatskin. Inside it’s the same as all the others, this one just feels so much nicer.
Perhaps the best way to answer the question of whether this could work for you is ask, “What have I missed?” Because there are things I’ve missed. Let me run down the list of things I have always or sometimes missed when using the ESV Reader’s Bible, and also some things I have never missed.
I have always missed:
The nice binding, which is why I opted for the R. L. Allan version. The Reader’s Bible is a beautiful design that merits a binding of such quality, and I don’t think I could have made as full a commitment as I have without the Allan option.
The compact size, because I like smaller, hand-sized Bibles and all the currently available Reader’s Bibles tend to be on the larger side. Not huge, but not exactly compact, either. When I want something more portable, I have to leave this pleasant pasture.
I have sometimes missed:
The verse numbers, though not as often as you’d think. Those headers really orient you. Occasionally, though, I wish I could pick out a particular verse more easily — particularly when preaching. Still, it isn’t as big a challenge as I feared. You know the joke about adults being surprised that childhood dreads like quicksand aren’t as common in the real world as we’d imagined? That’s how I feel about the verse numbers: it would be nice to have them from time to time, but I’ve never missed them enough to go back.
Section breaks and headings. Like a Bolshevik nostalgic for private property, I realize the irony here. I’ve campaigned to get all the extra clutter out of the text, but at the same time, as a reader I appreciate the eye relief a section break provides, not to mention the sense of forward progress.
I have never missed:
Verse-per-line formatting, even when preaching. I know the argument for keeping this option alive is that it helps impromptu preachers pick out a text with greater ease, but that’s not how I preach, and the sacrifices are too great for the benefit. I don’t resent anyone else feeling otherwise, but for me it’s a case of good riddance.
Double columns. The advantage of these is packing more text on the page, and that’s not something I want as a reader.
Cross references, because I rely almost entirely on digital Bibles for this sort of thing.
My goal is not to convince you one way or another. It’s just to acknowledge that, like you, I was skeptical — skeptically optimistic, let’s say — and that experience has shown me that a Reader’s Bible can function as the One, at least to the extent that any edition can. Could a different version of a Reader’s Bible serve my needs better? Absolutely. But what I have is close enough for contentment, and given how unlikely that seemed just a few years ago, I will definitely take it.
