Illuminated World. The Book at Bene Diction Blogs On

Illuminated World. The Book

I read this over at Today at the Mission, thought to myself, huh, another illustrated bible, clicked over to the site and…

I’m grateful. Moved. This is a form of the bible you’d be delighted to have people steal. I have friends that enjoy their audio bibles. This is for those of us who are more visual and who need and want to be introduced to the words.

The concept originated with a general philosophical dinner table discussion between Michel Gyring and Mats Rabe in Stockholm, Sweden. The conversation, which led to several other discussions with key individuals, asked the question “Why people don’t read historical texts” and they began pondering if the traditional format or design turned people off. They realized there was a huge opportunity to re-design or illuminate these types of old texts. This was the beginning of Illuminated World (formerly Förlaget Illuminated Sweden, AB.)

The team, led by Dag Soderberg, first published an innovative and unique new bible version entitled “The Illuminated Bible: The Book” in two volumes – New Testament and Old Testament in Sweden, during spring and fall of 2007 respectively.

Remarkably, the new Bible reached unprecedented sales in Sweden. Illuminated World increased the market for bibles by almost 50 percent without affecting normal bible sales.

This isn’t a tacky illustrated bible. The website gives you just a glimpse. Enough to want more. The New Testament in English will be available in North America this month, the Old Testament in English March 2009.
This is…well, go see.
Illuminated World The Book.

Interesting discussion going on at Boing Boing.

Published 3 months ago

3 Responses to “Illuminated World. The Book”

RSS & Trackback

1 Noam Sugarman on Oct 10th, 2008 at 11:19 pm

So what’s the point of this illuminated bible? How can illumination make it seem any less ridiculous? For so many years, the bible was only available in Latin because the religious authorities were worried that if people actually understood the damn thing, they would not buy it. I guess they underestimated just how fucking dumb people actually are; you could translate the bible into the most plain, fairy tale form of English, and people would still believe it. Religion is the most clear evidence of how stupid and sheepish people really are.
2 Bene Diction on Oct 11th, 2008 at 1:44 am

If you think it’s ridiculous, fair enough.

It’s a bit like IKEA meets National Geographic in terms of it’s form.
It’s developers say the mission (They want to bring more historical literature [not just bibles] into the 21st century):

“…encourages dialogue and is culturally relevant, accessible and easily digestible for any reader regardless of religious, economic, racial or social background.

We have no religious agenda nor do we support a specific faith. Bible Illuminated is intended to be a unique vehicle for reacquainting today’s reader with one of the most important historical, and cultural texts ever written.”
3 joseph on Oct 11th, 2008 at 1:52 pm

Just a minor historical note regarding Noam’s comment: A classicist could tell you that the bible was first translated widely into Latin (out of Greek/Hebrew with comparitive texts from Origen’s hexapla) because for many centuries Latin was the language of the common people in the, err, Roman Empire. The purpose was to make it as widely available in the common language of the people. And it generally was not a seen or treated as a commodity.