Introduction

Formatting the Word of God

for·mat 1 : the shape, size, and general makeup (as of something printed)  2 : general plan of organization or arrangement

May I take this picturesque image a step further and suggest that even the most gorgeous veil must be carefully and appropriately arranged to enhance its own beauty and that of the bride’s face which it covers? If translation may be likened to a veil, then formatting may be likened to how that veil is arranged.

In studies of the history of the Bible, more attention seems to have been paid to various translations and their quality than to how they are formatted. We often glance at a page without sensing the effort that went into its formatting for reasons of beauty or to provide space for explanations or even polemics. Although it does not focus entirely on format, this exhibit seeks to heighten the viewer’s awareness of the part formatting plays in the presentation of the biblical text.

The Forms of Format

Under the rubric “format” we discuss issues relating to shape, size, design, technique, organization, and layout. In other words, the physical realities of the way in which the text is presented. We do not neglect, however, the content. In our broad understanding of format as central to the relationship between the text and the reader, we also consider editorial decisions about the text itself, as well as the presence or absence of notes, reader’s aids, and images, among other topics. By way of introduction, I offer a brief survey of formats in the general sense of the word. These categories are then expanded, and in some cases redefined, in the individual item descriptions of the catalog.

MANUSCRIPTS

In many respects it may be said that every manuscript is unique. Size and quality of the parchment, style of writing of the scribe, language in which it is written, illumination and rubrication, glosses and other helps, and the actual layout on the page all contribute to the uniqueness of each manuscript.

Formatting for manuscripts involved first measuring and drawing lines across the parchment to guide the scribe as he wrote. This was done on the first page of a stack of unwritten parchment pages. Then the scribe pricked holes at the end of the lines, pushing the holes through the stack. As he used each new page he simply joined the prickings to duplicate the lines from page to page. Lines were drawn with an awl or back of a knife or some other sharpened instrument.

Even those manuscripts reproduced in multiple copies by the same scribe have slight differences which make each one unique. In the classic work Printing and the Mind of Man, the causes of these variations are described:

Rules for copyists in the scriptoria of monasteries were strict and universities laid down the most stringent regulations for the stationarii who supplied texts. Yet the transcribers each wrote a distinct hand, conforming certainly with the accepted style of their time and place but permitting themselves endless variations in the formation of letters and in methods of syllables. Even when a work was copied according to the pecia system, that is, quire by quire with gatherings of parchment or paper of the same length as the gatherings of the exemplar (the “master” manuscript from which the copies were made), the resulting manuscript was still distinguishable from its exemplar by infinite if subtle or minor variations (Hay 1967, xix).

Differing qualities of parchment or vellum in the exhibit are visible to the naked eye. The 1273 Latin manuscript is beautifully and bountifully illuminated [4.1]. The eleventh-century Greek manuscript contains a commentary [1.3], while the thirteenth-century Greek manuscript includes a full page painting of the Apostle John [1.4]. In the history of manuscripts, different styles of writing and layout appear as time passes. The Greek manuscripts on display do not include an uncial manuscript (from the Latin word meaning “inch” because of the large size of the letters), although one includes a few uncial letters [1.2]. The Coptic page is written in capital or uncial letters [1.1]. The other Greek manuscripts on display are minuscule manuscripts. As time passed and minuscule writing replaced uncials, the letters and words tended to lean more to the right. These represent some of the different formats within the broad category of manuscripts.

ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS

The earliest known illustrations in a Latin Bible appear in one written shortly before A.D. 716 in England. It contained three illustrations: Ezra the scribe, a diagram of the Tabernacle, and a full-page miniature of Christ with the four evangelists. From the Carolingian period (A.D. 750-987) a number of large Bibles survive, but none with many illustrations. Only in the eleventh and twelfth centuries did some Bibles appear with lavish decorations. These were of two kinds: the miniature that occupied a whole page or part of a page, and the historiated initial in which an illustration was placed within the body of a large ornamented capital letter at the beginning of a Bible book. In the thirteenth century large Bibles were being replaced by small ones, particularly in France. These smaller copies did not lend themselves to much illumination except for historiated initials at the beginning of books. But they were necessary for students and preachers because they fit into a medieval pocket or satchel and were more affordable than large pulpit Bibles. The 1273 manuscript on display is obviously not a pocket-sized Bible. It was probably produced in a monastery for its own use [4.1].

Until the middle of the thirteenth century manuscripts were generally copied from an existing complete copy—a process that required considerable time since the “master” manuscript, or exemplar, would have to be in the hands of the scribe during the entire process of making a copy. But in the second half of the thirteenth century a system known as pecia was developed. Exemplars were in the custody of certain Paris booksellers known as university stationers. These were unbound in loose, numbered gatherings known as a piece or pecia. These were rented to students and scribes who then copied that part of the text, returned the pecia, rented another, and so on. In the meantime other scribes could be using the returned peciae and thus speed up the process of making multiple copies since the entire manuscript did not have to be kept by a single scribe until he (or she) completely finished the copy. Some manuscripts have the number of the pecia in the margin. The thirteenth-century manuscript on exhibit does not, possibly because it was not a Paris production and possibly because it was not a small copy but a large one with wide margins, suggesting it did not need to be done economically or speedily [4.1]. There are, however, some small and faint roman numerals in the margins, probably evidence of a scribe’s preliminary markings corresponding to the larger, brightly colored chapter divisions in roman numerals (see Matthew 12 and 19).

In producing an illuminated Bible manuscript, normally the text was written first on skin with blank spaces left for the images. Next the illuminator made a sketch upon which gold leaf was added and burnished until it shone. Colors were added after the burnishing thus minimizing the danger of damaging the colors in the burnishing process. Then the details were added until the work was completed. Miniatures were sometimes copied from other illuminated manuscripts or from artists’ model books. Written descriptions of miniatures are sometimes found in the margin. Illuminated manuscripts were produced either in monasteries or other ecclesiastical centers until about 1200. Later, secular professionals also began to illuminate manuscripts in shops run by laymen using lay illustrators.

Why decorate these manuscripts? Christopher de Hamel suggests it relates to the desire, beginning in the twelfth century, to make a manuscript easy to use. (De Hamel 1986, 99–100) A decorated initial leads the user into what was considered an important part of the text; bright red ink marked off headings; and pictures help explain the text visually and aid the reader’s memory.

PRINTED TEXTS

Although printing (even with movable type) was done in China and other Oriental lands before its appearance in Europe in 1454, it did not take root and blossom there. But in Europe conditions were ripe for mass production of texts. The fifteenth century brought a renaissance of intellectual activity, scholarly research, and a renewal of interest in orthodox religion among both clergy and laymen. These factors cried out for a method of producing books other than the time-consuming and laborious manuscript tradition.

The necessary materials for printing books were also available at this time. Paper was being produced in Europe and had even been used for manuscript books. A paper mill was started in Strasbourg around 1430 about the time Gutenberg was resident in that town. Although ink used for printing wood blocks was watery and would not work with metal types, artists had invented a satisfactory oil paint for their use which was adapted for printing on paper or vellum. Presses were in use for printing designs on textiles and were adapted for printing on paper. Medieval workers had processes for making metal type as evidenced by the separate (movable) types that were in use for stamping the covers of manuscript books. (McMurtrie 1960, 127–134) So the societal conditions were right and the materials needed were available for Johann Gutenberg’s invention of printing with movable type.

Early printed books resembled the manuscript book in physical appearance; like codex manuscripts they were essentially gatherings of parchment or paper sewn and bound between covers. Gutenberg designed a type that looked similar to manuscripts and retained the two-column format of medieval manuscripts. Eventually, however, printers developed a lettering that was lighter and they used it on well-spaced, well-arranged pages. These more agreeable fonts (such as roman) were steadily adopted all over Europe, a result in no small part of the influence of the printers Nicholas Jenson, Aldus Manutius, and their pupils. Editions were seldom more than one thousand copies, the average being around two hundred. The market for early books was not unlimited, although Bibles and prayer books could be expected to have a steady sale.

The British Museum possesses a woodcut of a small, early London printing office (complete with a mouse in the corner), beneath which is a poem that well expresses the joyous feelings that resulted from the invention of the printing press:

Loe here the forme and figure of the presse
Most livelily objected to thine eye.
The worth whereof no tongue can well expresse
So much it doth, and workes so readily:
For which let’s give unto the Lord all praise,
That thus hath bless’d us in these latter daies. (Harley mss., 5906b, no.134).

To print books in Greek posed the problem of cutting types for this different alphabet. The first printed Greek appeared in 1465 at the press of Fust and Schoeffer. Nicholas Jenson made a clear and legible Greek font in 1471. Aldus Manutius, who published many Greek books including the first complete Greek Bible [5.3], created a rather illegible Greek cursive font which became the norm for some 250 years. Francis I, king of France, ordered the cutting of his Royal Greek type. This was done by Claude Garamond and first used in 1543 by the printers Estienne. Examples of this font are seen in the 1550 [5.6] and 1551 [11.3] Greek New Testaments.

Another font had to be cut for Hebrew, the earliest use appearing in 1475 (in an edition of Rashi’s commentary on the Pentateuch). Hebrew fonts, unlike Greek ones, were kept relatively simple and legible [2.5].

A special situation arose in the New World with the missionary work of John Eliot (1604-90), who spent many years learning and reducing to writing the Massachusetts Indian language. Eventually, he decided to print the Bible in this language for his Native American congregation. Eliot asked for help from the “Corporation in England for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Indians in New England,” which sent Marmaduke Johnson, a skilled master printer, to Boston. In the meantime a press, a new font of type and other materials had been purchased in London and consigned to the care of the Camgridge printer Samuel Green. It is not difficult to imagine the hurdles, both typographic and linguistic, that had to be surmounted by printers who did not know the language to produce the Eliot “Indian” Bible [12.1]. Indeed, in addition to the two printers, an Algonquian youth learned typesetting in order to supervise the setting and proofreading of difficult words. This is the first Bible to be printed in the New World and the first complete Bible to be printed in a new language as a result of evangelization.

NON-PRINT FORMATS

Audio recordings of the Bible have been available for decades. Television is another contemporary format for presenting the Bible, with worship services, Bible readings, and televangelists reading the Bible to huge television audiences. A modern format more analogous to manuscripts and printing, however, is the digital texts of electronic media. The click of a mouse can change the font. Indeed, even on my unsophisticated computer I have twenty different fonts immediately at hand. Each one, of course, will format the material differently. If I need to include Greek or Hebrew words they are also available at a click. And none of these requires the cutting of new fonts! Moreover, the Greek font is not the hard-to-read Aldine or the Royal fonts. Who is to be admired more–the computer geniuses who create these programs or the pioneers Gutenberg, Aldus, Garamond, and Green and Johnson?

In addition, the bundling of programs on a CD-ROM inspires different formats. Bible notes, commentaries, dictionaries, concordances, and multiple translations can be called up on the computer screen to be pasted together for printing in many different ways [13.4].

Although the printed book replaced the manuscript book, thus far computers have not replaced printed books. Even if this should happen someday, one of formats of the computer will most likely still be the print-out!

Marking the Text: Notation Versus Interpretation

Notes alongside of or beneath the text of the Bible range from short, occasional notes to elaborate commentaries. The more extensive annotations not only affect the formatting of the book but are often used to promote a particular doctrinal viewpoint as well as to give helpful interpretive information. In manuscripts notes were relegated to defined areas of the page, usually in the margins surrounding the text itself. Printed books retained this style of placing notes in the margins. Clearly the placement of the note on the same page as the text it explicates is preferable to the later development of endnotes.

Technically, a gloss is a brief explanation in the margin or between the lines of the text, although the term is often used to describe more extensive commentaries. Such commentaries were usually written in the margins around the text of the Scripture, although sometimes sections of the text were alternated with sections of the commentary. Glosses made use of comments from church fathers; notes were apt to be the work of the translator.

The exhibit displays various examples of glosses and notes. The earliest (ca. 1130–50) is the Latin fragment of the Gospel of Matthew [3.1]. The glosses appear both in the margin and in smaller writing by the same hand between the lines of the text. The formatting has resulted in an attractive, well-balanced page. The gloss was written by Ralph of Laon, the brother of Anselm († 1117). Of the three Greek manuscripts in the exhibit only the eleventh-century Gospels are glossed [1.3]. Surrounding the single column text on three sides is the commentary on Mark by Victor of Antioch, a fifth-century presbyter.

The thirteenth-century glossed manuscript of the Wisdom books [11.1] was likely done by different scribes since the character of the script noticeably changes toward the end of the manuscript. Commentary appears between the lines as well as in the margins. Some of the pages are beautifully laid out and neatly written (before another scribe took over or the first scribe grew older and tremulous).

The 1475 Koberger Bible [2.3] is glossed, and the 1483 Nicholas of Lyre Bible [3.2] contains both glosses and illuminations. The Chained Bible from around 1500 [3.4] is also glossed and attractively formatted.

Brief notes can be seen in several items on display. Editions of the Tyndale Bibles vary in extra-biblical content. The 1526 edition included only the biblical text. Tyndale’s 1530 Pentateuch contained several full page illustrations of the tabernacle and priests and a few polemic notes here and there. On Exodus 3:25 concerning the pestilence that broke out after the Israelites worshiped the golden calf, he wrote: “The Pope’s bull slayeth more than aron’s calf.” On Exodus 36:5–7 where the people are asked to bring no more offerings for building the tabernacle, he wrote, “When will the Pope say ‘Hold’ and forbid an offering for the building of St Peter’s church. . . . Never until they have all.” Notes at the end of chapters first appeared in the 1548 Tyndale. They were printed in the same, although smaller, font as the text and the same width as the lines of the text. In other English Bibles (e.g., Coverdale, Matthew’s, Great, Bishops’, Geneva, and King James) notes and references were placed in the side margins. The quantity of notes in the Geneva version caused some of them to spill over from the margins onto the bottoms of the pages.

Later printed English Bibles included more introductory and explanatory material, a trend which would soon include theological propaganda for differing viewpoints. The first complete printed English Bible [8.1] had marginal references and chapter summaries at the beginning of each book but no notes. The 1537 Matthew’s Bible [8.3] had both chapter summaries, references, and many notes, some of which show doctrinal bents. For example, the note on Matthew 16:18 uses the word “church” (instead of congregation) and interprets the rock as Peter’s confession, not Peter himself.

One astounding example of propaganda, although not very theological, appears in a note at the end of 1 Peter 3 in a 1549 reprint of Matthew’s Bible, edited by Edmund Becke (not on exhibit). Allegedly explaining the phrase “to dwell with a wife according to knowledge” it says: “And yf she be not obedient and healpfull unto hym endevoureth to beate the feare of God into her heade, that thereby she maye be compelled to learne her duitie and do it.” Not surprisingly, book collectors refer to this imprint as the “Wife Beater’s Bible.”

The Geneva Bible (1560) marked a milestone in theological notes [10.2]. Translated and issued in Geneva by Protestant exiles who fled Queen Mary’s reign, the Bible with its many explanatory notes was enormously popular. The 1557 New Testament [11.4] as well as the 1560 complete Bible were the first English Bibles with verse divisions. Although the notes were Calvinist and sometimes anti-Catholic, their purpose, according to the introduction to the translation, was primarily to explain the text rather than promote Calvinism (although they did both).

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Roman Catholics in England, deprived of their pastors, resorted to finding help in English Protestant Bibles, most notably in the Geneva Bible with its Calvinist emphasis. Disturbed by this, the Roman Catholic Church translated and annotated their version, the Rheims New Testament appearing in 1582 [10.3] and the Douai Old Testament in 1609—10 [10.4]. The notes, more prolific in the New Testament, range from insignificant textual variants to major doctrinal treatises. Roman Catholic doctrines such as the interpretation of Scripture by the Church, the assumption of Mary’s body into heaven, a defense of purgatory, and the supremacy of the papacy appear in various notes.

The Rheims-Douai version provoked a strong attack by Protestant William Fulke [10.4]. His defense of the Bishops’ translation against the attacks of Gregory Martin, the seminarist of Rheims, shows considerable learning and ability, especially wide acquaintance with the church fathers. Three more reprints of his work were issued after his death. However, Fulke’s refutation backfired, merely increasing the distribution of the Catholic translation. When you view this volume, notice the many fonts of type and their arrangement on the page, certainly a monumental task of composition and formatting.

Although the King James Bible included marginal references, headlines, chapter summaries, and some translation options, there were no doctrinal notes as such. Interestingly, however, a number of King James translations combined with notes from the Geneva Bible were published in Amsterdam from 1642 to 1715.

Some twentieth-century Bibles are replete with helps which include book introductions, marginal or center column references, topical headings or outlines, and doctrinal and explanatory notes at the bottom of the pages. The Scofield Reference Bible (first published in 1909) has had untold influence in propagating its particular doctrinal position. Although not many fonts are used, formatting the layout of its pages was not an easy task before computers. On the title page of the second edition published in 1917 are the words “New and Improved Edition.” This was accomplished without disturbing the layout and necessitating reformatting and resetting the pages by simply adding information to the existing center columns. The Moffat Bible (1924, [2.6]) contains a significant amount of textual information indicated by a system of symbols. Study Bibles have flooded the market in the last third of this century. Some are truly study Bibles, while many were rushed to the marketplace only with material added either at the beginning and/or end of the text and minimal helps within the biblical text. In one religious books catalog I recently counted forty-one study Bibles advertised! “Of the making [and marketing] of many books [especially study Bibles] there is no end” (with apologies to Eccl 12:12).

The First Shall Be Last

In this exhibit one will see several separate New Testaments published before the entire Bible. Matthew 19:30 becomes a truism in Bible publishing: “The first [the Old Testament] shall be last, and the last [the New Testament], first.”

When this happens, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that marketing may drive the release of the New Testament portion of a new translation before the entire Bible is completed. In this way the Christian audience can see the part of the Bible with which they are better acquainted and (the publisher hopes) will want to purchase the entire translation when it is released. This results in two sales instead of one.

This sequence of publishing the New Testament before including the Old Testament occurred with a number of nineteenth- and twentieth-century English Bibles as well. Some examples follow:

The motivation for doing this with earlier Bibles is less obvious. Perhaps it was also a marketing issue or, more likely, the Christian translator purposefully gave preference to the “new law” of Christianity. William Tyndale’s New Testament first appeared in 1525, and later he undertook the translation of the Pentateuch which appeared in 1530 [7.2]. The first printed Greek New Testament was part of the great Complutensian Polyglot [2.4]. It was printed in 1514 but withheld from publication until the entire Polyglot was finished, then released in 1521. In the meantime Erasmus published his first Greek New Testament in 1516 [5.2], and three years later the printer Aldus released the first Greek Bible [5.3]. Martin Luther published his German New Testament in 1522 and the entire Bible in 1534. In Luther’s case it is doubtful that he did this as a marketing ploy but rather as a way to introduce his movement to more people. We should also consider the fact that, for most Renaissance translators, their command of Greek was probably better than their Hebrew.

The Spanish Bible followed the same pattern. The first Spanish New Testament appeared in 1543, the second in 1556 [6.5], but the whole Bible not until 1569 [6.6]. The first translation into Welsh consisted of the four Gospels in 1551 followed by the New Testament in 1567 [6.7] and the entire Bible in 1588. The Irish New Testament was published in 1602, but the entire Bible not until 1690 [6.9].The first Danish New Testament appeared in 1524 [6.3] and the Bible in 1550. The French and Italian Protestant Bibles [6.4 & 6.8] did not follow this pattern.

Among English Bibles there was no separately published New Testament before the entire Bible until the Geneva New Testament was released in 1557 [11.4], three years before the Geneva Bible [10.2]. The Coverdale, Matthew’s, Taverner, Great, Bishops’, and King James Bibles all appear as complete Bibles before any separate parts were published.

The Roman Catholic New Testament translation in English, the Rheims, was published in 1582 [10.3], but the Old Testament in two volumes not until 1609–10 [10.4]. In the meantime a second edition of the New Testament had appeared in 1600.

The New Testament of the Indian Bible translated by John Eliot, the first Bible printed in the New World, was released in 1661 and the entire Bible in 1663 [12.1]. Fifteen hundred copies of the New Testament were printed of which 1,000 were reserved to bind with the copies of the Old Testament when it was ready in 1663. Anyone who reads of the self-sacrificing life and ministry of Eliot could never suspect him of any motive for doing this other than to get the portion he considered most necessary to his beloved congregation published as soon as possible. Although the Saur Bibles were issued in seven separate New Testaments between 1745 and 1775, none preceded the first Saur Bible in 1743 nor followed the last one in 1776.

The Bottom Line

Although this exhibit focuses on differing formats, this must never obscure what is being formatted in these various ways—the Word of God. Still today the Word motivates missionary efforts, including the arduous task of reducing an unwritten language to writing and then translating and printing the Bible.

Whatever one’s view of or interest in the Word of God, the words of Archbishop Matthew Parker are still worth pondering. He wrote in his unsigned preface to the Bishops’ Bible (1568): “Of all the sentences pronounced by our Saviour Christ in his whole doctrine, none is more serious or more worthy to be borne in remembrance than that which he spoke openly in his gospel, saying ‘Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think to have eternal life, and those they be which bear witness of me.’ . . . Christ calleth . . . not only to the single reading of the Scriptures, but sendeth to the exquisite searching of them, for in them is eternal life to be found.”