Those who have assisted in the correction and amendment to some defects of the older version of the Bible culminating in the outputs of the Revised Standard Version Bible had this to say to the reader (Page VIII): You will find a new line of illustration in this Bible. Instead of the usual type of story-picture, there are simple little drawings that look more like up-to-date visual aids than illustrations. That is indeed what they are; and they have been fitted into the text just at the place where help is needed.
There are, for example, many little route-maps. The Bible is a great Travel Book, and where so many journeys are made a map is essential. But a general map is often more difficult to read than a page of type. What is wanted for easy reference is a simplified map, or many such maps, each showing only the places mentioned in the text, and if possible also the route taken by the person concerned. To know the distance between the different places would be an advantage. In some cases it adds to the point of the story. So, along with the maps, drawings of milestones have been inserted to give this information.
It is no less important when the events about which one is reading took place. A simple artistic design has therefore been devised to show the date. But the use of this time-signal, as we may call it, has had to be limited to marking the centuries rather than the years. Precise dates could have been given from some of the events, but for many others the specific year has not yet been determined, through scholars have reduced uncertainty to the difference of a few years. There is, however, little doubt about the century to which the great events belong. So we have kept to these broad spans of time. For, although it is often impossible to give the exact date, there is, we feel, some advantage in having at least an indication of the period about which one is reading; and this applies particularly to parts of the Old Testament, where the material does not always run in historical sequence.
When the scene is set in time and place, interest is naturally focused on the people who appear in the story. What a strangely mixed company! They come in from all sides, people of many nations, who come and go and keep reappearing until the mind is bewildered by their variety and movements. Who are they? How can they be distinguished? By giving each nation an appropriate symbol — a sort of badge or identity flash — so that, when the reader see it, he knows at once whether it is the Egyptians, the Philistines, the Syrians, or Babylonians who have stepped into the picture.
So much for the foreign nations of the Bible. But what of Israel and Judah, whose complicated fortunes are interlocked in history and so interwoven in the sacred narrative that it is difficult to separate them. Can anything be done to enable the most casual reader to follow easily the destinies of these two Kingdoms? By using of Jacob’s well for Israel and one of the Gate of Jerusalem for Judah, the separate chapters of their history are plainly displayed.
But more is needed if the history is to become alive. More windows must be put into the pages of letterpress. As one reads, the contour and character of the country must be as clear to the eye as an open landscape. So little sketches have been inserted of the mountains and deserts, valleys and hills that mould the features of the land of this Book. And there are, what might be called, snapshot drawings of the interesting things to be found there, whether by the wayside or in the city street. It may be a bird or a flower, a beast of burden or a flock of sheep, and perhaps a travelling minstrel or a night watchman.
Here and there are objects of more passing interest. They have a mission and a message for all mankind and all for close-up pictures on a large scale. Such are the early altars of these people of God, the Tabernacle in the wilderness and the Temple on Zion’s Hill. Who would not linger at these sacred shrines? Or study in detail these monuments of worship? In this series of drawings that illustrates the religion of Israel, some pictures have been used more than once — a most unusual procedure in modern book production. The repetition is deliberate. It has been done to emphasize the unity and coherence of the 66 different books that together make our Bible, and so show the stream of continuity that runs through the scriptures. By using, for example, one common picture throughout the Bible for the Book of Law, the general reader gathers at once an impression of the place and power of this work in the people’s life and history. He realises that the Book of the Law about which the Psalmist sings, and the Prophets preach, is in effect the Book of Law that is described in Exodus and discussed by Paul in his Epistles. Later, if the reader wishes, he can with the scholars go more fully into the matter, but for time being this general idea will serve his purpose. By a similar repetition of pictures the Fall of Jerusalem recorded in the historical books is directly linked with the writings of the Prophets. There are other instances of the same kind.
Many pictures included in this work need no explanation and carry no caption. So close is the connection between the drawings and the texts that the line of letter press beneath them, or in the adjoining column, will suffice to describe them.
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A word about the letter press and its layout is essential. The text is that of the Revised Standard Version. It is the plain text, without note or comment, and it is complete. Two changes have been made in the layout of its pages, both with the hope that they will contribute to the easier reading of the Book. The first change is not new. It has often been done, and obviously it meets the needs of modern readers. It is the arrangement of the text in paragraph form instead of the usual division into verses, with headlines to indicate the contents of the main sections, and sub-headings to mark the flow of the story. Great restraint has been exercised to keep the divisions as few as possible, and to use for the headings such words of scripture as occur in the text.
The second change is a later development in the direction of the simplified page. In order that the reader can more readily distinguish the nature of the material before him, two different sizes of type are used, without implying and difference in the value of such material. It is purely a visual aid for the convenience of the reader.
The position becomes clear when we realise how mixed and varied the material to be found in the Bible is. Every kind of literature is there. But whereas in a modern library, history is in one section, law in another, philosophy in a third, and all the official documents of church and state are separated from them, in the books of the Bible all these forms of different literature are inextricably woven together. It is this that makes the reading of scripture so difficult. Surely something can be done, and should be done, to indicate the different types of material without lessening in any way the value of any of them.
Prosper Tingini is the Scribe of the Children of God Missionary Assembly — God’s messengers. Contact details: Mobile & WhatsApp – 0771 260 195. Email address: ptingini@gmail.com
