The Bible: Designed to be Read as Living Literature, the Old and the New Testaments in the King James Version

This is a very special edition of the Bible, designed for readers who want to encounter the Bible as a BOOK. You just start on page one and read to the end.1} It is pleasant to look at! No double columns, no chapter and verse numberings, and because spellings have been updated, there are no ugly and distracting pronunciation marks littering the text.2} It is EDITED. My admittedly unscientific guess is that you get somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of the biblical text, and that is including the selections from the apocropha/deutero-canonical books such as Maccabees, Wisdon of Solomon, and Sirach.3} Ernest Sutherland Bates, the literary critic who edited and assembled this work, eliminated archaic legal codes, geneaologies, parallels or doubllets {two or more differing variants of the same story} and the two books of Chronicles {which are a reinterpretation of the books of Kings with lots of geneaologies included}. When you get to the New Testament, only the Gospel of Mark is included almost in its entirety, except for chapter 13, while Matthew and Luke present only material not found in Mark, except for the passion stories. Certain of Paul's letters which are considered doubtful to have been by Paul are left out, as are some minor and rather unimportant epistles such as Jude.The books of the Bible are also rearranged in some respects. Ruth and Daniel are now in the wisdom literature where they really belong. Mark is the first Gospel presented since it is generaly thought to be the first of the four gospels written.4} For literary beauty, the translation Bates chose was the Kings James Version, except for four books where the Revised Version was used instead, because Bates thought the revision superior to the KJV in terms of literary beauty.I have read this work, and am re-reading it, and I have to say I love it. Unless you have some hangup about the Bible being the "Word of God" and therefore every single passage is important, then you will not appreciate it. But if you want to encounter the Bible as LITERATURE, and maybe as a source of religious inspiration, and you want beautiful English poetry and prose, then get a copy of this and read it!One last comment: It does not matter if you get a used copy of the second edition with introductions by Lodowick Allison or if you find an older version where all the introdcutions are written by Bates. The text is pretty much the same whichever you get. Just take Bates comments about dates with salt. But I hope you get the updated edition with Lodowick Allison's Introduction. He explains much better than I the worth of this book.

Very nice. It’s the Bible but written out like a book. Your not gonna find verse numbers or anything like that in this bible. You literally read it like you would read a regular book.

Bought this to replace a copy I lent out years ago and never got back. It is still my favorite way to read the Bible. Everything flows so much better without the verse breaks. It is an abridged Bible but I use it when I want to read as opposed to "study".

A great edition for someone new to the Bible, or Elizabethan literature. Read it, and then set it between Homer and Shakespeare on the shelf.

Unfortunately this product leaves out genealogies and much of the Torah. It would have been preferable, in my opinion, to have inset these things so that the reader my, at their discretion, choose to skip over them, though not taking away from the fullness of the Scriptures.

This was a college textbook, and a friend wanted to borrow it. Big mistake, as I never got it back. I have often wished I could find another copy, and finally I did. It makes the Bible easier to read - poetry is written as poetry, history as history, quotes are in quote marks, etc. I am so happy to have gotten a new copy. Service was extremely fast, and although it was a former library book, it was in excellent condition.

bought for a friend. I already had this and enjoyed using it.

Every Christian should have this book.