About This Project
One day I heard a man say the New Testament was out of order. He went on to explain how powerful and important the "total context" of scripture could be. Since that day, I wanted to hold a Bible in my hands like the one I describe in my Preface.
Since Gene still hadn't finished his yet, I thought... why not go for it? (That was ten years ago!)
In 1996, when I moved to Atlanta, I started retyping a book called "The Greatest Story" by Cheney & Ellisen (a revision of "The Life of Christ in Stereo" which I believe was first published in the 1960's). The book blended all four gospels into one, which was beautiful... but then it chopped up that one story into chunks with little headings on top. Even though it all flowed as one, it still flowed choppy, like all these little readings were somehow disconnected from each other.
Incidently, the second-best part of Cheney & Ellisen's work was their timeline, and its defense. Yet, the second-worst part was that they did not put those dates into the start of each segment. The presentation still seemed to be focused on theme. A parable here, a miracle there, the sayings of Jesus... they all still seemed unconnected! The book was just formatted in a way that did not help it feel like a story at all... to me. So I started retyping it!
When I finished that, I edited the "scene breaks". It seemed that the only reason for a break in the narrative should be a change of time or location, in the story events. It also seemed like the "Episodes" should be divided by time-periods, in some way... but I wasn't sure how. (I use the term "Episodes" because the word "Chapter" means something else to Bible readers, and I don't want any of those kind of chapters in this book! No verses, either! Ugh!)
So I kept editing. After I found all the natural "scene breaks", I began grouping and re-grouping the "scenes" to see which ones fit together most naturally. My goal was to see which scenes were most closely connected in a sense of the story.
Here are several examples of what I mean:
The many scenes in Episode One are tied together by the Angel's predictions, and the scenes in Episode Two are each connected to the actual birth of Jesus.
Episode Seven: Jesus Visits Samaria, is almost one long scene, because it was a unique event in a unique location, and because the main scene is long-ish.
Later, Episode Ten: Jesus Chooses Twelve Disciples, is many short scenes put together, because they all happened near the same time, and because put-together they show Jesus working systematically to round up these men. The closing words of Episode Ten are: "He sat down to teach them, saying..." And so Episode Eleven is the Sermon on the Mount, followed by the opening to Episode Twelve, which begins, "When Jesus finished teaching..."
After enough editing, the scenes really seemed to group themselves into Episodes, though sometimes in different ways, such as these:
Episode Seventeen: John is Killed, is basically the one long scene, in Herod's palace, combined with the very short scene that simply says "When John's disciples heard what happened, they went to tell Jesus." So that whole Episode takes up just one page.
Jesus "Passion Week" in Jerusalem fitted very nicely into days:
Episode 35 = Sunday (Palm Sunday)
36 = Monday
37 = Tuesday
38 = Tuesday Night (Prophesying on the Mountain of Olives)
39 = Wednesday
And Episode 40 has Thursday, the day of the feast.
Interestingly, Jesus did nothing at all during daytime on Thursday. The scripture simply says he told his disciples that morning to go prepare the feast, and to meet him at the house in the evening. Of course, this is profound... Jesus had a very busy night and day ahead of him, and he probably wanted to rest and just be with his Father.
Since Episode 40 takes up less than one page, Thursday's timeframe becomes obvious and clear. The time and location help reveal all kinds of things, about the Story! That's the whole point of the formatting!
Everything from the "Last Supper" to Jesus' Burial takes place in 24 hours... but it takes Eight Episodes to contain all that was written about that one day. (The Hebrew day begins at sunset, which is when Jesus' feasted with his disciples.) I found the scenes from Episodes 41 through 47 also have their natural groupings, relative to this very short timeframe.
Then we skip from sunset on Friday to Sunrise on Sunday! Episode 48 tells about Sunday morning... and Episode 49 tells everything from Sunday afternoon through the fishing trip to Galilee. (The events in Episode 49 focus mainly on the story of the Disciples: would they stay together... would they return to Galilee and fish to feed their families, or stay in Jerusalem to "feed his sheep"? Put together, from all four gospels, into one Episode, these scenes are very, very powerful. The "total context" can be very important!
The Second Part, Acts and Paul's Letters, is even more exciting, if that's possible!
The events early on in Jerusalem make it clear what the time frame was that went with those events. After Stephen's death, the timeline shifts in a way that was never clear in Luke's narrative, all by itself. But the formatting brings it out, without harming or altering the scripture in any way.
Episode 61 is all the text Luke wrote about the beginning of the Church in Antioch, which Luke put together in order to lay some quick background before Paul and Barnabas come to town - which is how Luke knew of the events in Episode 62 (Peter in Herod's prison).
But the events of Episode 61 themselves take place over 8 or 9 years, from 33 to 44 AD! Therevore, Episode 61 is a series of short, 1-2 sentence scenes, showing how all the things Luke mentions so quickly actually took a long time to play out, one by one. Through the Episode, not one word is fundamentally altered or removed... it just spaces out better to show time and location, which hilights the real-ness of the activities involved. (Episode 61 was certainly one of the more challenging Episodes to edit!)
Without this editing, Luke's account of Antioch's beginning makes it sound like it all happened instantly.
Later, when Paul and Barnabas travel and meet with the elders in Jerusalem, return to Antioch and split up for seperate travels. That all happens in Episode 65, with one line inserted (in italics) which says, Paul wrote a letter to the churches in Galatia.
Then Episode 66 is just the Galatian Letter.
And Episode 67 picks up where 65 left off.
The rest of Part Two continues that way... inserting the Letters as each one was written. So Episodes 51 - 91 are just Acts with Paul's Letters put back into the actual time and place where he sat down to write them. I believe anyone who reads the New Testament in this way, in this style, with this formatting... will never read Paul's Letters in quite the same way again. The "total context" can be very powerful, and it just might be very important!
(Another favorite part of mine, as an editing challenge, is Episode 76, during which Paul wrote his Second Letter to Corinth, his Letter to Rome, and his First Letter to Timothy! So, of course, Episodes 77, 78, and 79 display those three letters, and then Episode 80 picks up where 76 left off, with Paul sailing to Ephesus to meet with Timothy and the new elders he just appointed!
Actually, the only thing I liked better than putting the Letters back into chronology, was putting Timothy and Titus' own lives into a simple chronology! Someday, I'll post at length, about these two men and their ministries... but for now, you can check out my Timeline!)
Finally, Part Three is the "Jewish Epistles" (as scholars call them) written by John, Peter, James, Jude, and whoever wrote Hebrews. Part Three includes a historical interlude of events that occured in the Roman Empire from 64 to 70 AD... events which were very important to the story... even though these events are not necessarily mentioned in direct ways by any of the letters. (Roman Soldiers often read the mail, you know!)
And that's more than enough sumarizing, for now!
All together, this is my project!
You can find out more about my publishing efforts here. And you can find out more about my translating efforts here. And yes, if you want to help me finish sooner, I will gladly accept your advice, encouragement, prayer, cash, gold, raw platinum, valuable commodities and/or real-estate! (I'm not picky!)
For those who are donating, I've started an account. If it builds up to equal a year's income, I'll take a year off to translate, and see how far I can get. If it doesn't build up that much, I'll take off a half a year. Again, I'm not picky! :)
But this is a lifetime sized dream!
No. It's much more than that...
In the 1400's, a man in England named William Tyndale translated the Bible into English and was beheaded for it. (The first English Bible was done by John Wycliffe, but he was a professor at Oxford, so he kept his head!) Tyndale's real crime was trying to get the Word out to the common man, which is what really smoked the bacon of the Authorities at the time!
Tyndale once famously said, "I want every plow-boy to be able to read and understand the scriptures."
Now, it was the man who inspired this project in me, who I mentioned before, who told me this story. Then he said he once saw a statue of that plow-boy, and he wanted to say to it, "Just hang on... we'll get there yet!"
We are all that plow-boy. And we are not there yet. But we can be.
And I do believe this project is worth just that much.
Thanks for reading.
In Him,
Bill Heroman
Editor, GUSB
Arlington, Texas
(Revised, Feb '06)
Since Gene still hadn't finished his yet, I thought... why not go for it? (That was ten years ago!)
In 1996, when I moved to Atlanta, I started retyping a book called "The Greatest Story" by Cheney & Ellisen (a revision of "The Life of Christ in Stereo" which I believe was first published in the 1960's). The book blended all four gospels into one, which was beautiful... but then it chopped up that one story into chunks with little headings on top. Even though it all flowed as one, it still flowed choppy, like all these little readings were somehow disconnected from each other.
Incidently, the second-best part of Cheney & Ellisen's work was their timeline, and its defense. Yet, the second-worst part was that they did not put those dates into the start of each segment. The presentation still seemed to be focused on theme. A parable here, a miracle there, the sayings of Jesus... they all still seemed unconnected! The book was just formatted in a way that did not help it feel like a story at all... to me. So I started retyping it!
When I finished that, I edited the "scene breaks". It seemed that the only reason for a break in the narrative should be a change of time or location, in the story events. It also seemed like the "Episodes" should be divided by time-periods, in some way... but I wasn't sure how. (I use the term "Episodes" because the word "Chapter" means something else to Bible readers, and I don't want any of those kind of chapters in this book! No verses, either! Ugh!)
So I kept editing. After I found all the natural "scene breaks", I began grouping and re-grouping the "scenes" to see which ones fit together most naturally. My goal was to see which scenes were most closely connected in a sense of the story.
Here are several examples of what I mean:
The many scenes in Episode One are tied together by the Angel's predictions, and the scenes in Episode Two are each connected to the actual birth of Jesus.
Episode Seven: Jesus Visits Samaria, is almost one long scene, because it was a unique event in a unique location, and because the main scene is long-ish.
Later, Episode Ten: Jesus Chooses Twelve Disciples, is many short scenes put together, because they all happened near the same time, and because put-together they show Jesus working systematically to round up these men. The closing words of Episode Ten are: "He sat down to teach them, saying..." And so Episode Eleven is the Sermon on the Mount, followed by the opening to Episode Twelve, which begins, "When Jesus finished teaching..."
After enough editing, the scenes really seemed to group themselves into Episodes, though sometimes in different ways, such as these:
Episode Seventeen: John is Killed, is basically the one long scene, in Herod's palace, combined with the very short scene that simply says "When John's disciples heard what happened, they went to tell Jesus." So that whole Episode takes up just one page.
Jesus "Passion Week" in Jerusalem fitted very nicely into days:
Episode 35 = Sunday (Palm Sunday)
36 = Monday
37 = Tuesday
38 = Tuesday Night (Prophesying on the Mountain of Olives)
39 = Wednesday
And Episode 40 has Thursday, the day of the feast.
Interestingly, Jesus did nothing at all during daytime on Thursday. The scripture simply says he told his disciples that morning to go prepare the feast, and to meet him at the house in the evening. Of course, this is profound... Jesus had a very busy night and day ahead of him, and he probably wanted to rest and just be with his Father.
Since Episode 40 takes up less than one page, Thursday's timeframe becomes obvious and clear. The time and location help reveal all kinds of things, about the Story! That's the whole point of the formatting!
Everything from the "Last Supper" to Jesus' Burial takes place in 24 hours... but it takes Eight Episodes to contain all that was written about that one day. (The Hebrew day begins at sunset, which is when Jesus' feasted with his disciples.) I found the scenes from Episodes 41 through 47 also have their natural groupings, relative to this very short timeframe.
Then we skip from sunset on Friday to Sunrise on Sunday! Episode 48 tells about Sunday morning... and Episode 49 tells everything from Sunday afternoon through the fishing trip to Galilee. (The events in Episode 49 focus mainly on the story of the Disciples: would they stay together... would they return to Galilee and fish to feed their families, or stay in Jerusalem to "feed his sheep"? Put together, from all four gospels, into one Episode, these scenes are very, very powerful. The "total context" can be very important!
The Second Part, Acts and Paul's Letters, is even more exciting, if that's possible!
The events early on in Jerusalem make it clear what the time frame was that went with those events. After Stephen's death, the timeline shifts in a way that was never clear in Luke's narrative, all by itself. But the formatting brings it out, without harming or altering the scripture in any way.
Episode 61 is all the text Luke wrote about the beginning of the Church in Antioch, which Luke put together in order to lay some quick background before Paul and Barnabas come to town - which is how Luke knew of the events in Episode 62 (Peter in Herod's prison).
But the events of Episode 61 themselves take place over 8 or 9 years, from 33 to 44 AD! Therevore, Episode 61 is a series of short, 1-2 sentence scenes, showing how all the things Luke mentions so quickly actually took a long time to play out, one by one. Through the Episode, not one word is fundamentally altered or removed... it just spaces out better to show time and location, which hilights the real-ness of the activities involved. (Episode 61 was certainly one of the more challenging Episodes to edit!)
Without this editing, Luke's account of Antioch's beginning makes it sound like it all happened instantly.
Later, when Paul and Barnabas travel and meet with the elders in Jerusalem, return to Antioch and split up for seperate travels. That all happens in Episode 65, with one line inserted (in italics) which says, Paul wrote a letter to the churches in Galatia.
Then Episode 66 is just the Galatian Letter.
And Episode 67 picks up where 65 left off.
The rest of Part Two continues that way... inserting the Letters as each one was written. So Episodes 51 - 91 are just Acts with Paul's Letters put back into the actual time and place where he sat down to write them. I believe anyone who reads the New Testament in this way, in this style, with this formatting... will never read Paul's Letters in quite the same way again. The "total context" can be very powerful, and it just might be very important!
(Another favorite part of mine, as an editing challenge, is Episode 76, during which Paul wrote his Second Letter to Corinth, his Letter to Rome, and his First Letter to Timothy! So, of course, Episodes 77, 78, and 79 display those three letters, and then Episode 80 picks up where 76 left off, with Paul sailing to Ephesus to meet with Timothy and the new elders he just appointed!
Actually, the only thing I liked better than putting the Letters back into chronology, was putting Timothy and Titus' own lives into a simple chronology! Someday, I'll post at length, about these two men and their ministries... but for now, you can check out my Timeline!)
Finally, Part Three is the "Jewish Epistles" (as scholars call them) written by John, Peter, James, Jude, and whoever wrote Hebrews. Part Three includes a historical interlude of events that occured in the Roman Empire from 64 to 70 AD... events which were very important to the story... even though these events are not necessarily mentioned in direct ways by any of the letters. (Roman Soldiers often read the mail, you know!)
And that's more than enough sumarizing, for now!
All together, this is my project!
You can find out more about my publishing efforts here. And you can find out more about my translating efforts here. And yes, if you want to help me finish sooner, I will gladly accept your advice, encouragement, prayer, cash, gold, raw platinum, valuable commodities and/or real-estate! (I'm not picky!)
For those who are donating, I've started an account. If it builds up to equal a year's income, I'll take a year off to translate, and see how far I can get. If it doesn't build up that much, I'll take off a half a year. Again, I'm not picky! :)
But this is a lifetime sized dream!
No. It's much more than that...
In the 1400's, a man in England named William Tyndale translated the Bible into English and was beheaded for it. (The first English Bible was done by John Wycliffe, but he was a professor at Oxford, so he kept his head!) Tyndale's real crime was trying to get the Word out to the common man, which is what really smoked the bacon of the Authorities at the time!
Tyndale once famously said, "I want every plow-boy to be able to read and understand the scriptures."
Now, it was the man who inspired this project in me, who I mentioned before, who told me this story. Then he said he once saw a statue of that plow-boy, and he wanted to say to it, "Just hang on... we'll get there yet!"
We are all that plow-boy. And we are not there yet. But we can be.
And I do believe this project is worth just that much.
Thanks for reading.
In Him,
Bill Heroman
Editor, GUSB
Arlington, Texas
(Revised, Feb '06)