by

Today it’s in the news that President Nelson went and met with Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Prime Minister. This was a little bit more interesting than just any meeting with a world leader for two reasons: (1) Ardern has been widely praised recently for her leadership, including her response to violence in her country, and (2) Ardern herself was raised in the church, but says she left the church in 2005 and currently identifies herself as agnostic.

But this post isn’t about that meeting, it’s about how we print and bind the scriptures. President Nelson made a gift to Ardern of what appears to be a very nice Deseret Book “Legacy Edition” of the Book of Mormon. It’s a nicely done hardcover edition that would look beautiful on a shelf, but it’s pretty pricey retailing around $100. Anyway, that got me thinking about what my ideal edition of the scriptures for my personal use would look like if I could design it myself.

I warn you that I’m not a professional book designer. We have had some folks at BCC who have more experience and training in this kind of thing. I’m not pretending to speak for them or anything. I’m speaking only from my own preferences as a reader and a book nerd, informed by just enough interest in typography and bookbinding to be dangerous, and probably not enough to really know what I’m talking about.

As far as an overall design philosophy, I admit that I feel a real tension between two impulses when it comes to the scriptures: On the one hand, I look at expensive scripture volumes and feel a little disgusted. The idea that an affluent LDS family in wherever, Utah would pay an amount for a set of scriptures that most people in the world could never afford doesn’t sit well with me. It almost makes me wish we all only used the cheap paperback editions you get from the missionaries.

But on the other hand, I am kind of medievalist at heart, and printed and bound books are really a medieval medium. So when I think of medieval texts and how much people sacrificed to preserve and maintain the word of God, and how they used the finest possible materials as a form of reverence for God and his word, I feel a bit of holy envy. Even the original 1830 edition of the book of Mormon was no cheap paperback even by the standards of the time. And so I think maybe it’s not so bad to make aesthetically beautiful and long-lasting scripture volumes that aren’t necessarily cheap.

Anyway, I won’t attempt to resolve this tension in this post, but I want to note that these are the kinds of thoughts that motivate me when I think about how scriptures are best presented in print. I feel a pull toward that which is plain, not gaudy or ostentatious and that which is inexpensive, but I also feel a pull to that which is made to last and that which is beautiful. And I recognize that those goals won’t always all be compatible.

Anyway, if I had my way, this is what I would want. This is my wish list for my personal edition of the scriptures:

Archival materials: This is the medievalist in me, but I want something that is made to last not just my lifetime, but something that could still be around in 500 years. I suppose that would mean acid free cotton or linen paper, pigmented ink, etc.

Sewn binding: Again, I’m not a bookbinding expert, but there are two main ways to bind a book: signatures (a collection of pages, folded down the middle) sown with (usually linen) thread, or “perfect binding,” where the pages are all just stuck into a big fat glob of glue that’s stuck to the cover. Perfect binding is cheap and works great for most things, but you know how a cheap paperback gets cracks and creases in the spine–especially when it’s a thicker book? That’s the disadvantage of perfect binding: it’s not very flexible, so it cracks. If it’s broken in correctly and well cared for, a sewn binding will loosen up and hinge and bend while still maintaining its structural fastening, instead of cracking.

Paper: I don’t love the thin bible paper used in the standard LDS editions of the scriptures. It feels too thin. I don’t want something that’s super thick, but I’d want something thicker than that. Something I wouldn’t be afraid of tearing if I wrote on it with a sharp pencil or a fine-nibbed pen. Also, something that I could write notes on with a fountain pen without too much bleedthrough. (My personal scripture-marking philosophy is pretty minimalistic, but when I do make notes, I like to make them in archival ink, which comes in bottles, so I like to use a fountain pen.) Maybe something in a 12-18 lb weight. I’d also want it to be a light ivory color rather than bright white. White can be a bit straining on the eyes, especially if you’re reading it in bright sunlight.

Content: I would want only the scriptural text itself; no index, topical guide, bible dictionary, chapter headings, etc. I’d eliminate all cross references except for direct quotes. It’s so much more accurate and easy anymore to look up things electronically, and the best study aids really work better, in my opinion, as standalone references. I’d prefer my ideal set of scriptures to be just the canonical text, with minimal non-canonical additions. The only exception I’d make is that I’d probably want to include some excerpts of Joseph Smith’s New Translation in an appendix, but I think it probably would make more sense to include as an appendix to the Pearl of Great Price, rather than to the bible, since it’s really more closely associated with what we call the Book of Moses. I’d maybe include a few maps as well, but fewer than we have in our LDS edition of the KJV bible.

I’d want to use the canonical texts: the traditional KJV and the current text Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. I like translations like the NRSV and Wayment’s translation, and I find the Book of Mormon textual variants documented by Skousen, some of which are included as references in the MI study edition to be useful. But I’d prefer to keep these as handy references separate from the canonical text.

Typeface: For the main text I’d want to choose a light, readable serifed typeface that’s uncrowded, but still relatively compact, and that has a heritage that derives from some of the classic 16th century typefaces, like something from the Garamond family. Aragon is one of my favorites. But for book titles and chapter numbers, it would be cool to have something a bit more calligraphic that calls back the old medieval hand-lettered bibles, but that still more readable than the more ornate Blackletter forms. I like Clairvaux.

Layout: This is what I would change the most. I’d want the page width to be less than five to five-and-a-half inches, and I’d want only a single column, not double columns. For me, the ideal column width is three to four-and-a-half inches. I like the size of the old “compact” size scriptures the church used to make; they’re nice and portable. But the problem with them was that rather than re-setting the text, they just reduced the two-column layout designed for the larger “standard” size. This makes the print so small as to be basically unreadable, and regardless of the print size, two columns don’t make any sense at all on a page that’s already only a little over three inches wide anyway. I’d like a size that’s relatively compact, but with a page layout actually designed for a smaller page.

I’d also get rid of the verse divisions in the Book of Mormon, and have verses marked unobtrusively in subscripts or superscripts. Something like the MI study edition. I’d eliminate almost all footnotes, but I’d want to leave a decent sized top and bottom margin for adding in a few cross references and notes of your own. I’d follow the original Book of Mormon chapter divisions, and mark the current chapter divisions in the margins or in footnotes. As for the bible, I’d keep the traditional chapter divisions, with the verses marked unobtrusively in subscripts or superscripts, and in the gospels, I’d divide the pericopes with an extra space, but no heading or anything.

Volumes: I’m kind of undecided about this, but I’d probably want to put the Book of Mormon and the New Testament in one volume. If it’s not too thick, I’d throw the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Joseph Smith New Translation appendix in there as well. Otherwise, I’d keep those in a separate volume, and the Old Testament in a separate volume.

Cover: I’d want a semi-soft cover in full grain leather, with a back cover that wraps around the page edge on the side onto the front cover, and has a strap closure on the front. The kind of thing you could toss into a backpack for a week in the mountains without worrying about it getting messed up. Something that would be durable but would get a nice patina over time.

This would be my ideal personal copy I’d carry with me for travelling and speaking in church and stuff. Something stripped-down, portable, and durable. I’d couple an edition like this with a library of study aids and texts, but I wouldn’t carry them around.

I also think it would really cool to create illuminated versions of some restoration scripture, but that would be more a piece of art than something you’d use day to day.