Adam Lewis Greene’s Kickstarter campaign Bibliotheca closed yesterday, raising over $1.4 million. The project’s original goal was $37,000.
Greene has created Bibliotheca, a four-volume set of the Bible, to allow readers experience biblical texts as “literary works of art” rather than the jumble of numbers, minuscule text, and tissue-thin paper we’re used to. In fact, says Greene, our modern Bible shares more of a resemblance to an encyclopedia than a literary classic. Through Bibliotheca, he says he hopes to change that.
“People still love to get lost in a good story,” says Greene in his campaign video. “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?”
Bibliotheca is a way in which people are given the opportunity to read the Bible with fresh eyes for the profound story that it is. Separated into four novel-sized hardbound cloth volumes with reader-friendly typography, line length, spacing, and margins, Bibliotheca removes all distractions, producing a clean, elegant — and most importantly — readable work of art.
Its translation is American Standard Version (ASV), but without the “thees” and “thous.” It’s this choice, rather than a more common translation like New International Version, that is perhaps one of the main critiques of Bibliotheca. In an interview with Bible Gateway, Greene says he chose to use this translation for a literary purpose:
It can be said that the English of the ASV is difficult, but it can also be said that the writings of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens are difficult. And they are, but most of us agree that they are well worth our effort. I knew going into this that the ASV wouldn’t please everyone, but it is my favourite complete translation. I appreciate its conveyance of the “otherness” of the ancient languages, and I posit that it is one of the last great literary translations of the Bible into English.
Though the Kickstarter campaign has ended, you can still pre-order Bibliotheca online.
