A look at this year's crop of sacred texts from the world's major religions proves two adages: the old can somehow be made fresh again, and youth is an obsession of the old -- in this case, the adults who publish Bibles for teens. As the millennium approaches, sacred text publishers are looking to the revered scriptures of the world's major religions to cull wisdom for the dawning age.
Several major trends within Bible publishing continue to hold sway. The niche Bible -- one that is tailored to a particular slice of the population -- remains popular but may be on the wane. The mother of all niche Bibles, Zondervan's Women's Devotional Bible (volume 1, 1990; volume 2, 1996), has reached a combined three million copies in print and begotten an entire family of related products such as journals, calendars and audiobooks. Many publishers continue to slice the Bible market into niches in the hopes of emulating Zondervan's success.
Also clear is the fact that publishers of the Bible need not fear the Good Book will lose its status as the all-time bestseller. According to a survey conducted by Zondervan this year on the Bible-buying habits of 1807 bookstore customers, in both the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) and American Bookseller Association (ABA) markets, shows that on average those surveyed own seven to nine Bibles. And they want more. Most said they would buy another Bible in the next year. Within those numbers is another clear indication -- the CBA market retains its claim to being the segment that sells the most Bibles, accounting for 14% of all Bible sales. According to this research, the general trade market accounts for only about 2%“3% of sales. "There are no significant changes there," says Tom Mockabee, v-p of Zondervan's Bible division. "I think the difference is that ABA wants to see what g s well in CBA, and then they will stock it." Mockabee has noticed one change: more retailers are asking his company for help in promoting and selling Bibles. "I think some retailers were not aware of the seriousness and frequency of the Bible shopper," Mockabee notes. "If a person is going to be in your Bible section once a month, that means your section should always look new, so we are going to be doing some major education there."
Bibles for All
Interest in the non-niche Bible remains strong, and publishers are obliging consumers with new versions and translations, many of which highlight a different aspect of the age-old text. The most general of this crop is Oxford University Press's Access Bible (Sept.). It is a hybrid for OUP, combining the company's usual detailed scholarly research and notes with very basic glossaries, maps, sidebars and commentary. As OUP's Scofield Bible was meant for the evangelical Christian in the CBA market, the Access Bible is aimed at the mainline Protestant shopping in the general trade store. The hope is that someone joining a Bible study for the first time, or perhaps even reaching for a Bible for the first time, will choose this one. "This is not your mother's or father's Oxford study Bible," says Rob Stone, OUP's marketing manager for Bibles. "This is not a dumbed-down OUP Bible, nor is it a derivative of some of our other Bibles. All the materials in it are new from the ground up." Stone says the hope is that the Access Bible will ultimately lead the lay reader to one of OUP's other Bibles, perhaps the New Oxford Annotated Bible (1991), the company's biggest seller.
Zondervan publishes several general Bibles for both the CBA and ABA markets, including the New International Version Thematic Reference Bible (Apr.) and the Spiritual Formation Bible (May), which is available in both NIV and New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). The first of these two Bibles highlights major themes that weave through the Scriptures -- such as love, grace, forgiveness, anger -- with the new Bible student and the lay reader in mind. The Spiritual Formation Bible has sold 25,000 copies so far, many of them to United Methodists and other mainline Protestants, its target audience. Perhaps the most topical Zondervan release is the NIV Prophecy Marked Reference Study Bible (Mar.), edited by Grant R. Jeffrey -- a popular prophecy author -- the first prophecy Bible for the company. "I think that with the new millennium, there is a whole lot of interest in prophetic activity, both within the Church and in society," Mockabee explains. "This gave us the opportunity to show how Scripture speaks of this in prophecy." Zondervan is also preparing a number of Bible products in the newly updated New American Standard Bible (NASB) translation; the first will be the NASB Study Bible (Jan. 2000).
New Niches
One strong new trend in niche Bibles is a focus on the spiritual needs of young people. Every major Bible publisher is launching a Bible for teenagers, especially those in high school. Asked why they are especially attentive to this group now, all draw a map of teen tragedies from Littleton, Colo., to Fort Worth, Tex. "If you look at the national American scene, there is no question in anyone's mind that the whole issue of truth and character are up in the air right now," Wendell Overstreet, Broadman & Holman's director of marketing for reference books and Bibles, tells PW. B&H's goal with its entry in this category, TruthQuest: Inductive Student Bible (Dec.), he adds, is to "reconnect youth with the Scriptures." Tim Jordan, marketing director for Thomas Nelson's Bible division, which offers the Extreme Teen Bible (Oct.), believes the disconnect runs deeper. "I think we are getting to the point where kids are telling us they are sick of religion," he says. "They say, I don't want my parents' religion anymore, I want my own answers."
Youth Bibles are so hot that the nonprofit St. Mary's Press has stepped out of its usual role as a publisher of Catholic youth textbooks and ministry resources to produce the Catholic Youth Bible, edited by Brian Singer-Towns (Feb. 2000). In another first, St. Mary's has hired an outside publicist and contracted with a trade group to get the title into general trade and CBA stores, a significant new direction for the company. According to Singer-Towns, the time was ripe for this Bible because no other publisher had yet produced a Catholic Bible for teens. "It is very much transforming the way we think," he says. "We are hoping this will be our foot in the door in those markets and that some of our other materials might get more attention there in the future." If the Catholic Youth Bible is a success, St. Mary's will reexamine its backlist to see which of its titles could also achieve ecumenical appeal in the trade market.
With the focus more sharply on youth and other life stages, the niche Bible cannot be declared dead -- yet. No one who spoke to PW was willing to write that subcategory's obituary, but the number of niche Bibles on publishers' front lists is declining. "Niche Bibles are a mainstay on publishers backlists," says Doug Knox, senior v-p at Tyndale. But, he adds, "the number of new ones coming out has slowed, since many of the opportunities have been covered by one or more competitive products." Zondervan's Mockabee attributes this to an overall shift in niche Bible publishing philosophy from trying to match a lifestyle (e.g., new mothers or businessmen) to trying to suit a life stage (e.g., teens or empty-nesters). "The demographic format is one we still look at, but people also prefer Bibles based on trends and new translations as well," he continues. Still, Tyndale has two traditional, demographically based niche Bibles slated for an October release: the Daily Study Bible for Women with notes by Jill Brisc and the Daily Study Bible for Men, with notes by Stuart Brisc . Brisc s are a husband-and-wife pastoring team known for their Bible teaching, books and ministries.
One niche, apparently overlooked until now, is about to be filled by Atlanta-based Nia Publishers with the Women of Color Study Bible (Nov.). There have been other Bibles for African-Americans, including Zondervan's African-American Devotional Bible (1997) and Nelson's Family Heirloom Bible: African-American Edition (1997), but this is the first one written by and for African-American women. Similar in format to Zondervan's Women's Devotional Bible, it may also spawn a line of related products. Melvin Banks, Nia's owner and publisher, says he was drawn to the project by the dearth of products for women of color. "There just seemed to be a niche for everyone but African-American women," he explains. "Finally, we decided we would attempt it, and it has been a two-year process." The Bible is being copublished with World Publishing, and its debut is scheduled to be followed by a Women of Color Study Bible Conference in Dallas next spring.
Manna, Mannah or Mana?
Two publishers have announced new translations of the Christian Bible. Broadman & Holman will launch the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) in installments in its new Experiencing the Word series, a nod to Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King's popular Experiencing God (B&H, 1998) faith-formation title. Lawrence Kimbrough, editor of B&H's Bible division, reports that the HCSB version combines the literalness of the New American Standard version and the readability of the NIV. B&H distributed free copies of the first book in the series, Experiencing the Word: Gospel of John at this year's Southern Baptist Convention in Atlanta and at the most recent CBA International Convention in Orlando, Fla. Coming releases include Experiencing the Word: The Gospels (Jan. 2000) and Experiencing the Word: Revelations (July 2000). In March 2000, B&H will release The Jesus We Knew, a long narrative compilation of 31 chapters of the Gospels that concern Jesus' life.
Crossway Books is at work on the English Standard Version (ESV), which will be based on the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA's Revised Standard Version (RSV). Lane Dennis, president of Crossway, says the new translation will remain faithful to the intent of the King James Version (KJV) of 1611 and to William Tyndale's original translation (1525 and later revisions); he estimated it will be available in summer 2001.
In addition, the International Bible Society released its long-awaited Spanish translation, the Nueva Version Internacional (NVI) last February. It took ten years to translate this version directly from the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts; a Castilian Spanish version is expected to be available in another two years.
In an unusual move for a for-profit publisher, Tyndale has partnered with the Christian Web site Goshen (a part of crosswalk.com) to put its New Living Translation (NLT) of the entire Bible up on the Internet (www.Bible StudyTools.net). The company also has plans to mount portions of its Life Application Bible Commentary series, which began publication in 1993, free on the Web. "When people sample our texts and see how easy they are to read, we feel it spurs trade sales over all," notes Tyndale's Knox.
Making the Old New
At the same time there are new Bible versions in the works, there continues to be an interest in the oldest writings, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), which a handful of publishers are bringing out in several different forms. Harper San Francisco will make the DSS available in Bible form for the first time with the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, translated and with commentary by Martin Abegg Jr., Peter Flint and Eugene Ulrich (Dec.). In November, Eerdmans will release the Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition by Florentino Garcia Martinez and Eibert Tigchelaar, the first complete edition of the original Hebrew texts with a new English translation on facing pages. Both publishers have high hopes for these volumes, despite the spate of DSS books in the 50 years since the scrolls' discovery. "There is endless fascination for the Dead Sea Scrolls that comes from the promise that through it we are going to be able to understand the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth that we can't know from the Gospels," explains Doug Abrams, who edited the book at HSF. "That's the promise of this book, that we will see the Bible that Jesus read." Hans van der Meij, senior acquisitions editor for Brill Academic Publishers, which sold the American rights to the Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition to Eerdmans, says the scrolls continue to fascinate readers because of their innate mystery. He cites the Copper Scroll, which tells of treasures, most likely from the Temple of Jerusalem, hidden throughout the land of Palestine. "The interpretation of this text is still a hot issue among scholars," he notes. "Some scholars believe the treasures are real and may still be hidden somewhere in Israel."
Tanakh, Too
Two Jewish publishers have recently released English-Hebrew versions of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. From the nonprofit Jewish Publication Society comes the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, edited by Rabbi David S. Stein, the first such edition with Hebrew and English on the same page instead of facing pages. The JPS translation is the culmination of a 30-year cooperative effort by scholars from all branches of Judaism -- Stein is a Reconstructionist who grew up in a Conservative family -- but he notes that the publication is not necessarily an attempt to unite Judaism's diverging branches. "I never heard anyone at JPS say that," Stein tells PW. "It is more about being true to the Bible, [agreeing] that any translation without the original [Hebrew] is a little naked, a little arrogant, a little presumptuous."
However, at Mesorah Publications, Orthodox publishers of Artscroll Library's Stone Edition Tanach (1996), general editor Rabbi Nosson Scherman says he has seen a demand for an English-only Tanakh, much of it from the non-Jewish world, especially evangelical Protestants and Catholics. "There is an increased interest on the part of many people, possibly people who are interested in the Bible as literature, who want to know how the Bible was understood by Jews before King James got around to it," Scherman notes. The English-only version of the highly successful Stone edition should be available in early 2000; Scherman hopes its appeal to non-Jews will take it into chains and perhaps even CBA stores, both places Mesorah has historically had a hard time fitting into. "The English version will open like an English book," not from the left side, like the existing Stone Edition, he says, "and because the Bible is always a bestseller, this will have a much better chance."
Is there enough of a market to support two high-quality Tanakh editions at one time? Both Stein and Scherman say yes. "There is an increasing level of Hebrew literacy," Stein remarks, "because the number of people who have gone through Jewish day schools in the last 20 years has really exploded." Both men also expect side-by-side Hebrew-English translations to increase in popularity. Also citing the "explosive growth" of Orthodox day schools and higher academies of learning, Scherman notes, "What we have is a huge population of men and women who can read and study Hebrew, but they can't curl up with it. We've been working to give them the mix [of Hebrew and English] they are more comfortable with." Mesorah now publishes about 200 Hebrew-English titles, making up about one-fourth of its total list, and is currently engaged in publishing a four-volume set of the Five Books of Moses in Hebrew and English, which should be completed by 2001. A similar 72-volume set of the Talmud began appearing in 1991 and will be completed in the next several years.
The Tanakh isn't the only Jewish sacred text receiving attention: Harmony Books, a division of Random House, will give a facelift to an ancient Jewish mystical text with Dreams of Being Eaten Alive: The Literary Core of the Kabbalah by David Rosenberg (Feb. 2000).
Other World Religions
Translating ancient texts into a distinctly modern American tongue is also the current trend outside the Judeo-Christian publishing world. Affirming that direction, Hohm Press offers Tao Te Ching for the West by Richard Degan (Oct.). Degan, who is a lawyer by trade rather than a scholar/translator, "has boiled the text down into what it means and translated it for today," says Thom Shelby, Hohm's director of publicity. Also citing an interest in ancient texts in modern American idiom is Himalayan Academy Publications, which is issuing a new English translation of a South Indian Hindu scripture, the Tirukural, as Weaver's Wisdom: Ancient Precepts for a Perfect Life, edited and translated by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (Oct.). Though there have certainly been other English translations in this text's 2200-year history, Acharya Palaniswami, editor of Hinduism Today magazine and co-editor of the book, likens the original Tamil to Chaucerian English and says Himalayan Academy wanted to produce "something that a kid could pick up and read and enjoy." With its emphasis on universal human experiences -- love, greed, desire, aging, relationships -- the book should have broad appeal, and Himalayan Academy is working to get it distributed by Ingram and Bookpeople.
Another Indian sacred work being modernized is God's Song: Bhagavad-gita: India's Ancient Book of Wisdom, edited and illustrated by Jean Greisser, due out in November from Jain Publishing Company, based in Freemont, Calif. The text is approached differently in this edition than in the original verse-by-verse translation. Greisser, a professional photographer and documentary filmmaker, "takes a narrative approach to make it less intimidating and easier to understand for the reader," according to Mukesh K. Jain, publisher of Jain Publishing.
Also attending to the contemporary American reader, Counterpoint is publishing Tao Te Ching (spring 2000), the fourth and last in a series of classic Chinese texts translated by David Hinton. Hinton has again focused on making the text accessible to today's Western audience -- and has done so without paraphrasing the ancient Chinese, says Jack Sh maker, Counterpoint's publisher. "The Tao Te Ching has the distinction of being translated into English more than any other book, with 40 or 50 versions in print at any one time," Sh maker tells PW, "but [Hinton's translation] is much more modern and contemporary in its English and quite thoroughly respectable from the point of view of its scholarship." He expects this book and Hinton's previous three translations -- The Analects: Confucius (1998), Mencius (1998) and Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters (1997) -- to do well in New Age, Eastern-oriented and general trade bookstores. "Basically, anyone interested in Eastern religion or philosophy would have to buy them," Sh maker notes, adding that Amazon.com has expressed interest in promoting Tao Te Ching on its religion pages.
In attempting to serve the MTV generation, is there a danger of watering down these ancient texts? Of course, says Hohm's Shelby, who believes publishers have a responsibility to choose only thorough, well-done translations. Still, the buyer must also beware: "The average reader only wants to see so many versions of the same text, but the publisher wants to open new markets," he continues. "So will the text be diluted? Yes, I think that is somewhat inevitable. But will the text also be taken up by someone out there who otherwise might not take it up? Yes."
Going Back to Original Texts
White Cloud Press may be swimming against this current with Approaching the Qu'ran: The Early Revelations (Oct.). In this translation, which took more than 10 years to complete, translator Michael Anthony Sells pays more attention to restoring the original Arabic p try and imagery to the English text than to putting the modern American reader at ease. Some chapters feature three possible English translations side by side, each one subtly different from the other. White Cloud publisher Stephen Scholl says demand for the book has been high, especially from libraries and colleges, leading the company to print hardcover and paperback versions simultaneously. Scholl would like to continue working with Sells until a complete translation of the Qu'ran is done, but no definite plans are underway.
Marlowe and Company, a part of the Avalon Publishing Group, offers a look at all the world's major religious "isms" in God's Breath: Sacred Scriptures of the World edited by John Miller and Aaron Kenedi. The book contains introductions to and excerpts from scriptures central to Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sufism and Taoism that were compiled with the spiritual needs of modern seekers in mind.
Liturgical Press has something of a hybrid sacred text in its Ishmael Instructs Isaac: An Introduction to the Qu'ran for Bible Readers by John Kaltner (Sept.). Part of the house's loosely knit Connections series, the book is an attempt to illustrate the common themes, structures and stories shared by Muslims, Jews and Christians. "The idea the author gave me when we were kicking it around was to imagine we are at Abraham's family reunion," says Linda Maloney, Liturgical Press's academic editor, "and Ishmael, the older brother, is telling his story to Isaac, the younger brother." The book's chapters on Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Mary and Jesus are a blend of Qu'ranic verses and commentary. Maloney expects to sell foreign rights to the book "quite easily" at Frankfurt, given the large number of Muslims now living throughout Europe.
If all of these sacred texts just aren't spelling enlightenment clearly enough, there is also the ultimate in niche "bibles" from Broadway Books, Create Your Personal Sacred Text by Bobbi L. Parish (Nov.). Parish, a marriage and family therapist, developed the idea during a crisis in her life, when she began gathering together p ms, stories, song lyrics and scraps of the I Ching in one book. She credits the creation of her own scriptures with saving her life, Angela Casey, co-editor of the book, tells PW. Long a publisher of Buddhist texts, Broadway will try to get this book into general trade stores, chains, religion bookstores and New Age stores. "We are going to go wide and see what happens," Casey says. "I think we can go broad because the New Age category is so pervasive now. It is pretty mainstream."
Looking to the Future
With some sacred texts dating back more than 4000 years, what else could possibly be done to publish them anew? That's up to the creativity of the Bible publisher, according to OUP's Stone, who says publishers are constantly looking for new concepts, either in covers, notes, translations or other ancillary materials. "Our society is oriented toward the new, and the Bible, in terms of what it is in a bookstore, is a backlist product," he remarks. "It's not like waiting for the new John Grisham -- and that's the challenge for the Bible publisher." Stone also thinks Bible publishers will niche and niche until there's no niche left to scratch: "I can't see that kind of attitude ending any time soon." Citing the publishing history of the Bible, Tyndale's Doug Knox says, "They will continue to sell well. The overall Bible market is mature, but share is moving around between the translations. I think we will continue to see new translations brought on the market to continue the process of making the Bible accessible to each new generation."
