I like to read different versions of the Bible because I find reading a different translation can bring a new or different perspective to God’s Word. I recently bought a new-to-me version to try, mostly because it was on sale on Kindle. I read a few pages of the Kindle sample, which was the (long) note from the translators and the familiar story of creation from Genesis.
That seemed fine, so I bought the Bible.
I then switched to reading Jeremiah, which was where I was up to in my annual Bible reading plan. The first chapter was fine, but the text in the second chapter was intersperesed with || symbols. I soon realised the chapter was supposed to be a poem or song, and the || symbol was indicating a new line … rather than actually adding a new line.
For example, here’s a picture of how Jeremiah 2:1-4 looks in the New International Version (screenshot from Bible Gateway):
I can’t show you how the version I bought is displayed on Bible Gateway, because it’s not there. (Perhaps I should have checked that before I hit “Buy now”.)
But here is the first sentence:
And there is a word of Yhwh to me, saying
“Go, and you have called in the ears of Jeru-
salem, saying, Thus said Yhwh: I have re-
membered for you || The kindness of your
youth, the love of your espousals, || Your
going after Me in a wilderness, in a land not
sown.
If I’m being fair, the introduction did mention that the entire Bible is formatted with justified typographic alignment, including the poetry. It also mentioned using the caesura, which I now know is the || (also called the double pipe, because this | is a single pipe). But I didn’t realise how that unfamiliar formatting would negatively affect my reading experience.
Anyway, I found the formatting distracting, so switched to the Gospel of John. This is the first book of the Bible many people read, as it’s the book we tend to recommend to people wanting to find out more about God or Christianity.
I started reading, but found myself skimming or even skipping ahead at times.
That’s not good.
I stopped to try and figure out why. Why would I skim the third chapter of John? How could I possibly have missed reading John 3:16, one of the most-quoted verses in the entire Bible?
A second reading, a closer reading, gave me the answer. I had started skimming because the sentences were long.
Really long.
Like, over a hundred words long. In comparison, the average sentence length in the King James Bible is around twenty words per sentence, and the New International Version is around fifteen. Where most Bibles would start a new sentence, this version adds a comma and just keeps on going.
This goes against most modern style guides, which recognise that people find shorter sentences easier to read and understand.
In the defense of this Bible translation (which I shall not name), it is attempting to be an accurate translation of the original scriptures. These were all written and copied by hand onto vellum, which was scarce and therefore precious. I can understand that the copyists may well have run lines together to save space and therefore save vellum. I could even understand why a paper version might do so, to try and save paper (which is why the font size in many versions is so small). Again, on rereading, I found the introductory note pointed out one reason they’d used justified type was to reduce printing costs, to offer “cost savings to publishers and distributors seeking to get God’s word into as many hands as possible”.
It’s a noble aim.
But it did strike me as flawed logic which is inadvertently illustrating some important life metaphors.
Accessibility
The publishers claim they made these formatting choices to improve accessibility—to enable more people to have a Bible.
That’s a good and noble aim.
But what is the point of a book that isn’t able to be read?
One reason modern translations tend to use common language and short sentences is for readability. We want Bible translations that people can read and understand—not just scholars and pastors, but everyday Christians and seekers, those seeking to know more of God and faith.
Because it’s not enough for people to own a Bible. We want people to read their Bibles and discover God for themselves. (Which is also a reason I’m not a big fan of the King James Version. Proponents say it’s easy to read, which may be true. But my experience as a Sunday School teacher is that while children might be able to read it, they seldom understand what they are reading).
Busy sentences = busy lives
We have been trained since childhood to understand that a new paragraph signifies a new idea, and that the key point of the paragraph should be stated in the opening sentence. That’s why I start to skim–because my subconscious has been trained to believe the rest of the paragraph is less important.
(That is why writing on the internet often uses short sentences and paragraphs: to make it skimable and readable and understandable.)
The endless run-on sentences felt like a metaphor for our lives. Many of us lead busy lives, always running from one thing to the next.
And when we’re busy, we often miss things, like the actual meaning of the text. Sometimes we miss important things, like God’s salvation plan as captured in John 3:16.
Which leads me to my third point.
We need white space
White space makes text easier to read—whether this is short paragraphs, space between paragraphs, or the formatting of poetry and song lyrics.
Poetry, in particular, makes deliberate use of white space. Many forms of poetry are based on a predetermined number of words of syllables on each line, such as sonnets, haiku, or the more familiar limerick.
In poetry, words aren’t necessarily aligned to the left-hand side of the page. Poetry may use central or right alignment, or may have words “dripping” down the page to give a sense of movement. Here’s a simple example, Needles, by Brian Bilston:
If we ran the words together, we’d miss the point of the poem.
Just as writing needs white space, so do we.
God created the Sabbath so we can rest, so we can have physical “white space” in our lives. Not everyone can rest on the Sabbath. Some people have to work–doctors and nurses, police officers and firefighters, and priests and pastors. If we can rest on the Sabbath, we should. If we can’t, we should chose another day of the week and rest then.
So no, I won’t be reading that version of the Bible any more.