Whether large print, cause marketing or iPhone apps, there’s always another way to do the Bible. Although publishers note that bookstores are struggling, which affects Bible sales, “new editions and translations are still wildly popular,” says Dan Rich, David C. Cook’s senior v-p and publisher. In a publishing world short on upbeat announcements, that’s good news.

Although no new major translations are coming out this year, publishers are reformatting, refreshing and redoing the tried and true in new formats. Even color gets consideration, as Kevin O’Brien, director of Bibles and Bible reference at Tyndale, observes: “We have seen sales of burgundy-bonded Bibles, once the mainstay binding, drop significantly.... Pink is always hot, and so are browns.”

Pink is especially hot this year, with cause-related marketing intersecting Bible publishing. HarperOne just published The Pink Ribbon Bible, a thinline compact edition, and NavPress went to a third printing of The Message//REMIX: Solo (Pink Edition), a devotional Bible using Eugene Peterson’s popular paraphrase of the Bible. For both editions, a portion of proceeds go to fight breast cancer.

What Readers Want

Consumers are demanding bargains; there is “extreme sale price pressure on text and reference Bibles,” O’Brien says. In September, Zondervan announced a new collection of 12 Bibles, some first-time editions and some repackaged, to be available exclusively at Wal-Mart through January. Price points begin at $14.99, and the Bibles are also distinctive for being carbon neutral.

Consumers want more than just scripture; they want help understanding what they read. At Thomas Nelson, senior v-p and Bible group publisher Wayne Hastings says that people “love to study the Bible” and cited the success of Nelson’s Chronological Study Bible (2008) and Expanded New Testament (Aug.) as proof. “Our average customer owns eight Bibles,” Hastings adds. Nelson also offered The Expanded Bible New Testament for download from NelsonBibles.com this past May; “50% of site visitors during that time downloaded the file,” Hastings says.

At Oxford University Press, customers are asking for more large-print Bibles. Marketing manager Brian Hughes says. “Since 1996, we’ve had an Old Scofield Study Bible, King James Version, Large Print Edition that’s done extremely well. In the last three years, we’ve expanded the large-print line to include the New American Bible, New International Version, and the Revised Standard Version—Catholic Edition.” The need for large print, he adds, is twofold: ease of reading and pulpit use.

Big print can also come in a small volume, as Baker Publishing Group’s GOD’S WORD Personal Size Giant Print edition of the GOD’S WORD translation proves (Sept.) A promotion of the translation included an audio giveaway in September, where customers visited gods-wordtranslation.org and downloaded GOD’SWORD Heard! version of the New Testament, regularly $14.98, for free.

Beyond Cultural Boundaries

David C. Cook is testing the specialty Bible publishing waters for the first time, mining the wisdom of popular Christian author Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe’s 50-book commentary series to create The Transformation Study Bible (Sept.) in the New Living Translation. “Wiersbe’s commentary has proven to be quite popular worldwide—he is well received in China, Cuba and India, for example,” notes Rich. “His explanations are very accessible and not culturally centric.”

Tyndale House Publishers, the “mother ship” for the New Living Translation, released Holy Bible: Mosaic in September, which offers contemporary and historical writings from such diverse authors as Augustine of Hippo, John Donne, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Henri Nouwen in addition to the New Living Translation text. “Each week has a theme that is appropriate to the church season and includes Bible readings, art, contemporary and historical writings and quotes,” O’Brien says. He notes that the Holy Bible: Mosaic addresses the desire that many Christians have to be culturally meaningful while connecting with the past and the larger Christian tradition. Tyndale created a dedicated online forum at www.HolyBibleMosaic.com; Mosaic is also being promoted on a 10-week blog tour with giveaways.

The New Living Translation is also on tap at Oxford University Press in its new edition of its Women’s Study Bible “It was very well received at the International Christian Retail Show this summer,” Hughes says. For women who want to read the Bible through in a year, The Daily Spiritual Refreshment Bible for Women (July) from Barbour Publishing is organized in 365 readings: each includes an Old Testament and New Testament scripture, plus a Psalms or Proverbs passage.

Oxford also released a mainline Protestant denomination—friendly Bible, New Revised Standard Version Notetaker’s Bible, last spring, with an extra-wide margin to jot observations and questions. Another study Bible using the NRSV translation, The Wesley Study Bible, delighted publisher Abingdon Press with how quickly it sold.

A bold and thoughtful revisiting of the essential Christian Scripture is The Restored New Testament by poet and translator Willis Barnstone (Norton, Sept.). In a volume that includes the Gnostic gospels of Thomas, Mary and Judas, Barnstone seeks to convey the text as a work of beauty rather than religious proselytism.

For children, there’s a colorful Comic Book Bible (Barbour, July), geared toward ages 8—12 and featuring Bible stories illustrated in comic book format by Rob Suggs. More for kids comes from Baker with its specialty edition GOD’S WORD Children’s Bible (Sept.). Zondervan upgraded its popular The Jesus Storybook Bible to a deluxe edition (Oct.) with the addition of a nice box and three audio CDs featuring narration of 46 stories by British actor David Suchet.

Hearing Is Believing

Also audio and on an epic scale is Thomas Nelson’s The Word of Promise Audio Bible. This Bible is actually an audio theater production, running 97 hours on 79 CDs and featuring a cast of stars, including Michael York as narrator, Richard Dreyfuss as Moses and a familiar voice from Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, Jim Caviezel as Jesus. Though not a printed book, The Word of Promise New Testament won the book of the year award in 2008 from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, and various Word of Promise products have already sold more than 750,000 units.

If you still don’t see, or hear, a Bible you like, wait till next year, or the year after. Abingdon has the Common English Bible, an ecumenical new translation, in development. Zondervan will release a new, updated translation of the New International Version in 2011. Thomas Nelson is already touting a Web site for its new 2011 Bible translation The Voice (www.hearthvoice.com); pieces of this artistic translation appealing to the emergent Christian movement have already been released. And while you’re waiting, Bible apps are multiplying like loaves and fishes.

Author Information
Marcia Z. Nelson contributed to this story.


More Texts, More Traditions
Beyond the Christian Bible are worlds of sacred texts. Two otherwise dissimilar volumes new this year have in common years of study that produced them.

The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, edited by Royal Skousen (Yale Univ., Sept.) reflects 21 years of research by the Brigham Young University professor of linguistics and the English language. Skousen examined founder Joseph Smith’s original manuscript and the first, 1830 printed edition and identified 2,000 errors in the first edition; around 250 of them affect the text’s meaning. In the new edition, Skousen uses “sense-lines” to format the text, breaking lines by phrases and clauses to approximate the text as Smith might have originally dictated it. Historian Grant Hardy writes in his introduction that Skousen’s work “will serve as a starting point for serious scholarship for generations to come.”

A Literary Bible: An Original Translation by David Rosenberg (Counterpoint, Nov.) draws together work done by the poet and Bible translator over the past 30 years. Former editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society and a much published writer, Rosenberg characterizes the three parts of the Hebrew Bible as “Telling” (the Torah), “Seeing” (the Prophets) and “Writing” (the Writings). His style amplifies differences in tone and style among the Bible’s unknown original writers. Rosenberg’s translation of The Book of J (Grove, 1990), with commentary by Harold Bloom, ignited controversy with the provocative argument that J, considered the oldest source of the earliest texts of the Bible, was a woman. —Marcia Z. Nelson