'Elegant' Bible Version, Without Chapters, Outsells Expectation by 1100 Percent
A version of the Bible reported to be more "elegant" and easier to read in form than traditional versions has exceeded original sales expectations.
The Bibliotheca is a four-volumed version of the Good Book in which the scriptures have their verse and chapter differentiations removed.
Bibliotheca presents the Bible in a more conventional book format and boasts of being a cleaner rendering of the text.
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Adam Lewis Greene of Santa Cruz, California is the book designer for the Bibliotheca and launched a Kickstarter fundraiser to sell the Bible set.
"It has been brought to my attention that some people do not realize that this Kickstarter campaign is the only guaranteed way to get the set. To be clear, this is not a fundraiser for an edition that you will be able to order after the campaign," noted the Greene's Kickstarter page.
"Again, though it is my hope that the success of this project will allow for this set to be made available beyond this campaign — perhaps even in different translations and languages — at this stage I cannot guarantee it will be made available again."
Originally Greene has assumed that he was going to sell only 500 sets of the Bibliotheca at a total profit of $37,000.
However, as of Wednesday morning the number of sales has passed the 5,700 mark with a total of over $560,000.
Bibliotheca's website describes the set as "entire biblical library in four elegant volumes, designed purely for reading."
"The text is reverently treated in classic typographic style, free of all added conventions such as chapter numbers, verse numbers, section headers, cross references and notes," continued the website.
In a video posted on the Bibliotheca website, Greene contends that books were designed to be enjoyable to the reader and free from distractions.
"Book design is something that we don't often think about. The book is actually doing work to eliminate distractions for the reader," said Greene.
"When we pick up the Bible, we see an incredibly daunting spread in front of us … Could it be that the encyclopedic nature of our contemporary Bibles is what's driving this idea that the biblical literature is dry and boring?"
Greene's Bibliotheca has already garnered attention from various online news media outlets, including Aaron Souppouris of The Verge.
"Every element of the four volumes has been carefully considered to make reading a pleasurable and distraction-free experience," wrote Souppouris.
"In addition to carefully reconsidering the overall construction and layout, Greene has also crafted a pair of custom typefaces for Bibliotheca, a simple sans serif for titles, and a more adventurous typeface for the general text."
Greene used the American Standard Version of the Bible for the text, with some slight modification of the ASV to replace some of the older words with more contemporary English.
The four volumes are comprised of three volumes on the Old Testament and the final fourth being the New Testament.
Greene's Kickstarter page will remain active until next Sunday. The estimated time of delivery for the Bibliotheca orders is December of this year.
