New Bible; Happy, Quirky Me

The mailman just brought my order: two nifty black ESV Journaling Bibles. Yay. One’s for my son, who has not possessed his own since the children’s story version of years ago. The other’s replacing my bulky, narrow-margined NASB as the one I can tote about and make notes in that don’t slant sideways off in hinter corners of the text.

Thanks, Mark Bertrand, for bringing up the Moleskine idea to Crossway Publishers and for posting details about their finished product. I wanted my son, who’s become quite a note-taker recently when things strike him as interesting, to have a neat-looking, functional good book. The price on Amazon made our dual-purchase possible.

I didn’t realize how small the print would be, even after viewing a picture. My aging eyes will be challenged a bit. But they’re not that far gone, especially since the optometrist started me with one contact’s prescription set for reading and the other for distance (the problem will come when I need trifocals--no third eye!).

I must ask at this point--and these following comments would be directed to Crossway, not J. M. Bertrand, yet still I’m wondering aloud to Christians in general--why the Christianesey introductions? What makes us have to say (“Introduction to the Journaling Bible”, p. i), “The book you are holding in your hands is a living, breathing book”? Do we hope for visions of a Harry Potter story to ensue? Later the reader reads (“What the Bible is All About”, p. vi), “What you have in your hands right now is a supernatural book. The words of this book are God’s own words, His own personal revelation of Himself to us. Here in the Bible we encounter God and come to know His amazing love for us.” Spooky.

Why not say, “Here’s the Bible. If you haven’t read one before, be advised it is a difficult book to understand, as are most translations of texts from ancient times. You’d do well to ask questions of someone who’s studied large portions of the Bible a while and who is committed to getting at the heart of the authors’ intended meanings. Such careful study is especially important with this book Christians consider holy and inspired directly, uniquely, by God. Give it a reasonable chance with your mind and heart, and you may get a glimpse of why so many people believe what Jesus believed, that the words of the Bible reveal important, true things God wanted us to know.”

Maybe that’s not any better a way to introduce it. Just sounds less ethereal or something to me. But I won’t complain further--I really like this package and am eager to get to know the new version.