Blank Bible

Blank Bible – Phase 2

3 years ago

by Jacob in Blank Bible, Jonathan Edwards

So, after a long procrastination root in my heart, I’ve finally gotten around to posting the second part of the creation of my Blank Bible. This all happened a week after my last post on the Blank Bible, but here it’s getting posted now..er, 4 1/2 months later. So, anyhow, again, I’m following the same pattern from Tony Reinke’s blog.

Slicing/Stuffing

Tony suggested 20 lb paper, but I got 24 lb cut to the size of the bible pages after the sawing off of the binding.

Punching/Binding

Here (above) I needed to divide the pages into five volumes, trying to keep them separated in logical places (i.e. not in the middle of Psalms).

Problems/Errors

There were a few errors that occurred during this process.

Here (above) there were a few punches that didn’t take on the edge of some pages in Revelation. Not a huge problem, one that was easily fixed and never seen again by a box blade and some mad blade skills.

Here (above) you won’t see the problem very easily unless I point it out. The page is flipped. what I mean is that the key notes should be on the margin, not the page edge. It slightly freaked me out when I saw it – a technician error that I had no control over. It’s about a 10 page issue in Jeremiah. But, in the end, it’s not that big of a problem. I’ll come back in a few years and fix it since I don’t do a lot of work in Jeremiah. I’ll probably photo copy the pages, have them cut and punched, and treat the blank back-side of the page as the next page’s notes page.

Finished Work!
Here’s what the finished work looks like. I’ve got a picture here of some notes I’ve taken in James (with Thomas Manton on James 5:16), the final stack of them, and they’re final resting place above my standing desk.

Anyhow, the project was well worth the effort. In the end, including the Bible, I want to say I spent around $75-100, I can’t remember off hand. But it was around that. I’m excited to be a little more intentional in the coming months and years to work through the Bible in such a way that my growth in knowledge and love for the Savior is recorded in this Bible so that I can see it, and so that my children will see it as well. What a treasured center-piece to the study.

Thanks Tony for all your help in putting up such helpful material on your blog.

The Blank Bible – Phase 1

3 years ago

by Jacob in Blank Bible, Jonathan Edwards

Periodically I will evaluate my study habits, and begin to make adjustments (small or large) in the areas that stick out as needing tuning (i.e. place, books, time, etc.). A couple months ago I began to reflect on my own study habits in light of the example of Jonathan Edwards when Tony Reinke changed the name of his blog (here). The diagram he provided of Edwards’ desk was particularly helpful in thinking about the orientation of my study. What, in fact, was the central focus of my study? To be honest, I had none. So, upon seeing Edwards’ focus on the centrality of his physical Bible as the center piece of his studies, I began to think about what sort of Bible I wanted to be the main “study Bible” (in the sense of note taking). After a few failed attempts to find anything that satisfied, I e-mailed Tony about making a Blank Bible like Jonathan Edwards, and much to my surprise, he e-mailed back that he’d done some blogging a while back on how to make one: TSS Blank Bible Index.

So what follows here is my attempt to follow his instructions on Blank Bible Project #2 to build a Blank Bible of my very own.

So the process for me began on what type of Bible to pick. I obviously wanted an ESV (especially with the ’07 text updates), and I knew that from Tony’s suggestion, the simple hardback versions were the thickest “Bible thin” paper one could get. However, I wasn’t prepared for this dilemma when I went to my churches Book Shoppe: single, or double column?! (<–Links to page examples) I decided to go with the single column text for a couple reasons:

The paragraph separations that the editors put into the double columned text can interupt a flow of though in interpretation. I don’t think they’re devious in doing this, but it is just a general help to better understanding the flow of a text in being able to decided for oneself where the paragraphs are.
The single column text gives me numbers all on the left margin, making verses easier to note and locate.
The single column text gives me plenty of space on each line to make textual notes about the Greek/Hebrew in a line if I need to. (For example, it is helpful to know that “dwelt among us” in John 1:14 in the Greek is literally “tabernacled” drawing on imagery from the OT, where God talks about creating a intimate sanctuary of worship and relationship with his people, like Exodus 29:46).

It’s a personal decision in the end, and I can see benefit both ways, but for the above reasons, I went with the single column.

Thankfully, God has put me in a community group where my community group leader is a carpenter (score!). So when I approached him with (yet another) crazy project, he immediately knew what I needed to do to cut the Bible. This was God’s kindness to me, because I have absolutely no knowledge of these things. I have tools, and use them, but on a small scale, and mostly to impress my wife! So from here, I’m just following Tony’s instructions, which you can look up if you’d like. I’m just going to give the pictures from the day and small notes on what’s going on.

Step 1: Prep the Bible

Step 2: Prepping the wood.

This is my community group leader, Andy Cully. He’s a great, godly man, and you can tell that he’s very cool from his glasses! That’s my wife (Michelle on right) and his wife (Jen on left) standing far back, watching.

Prepping the measurements…

Bible hold in place…

Tony mentions clamping the Bible to keep it steady, however this is one step that I think Andy helped toimprove on. Here Andy’s made a cradle, or outline for the dimensions of the Bible to keep it exactly straight. The sides are the exact hight of the Bible (minus a bit to get a good hold on it), and they are set to make the Bible a straight brick of paper in the clamp. This puts the spine of the paper exactly on the edge of the boards as you can see here: