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The Holy Book Which Is a Book: On the Quest to Publish a Readable English Bible.

For more than two centuries, publishers and critics have tried to design an English Bible that would be easy to hold and a delight to read. This essay tracks various attempts to design such a bible, beginning with early nineteenth-century printings that sought to declutter the bible page and to brea...

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Published in:Religion & the Arts Vol. 26; no. 1/2; pp. 165 - 184
Main Author: Gibson, Richard Hughes
Format: Article
Published: Brill Academic Publishers 2022
Subjects:
Bible
Printing
Bibliotheca (Book)
Old Testament
Alter, Robert
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        au: Gibson, Richard Hughes
        affil: Wheaton College, USA, Wheaton, IL
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        Bible
        Printing
        Bibliotheca (Book)
        Old Testament
        Alter, Robert
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          Bible
          Printing
          Bibliotheca (Book)
          Old Testament
          Alter, Robert
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      ab: For more than two centuries, publishers and critics have tried to design an English Bible that would be easy to hold and a delight to read. This essay tracks various attempts to design such a bible, beginning with early nineteenth-century printings that sought to declutter the bible page and to break the thick book into multiple volumes, before turning to early calls to revise the Authorized Version (a.k.a. the King James Version) so that it would be easier for modern audiences to comprehend. The latter half of the essay examines two recent efforts to reform the English Bible physically and textually, Adam Lewis Greene's Bibliotheca (2016) and Robert Alter's The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (2018), arguing that each makes important strides toward producing the long-awaited "readable Bible."
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    language: English
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