Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.
Seth Price 0:00
What's happening? How are we doing before the regular show, so a minute of your time, in a few weeks, two or three weeks, you will hear an episode that I did with Adam Lewis Greene, who is the person behind Bibliotheca, which is a different version of the Bible. You'll find links to that in this episode, show notes. That's at bibliotheca.co. But I would encourage you to do that, because you'll want to know what the giveaway is. So in that conversation, and throughout the organization of it Adam had said, let's give one of these away to a listener of the show. And that's a big deal like A: it's an expensive version of the Bible of a B: it's beautiful. And C: it has become one of my favorite versions of the Bible, because I see things that I don't normally see that way because the verses in the in the chapters are just gone. So it's like I'm reading without interruption. And I'm not explaining that well, but you'll see what I mean. So here's kind of the rules for entry beginning with this episode and the next two. And so that third episode will be Adam Lewis Greene’s every time that you either rate and review the show on iTunes during this time period, or pod bean, or anywhere else that you do. And I don't know how I'll keep track of those, because I don't get alerted to those. So just let me know that you did that. Every time that you do that, I'm going to go ahead and put your name in the hat for the drawing. The easier way though, and I think the way that most of you will do it is to just share this episode or the next few. And so for those of you that already shared the episodes, congratulations, your name is going to be entered in the hat easily. But for those that don't normally share the show with others, just share the show, tag the podcast, you know, either on Facebook or Twitter, when you share it. And every time that that happens, I'm going to enter that name into a hat for the drawing. And so I'm really excited to see what happens I'm excited to see where it goes. So here we go into that begin regular episode.
Adam Lewis Greene 1:44
The thing about the Hebrew Bible, when held up next to the New Testament, I think most scholars of the original languages would agree that the Hebrew Bible is sort of, generally speaking, there's a level of artistry in the Hebrew Bible that is rarely if ever reached in the New Testament. So that the result is then that the Hebrew Bible, good literal translation of the Hebrew Bible will have what Robert Alter I think he calls a grand simplicity.
Seth Price 2:41
How are we doing? Welcome to the show. I'm Seth your host. Before we get started, remember to rate and review this show on iTunes especially, or podbean, wherever you listen to shows at. Especially because this one will enter you into the drawing for Bibliotheca or you can share this episode or Any of the past two episodes starting with Darren Calhoun or Brandan Robertson to also be entered, so get after it. You will learn in today's episode, not specifically about Bibliotheca because that's been done, you can go to the website at Bibliotheca.co to learn all that that is easy enough to find. I was more interested in talking to Adam about the heart behind it, why would drive someone to come and want to approach the Bible in a new way. And I will tell you personally, and I've said this before, his version of the Bible really has impacted my faith these past few years. It's one of my favorite things on my bookshelf, and it's literally sitting here as I interview every single guest that's ever been on this show. And if memory serves, you'll hear that in this interview. So I really hope that you enjoy this conversation with Adam Lewis green about the Bible as literature and so many other things. And so here we go. Let's do it.
Seth Price 4:06
The Adam Lewis Greene, and I like the title there because it feels good. I like to keep things loose. So Adam Lewis Greene, welcome to the show, man! I'm excited to have you. And I'm thankful to have you because I know we've been working on this for some time. And if I'm honest, Adam, at the beginning of it, when I shot an email, I was like, I'll send this off, and it will go to some marketing PR director. And I won't hear back. Because usually, that's what happens. Like I have to track people down at a very local level, usually. But that is not the case. I think that probably goes to you. And so thank you for your willingness. And welcome to the show, man.
Adam Lewis Greene 4:36
Yes, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be invited to chat with you, and Yyes, we are, when I say “we”, it sounds like I'm talking about a company. But I'm really talking about me and my wife. So just if you send an email, it's gonna get to one of us.
Seth Price 4:53
Yeah, I am. Someone asked me the other day, they're like you need like a personal assistant. I was like, why? And I'm like, well, because I'm pretty sure you're the editor, producer music, procure email licenses, all the stuff. I'm like, yeah. Plus a dad and the actual job that keeps my belly full. It's just it is a lot. It's a lot. I'm sure what I do is in no way the same scale at what you do. But it's still a lot.
Adam Lewis Greene 5:17
No, I think it absolutely is. I think it is. I think what you do is the same skill.
Seth Price 5:27
There are worse hobbies I could have though.
Adam Lewis Greene 5:28
Yeah, definitely worse it is. And then maybe someday this will be your main job if you keep at it.
Your stuff is really clean. I mean, it sounds great. It looks great. Your website's great. And you've got a clear message. I think, you know, how long have you been doing this?
Seth Price 5:41
I started the podcast; and by started I like made like a two minute Hey, I'm gonna do this and I put it out into the world to keep myself accountable, in November 2017. I think the actual first episode was like, middle of December of 2017.
Adam Lewis Greene 6:00
So not long.
Seth Price 6:02
But every episode I learned something new. Like I literally had no idea. I'm like, well Garageband is on this computer. How do I record that? Yeah, I bought a cheap $30 mic from Amazon and I should probably upgrade this. That's the goal eventually. But I didn't realize how expensive putting things on the internet can be if people begin to listen to it because you have to pay for that bandwidth.
Adam Lewis Green 6:25
Oh, yeah, interesting.
Seth Price 6:27
Yeah, I didn't realize which I guess is a good it's a good problem, but it's a problem.
Adam Lewis Greene 6:32
Yeah, you gotta pay for everything. The equivalent of that in my life is cardboard boxes. It's like the more I ship the more cardboard boxes I gotta buy.
Seth Price 6:42
Yeah, you just have a pallet in the garage.
Adam Lewis Greene 6:45
Yes, hundreds of them.
Seth Price 6:46
Well, tell me a bit about you not so much about Bibliotheca but you. Like what made you the version of I'm gonna say Christian, and if I'm wrong in that I would think you'd have to be to do what you've done. Am I wrong and saying that?
Adam Lewis Greene 7:00
We’ll get there. (laughter)
Seth Price 7:02
Perfect. We did it.
But what has formed you into the you know, husband, father, publisher that you are today? Like, what are those big milestones there?
Adam Lewis Greene 7:12
Well, I love that question. That's a good question. I've never been asked a question of that nature before when talking about this project; or at least not that specific.
I think, I mean, that's really hard to pin down. And (laughter) but I imagine, I don't know, I imagine our backgrounds are somewhat similar. And, you know, I was raised in the Midwest, in a very conservative Baptist home. And I was raised, I mean, in an environment where I think my parents were not quite as sold on everything but the environment I was in, my school, my church was a very legalistic, dogmatic, environment. And so that then I think results in a certain seriousness that I just kind of I have toward my faith and my beliefs because, you know, the wages of sin is death, if you think about it. So, I was worried and scared for a long time, but I'm grateful in some ways, even though I, you know, I would never subject my kids to that kind of upbringing. Now, I'm grateful in some way is that it that it caused me to take my beliefs and my thinking seriously.
So, although, I don't think that's always a result. You know, I think it that plays out in different ways where it can like have serious psychological consequences in that kind of legalistic, dogmatic environment. And so now it's like trying to figure out how to raise my kids in an environment where it's like, I'm not holding the fear of hell over their heads. And I'm not telling them there's somebody watching their every move, and they can't slip up and you better rededicate your life if you feel weird today.
Seth Price 9:09
Every three weeks.
Adam Lewis Greene 9:10
(laughs)
Yeah, yeah. So my kids are too young for that right now; actually in the environment that I was in, they wouldn't be too young, you’d start right away just as soon as they can understand words you start inundating them with that kind of fearful language. But I am also grateful for it. So it's a mixed bag there with my upbringing, because eventually, like I said, that that leads to, I think, you either just sort of throw everything out and you say, forget this, I'm done. Or you say, well, let's see, what does this all really mean? Where did it come from? And what can I take away? If I bring reason to the table what can I take away with me after I've kind of held everything up to reason?
But that's sort of where I went and so like to be more specific, my whole life through college I went to private Christian school. But there was sort of always this weird tension there, especially starting in high school through college; where I just sort of saw church as being something that I was just very skeptical, very skeptical about the church and what the church was saying about the Bible, in particular. And, how it was educating its members and attendees about what the Bible was. So I was skeptical, but I didn't really know why. Thankfully, I had some really great professors in college who kind of broke with the traditions of the college actually, and gave me some really honest material to look at and we had some really good conversations about, what is the Old Testament? How did it come into being? And what is the Bible in general? What have people been saying about the Bible forever and not just the last 150 years, which is all you get if you're a conservative, Protestant Christian in the Midwest, is just like what have we been saying the last 150 years about it.
But it's framed as what have we been saying about the Bible since the Garden of Eden? Because that's when, you know, that's like the deception that we have access to the original way of seeing things as as conservative Protestant Christians. So anyway, I don't know if you can tell like what I said when I started is it's hard to pin down. I don't know. But I think for me, I also had a very, I had very great parents, not that they were infallible, at all, by any stretch, but it was this kind of at the end of the day I could trust that they loved me and supported me. You know, that's like a big thing in my life. So I felt, despite the fact that my community was kind of a scary thing, and I didn't necessarily feel safe there. I felt like I could ask questions because I had that safety net of my parents, like, I don't think that they're gonna reject me for being skeptical of these things.
So is a huge, huge factor. Yeah. And then, you know, now I am whatever I am. And it's a weird kind of thing where, yeah, the Bible is obviously very important to me. And I think I've changed even since we launched the campaign in 2014, which is now five years ago; next month, it'll be five years, since I launched the campaign. And so, you know, I've continued to read theology and philosophy and those things that are interesting to me. And, you know, I feel very close to the Bible because it was always around and I and it is definitely the central text of my life if I had to choose one. And I still love it and I still read it and study it.
Seth Price 12:58
What college was that because most professors, well depends on the college, they won't buck The trend because they need their tenure, or they'll be ostracized or not allowed to write or publish anymore. So what college was that?
Adam Lewis Greene 13:07
I went to a small, private Christian University in Elgin, Illinois called Judson. What started as Judson College and it ended is Judson University. They went through that transition while I was there.
Seth Price 13:21
My wife’s school just did that.
Adam Lewis Greene 13:22
Yeah, it’s kinda of just such a gimmicky thing, but it’s…
Seth Price 13:27
I think it's semantics isn't? Is it just semantics is that all that it is or is there an actual like, you know…
Adam Lewis Greene 13:32
No. There is like an accreditation system that you've got to go through. But you know, like, what isn't semantics I guess is the question. I mean, it's like, you gotta be able to say you've got these different colleges. And so basically, it's just like a restructuring. You just basically recategorize your college to make a university. So that was my understanding of anyway at the time. It was a weird environment, because it's like it was a small, private Christian school that cost too much money. So I had a huge amount of debt when I was done. So I have this weird bitterness toward that.
Seth Price 14:03
And you probably still do if you're like most hopefully you paid it off.
Adam Lewis Greene 14:09
Well, no, because maybe to get too personal here. My wife got a really good job right out of school and she helped me. She’s very generous and kind and she helped me pay it off. So but actually, that was very recent, you know, like, I'm 33 and we just very recently paid it off.
Seth Price 14:23
I’m with you so I just turned 37 and I finally paid off my student loans (in) November of last year, and it was literally for the longest time Adam, I wouldn't speak to you if your name was Sallie. Like, I just didn't like Sallie. If your name is Mae, I don't Fannie, I don't want to even…someone else can help you when you come into work. I'm not helping you because I can't stand your name. (laughter)n Yeah, and that's an over exaggeration, but that's my animosity towards the student loan system.
Adam Lewis Green 14:52
No I hear it. It's a huge burden
Seth Price 14:55
Easy question. Really easy question. When you say the Bible, because you approach the Bible differently from what I can infer Have the videos that have watched a Bibliotheca. And for just for clarification purposes, I can distinctly remember being on summer vacation at Myrtle Beach at my wife's grandparents house when I saw, someone sent me a message, about Bibliotheca on the Kickstarter. And so yeah, I think I was like the 15th or 20th or something like that backer and was like “Oh, this looks good”.
Adam Lewis Greene 15:20
Oh, wow! Yeah, it's so nice to meet you. Yeah, that's amazing. ,
Seth Price 15:23
Yeah, well at the time, I also didn't make much money. So back in the day, like it was a lot less expensive to get it on Kickstarter than it is today. So I see people buying it now and I'm like, whew….Yeah, I like to tell people that I have one but I didn't pay that much for it. Although I went with I went with that cardboard slip. I should have went with the Walnut or Mahogany or whatever the wood is. But um,
Adam Lewis Greene 15:45
They're still around. They're still around.
Seth Price 15:47
So I can distinctly remember reading it and being like, I was like, man this is a fresh take. But I'm curious as to…so for you…what is that? Like, what is the Bible? Like when I say or when you say the Bible what do you mean “the Bible”? Because I say that for a couple of reasons. A: you messed with the order, which I like. B: it's formatted entirely different. And I am curious as to why formatting matters for how we read the Bible. Like why in our possibly in our brain or why that even matters? But just what is the Bible? Because for different sects of our faith, that's a different answer entirely.
Adam Lewis Greene 16:24
Yeah. I mean, it's a good question that I am still wrestling with. I don't know that I have a clear answer on that. I think, for me, that's part of it. It's like you'll notice in the, in the language of the videos and on the website, I prefer to refer to it as Biblical literature or the Biblical library. And I chose an Bibliotheca for a reason to imply that it is a library.
And, you know, I mean, I think I'll try to put it simply, and by the way, these aren't my views. You know I'm just regurgitating what I read. I'm a lay theologian, you know. I don't….
Seth Price 17:04
Welcome to the club.
Adam Lewis Greene 17:07
So I'm just reading books and then reframing things in like a really primitive way, probably is embarrassing that the people who originally wrote down the brilliant ideas. But I think that the Bible is a collection of literature that has been preserved by communities throughout history. And it's varied in the way that it's ordered, and even what's included. It's hard for me to see it as is anything beyond. I'm trying to figure out how to put this, it's hard for me to see it as anything beyond human. I think it's a very human collection of literature.
And that doesn't mean it's not divine. I don't think that. But I think at the same time, you have to go into questions like what does the term “Word of God” mean or inspired and things like that? And, you know, I'll leave that to the theologians; you can go read books about that. I could maybe recommend a couple that I like.
Seth Price 18:08
Who are they?
Adam Lewis Green 18:10
Well, for me, I think the biggest; and what's interesting is he doesn't really talk that much about the religious significance of the Bible as much as he just talks about the form of the literature of the Bible, which is Robert Alter. Robert Alter (in) every single interview I've done every time somebody asked me who's inspired me the most when it comes to the Bible, or who's been the most influential thinker when it comes to the Bible. I always say Robert Alter.
Seth Price 18:36
That name is familiar. Didn't he just retranslate the Old Testament like recently, or something similar?
Adam Lewis Greene 18:42
Just finished. He just finished but he's been working on it for I think 20 plus years.
Seth Price 18:47
Yeah, I remember clicking the link and it taking me to the publisher and it was like $80 or $100 only that but it was it looked the cover and everything look beautiful, but I was like well, okay, I have many copies of the Old Testament.
Adam Lewis Greene 19:01
It’s nice. You got to get his because his is better.
Seth Price 19:04
Yeah. So how does his approach change the way that you see Scripture then?
Adam Lewis Greene 19:09
Well, I think what he does, he basically wants you to see the Bible for how it was made. So I think before his retranslation, I shouldn’t say retranslation everything's a retranslation. Before his translation of the Hebrew Bible, which is accompanied by ample amounts of commentary, by the way, very good commentary. Before that his probably his most well known book was The Art of Biblical Narrative, is his most well known book that deals with the Bible; The Art of Biblical Narrative. And then he wrote one after that called The Art of Biblical Poetry, and he basically is talking about the literary devices employed by the biblical writers and redactors. And so he is getting real specific with things like you know, symbols that are carried throughout say the Joseph narrative, or the use of repetition, or how those types of devices when they're employed actually contribute meaning to the text. So I'm trying to think of an example; or like how syntax is important and how maintaining even the, what's the word I'm looking for…maintaining basically, the idiom of the ancient languages is actually beneficial in understanding its intended meaning.
So the translations are, sometimes they read very much like the King James Version, he admires the King James Version a lot. He's a Jewish scholar. So he only deals with the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible. And he's basically saying, this is my summary. In a nutshell I don't think he's ever said this explicitly. But here's what I would say based on what Robert Alter has written. I would say that we as a culture have become obsessed with extracting theology, or theological truths-doctrine, from the Bible to the extent that we now translate it to that end.
Seth Price 21:11
Yeah, we're chasing our own tail.
Adam Lewis Greene 21:14
Yes. So now it's like if you're gonna read the ESV, you're getting sort of the complementarian, Protestant, interpretation of the Bible. You're not actually getting a translation of the Bible. Sometimes you are but a lot of times in those kind of tricky places where things are not buttoned up nice and neat, you'll get a translation that kind of implies that they are and that favors their their interpretation. And Robert Alter is basically saying, let's confront the text honestly. Let's let it be mysterious sometimes, because it really just is and honestly, there are a lot of holes in our understanding of ancient Hebrew. So let's let's not shy away from that, you have to be really honest about that and then we can start having better conversations.
I mean, it's really just literary criticism. I mean, he started as a literary critic of modern literature, and then later fell into biblical criticism and has become a real heavy hitter in that realm. And I love his work. I love his writing in general, not just his translation, but his writing itself is just very clear and intelligent. It's not overly wordy. And it's great for the layman like me and you.
Seth Price 22:33
This is an ignorant question with his re translation of the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible be similar to the way that David Bentley Hart has done the new? Like his most current New Testament translation is like literally, almost broken sentences on purpose. Like I'm trying to do exactly what the word meant, without putting your bias on top of it, but I don't know that may be an ignorant question, because I haven’t read either one of those. So, that's me understanding what I've read of Bentley’s.
Adam Lewis Greene 23:07
I think yes. The difference though is that, Robert Alter, the thing about the Hebrew Bible, when held up next to the New Testament, I think most scholars of the original languages would agree that the Hebrew Bible is sort of, generally speaking that there's a level of artistry in the Hebrew Bible that is rarely if ever reached in the New Testament. So that the result is then that the Hebrew Bible, good literal translation of the Hebrew Bible, will have what Robert Alter I think he calls “a grand simplicity”.
And so it's sort of this very, very simple straightforward—there's a lot of “ands” you know, it's just everything is connected by “ands”. You’d think the King James is the Jacobean Being English imposed upon the Hebrew Bible, but in a lot of ways, actually, the King James Bible, and the ESV, which is what we based our revision on the American Standard Version, which is a revision of the King James Version. That might be an edit right there. You just cut that out (laughter from both)
Seth Price 24:21
Well, now it has to stay.
Adam Lewis Greene 24:23
But the King James version is actually in many ways a kind of Hebrewized English, if you will. So like Tyndale did the same thing before the King James Bible. You know, his project of translation that he was killed for. He made the English of the New Testament, more like Greek than English was at the time and he made the English of the Hebrew Bible more like Hebrew then spoken English was at the time.
So Robert Alter is doing that he's doing a similar thing. Ahe kind of makes the divide between Pre war and post war translations. So after the war, you have the most obvious example is the 1952 Revised Standard Version.
Seth Price 25:09
You are talking about from World War Two?
Adam Lewis Greene 25:11
Post World War Two. Yep.
So the 1952 Revised Standard Version is purportedly, a revision of the ASV but the translation philosophy, there is a huge divergence from the Tyndale, King James, ASV, translation philosophy it becomes suddenly very explanatory. Which is another thing Robert also talks about, he calls it the “heresy of explanation”. He says,
to translate language is to move it from one language into another, but what we've done with post war translations is to the reader.
Seth Price 25:48
Yeah. I'm gonna email Robert today because that's fascinating.
(Music)
So you were very intentional, and I don't necessarily want to talk about how beautifully binded and all of the stuff that goes into publishing the book, because although that's fascinating, you have spoken about that elsewhere, if you Google it people can find it. There's videos on it. The Kickstarter videos, the website, like a lot of that is really well laid out with pictures at the same time. And I think for explaining that process, you kind of need to see what you're talking about if you don't have a basis in publishing. Because I know I didn't, although I can appreciate it now that I have, you know, some well-bound books, and some that are not like I have a lot of galley copies of books now. And those are definitely not well bound.
What is the purpose of form if we're going to approach the Bible as a narrative form? Because you've been very intentional in the way that you have structured the text. I mean, there's no chapter there's no verses. There's nothing and I know how that's impacted me. And we can talk about that. Although I'd rather say that if we have time. But why do you think form matters as we engage in an honest or intentional reading, of biblical narrative?
Adam Lewis Greene 27:19
Well, I think that for humans form has has mattered, I'm tempted to say has always mattered. Definitely, that's true. But we know for sure that form has mattered for a really long time. And I think that's an interesting kind of a result of the Reformation, and the iconoclasts, and even just the Enlightenment has been to hyper intellectualize things, I think. I guess what I'm saying is the written word has always, form, has always been an important part of that. Even if you look at the, the Isaiah scroll, which is the oldest extant manuscripts of a full book of the Bible that we that we have access to. That is…it's a beautiful scroll, I mean, the the spacing, and the letter forms are beautiful. In other words, that the manuscript is inclined to the reader, you know, so you're inviting the reader to read this thing. It's meant to be read. It is poetry or narrative or law or whatever it may be. The end goal is for someone to sit down and read it, whether it be to themselves out loud. I think that mattered all the way through history. It still matters today. So like, it's not uncommon to see, if you go to a used bookstore, and go find a classic….find the Divine Comedy or Homers work and you'll see or Shakespeare's work and you'll see beautiful editions of these books.
Even even philosophers, like Nietzsche, you'll find beautiful editions of their work, although I don't find enough of those. Somehow the Bible kind of went through a different history where for a long time it was treated as the…it would end up being the most beautiful book. You know, it would be the most beautifully decorated and carefully made physical object that there was for a long time, out of reverence for its importance, obviously. But then the Reformation came along and it became more about like I said, before extracting truths and facts, you might say empirical facts, even though they're not empirical facts. But the result then, is that you start treating the Bible like a utilitarian object, which it can be used that way certainly. And if you're a pastor and you need your congregation to bring their Bibles to church every Sunday so you can Make them flip around from from verse to verse. If that's what you need, then you need a reference Bible that will suit that need.
But I think what's interesting is I've read a lot of people obviously comments and reviews and things like that about Bibliotheca. And I think one thing that people say a lot over and over again, is, “I love this as like my everyday reader”, or something along those lines. But you know, “it's not good for study”. And I would say, you know, actually just reading something straight through is kind of the first step of study. And so it's actually excellent for study.
So it's still a utilitarian object in that it's enabling you I think, in a way that traditional reference Bibles with two columns on each page and numbers everywhere, it's enabling you to engage with the text in a way that those books for many people it hinders their experience. Because, you know, we know that that is not the most comfortable way to read a text.
You know, there are rules of typography and and book design that have developed over the centuries that we pretty well agree upon, like, hey, yeah, this looks nice. And I can sit down and read it for a while, and you don't think about a dictionary or an encyclopedia in that way. And yet, that is exactly what a traditional reference Bible looks like. It looks like something that is not meant to be read for an extended period of time.
So I simply wanted to reintroduce this type of form to the biblical library, and I say, reintroduce because it really is just a reversion to the, the, the old sort of reverence and beauty that would be applied to the Biblical texts throughout history.
So I mean, that was the way it looked for I mean, if you look at the Isaiah scroll, anybody who's listening if you just Google the Isaiah scroll, and then you look at a page of Bibliotheca, it's like it's the same thing. We're talking about 3000 years apart. You know that was my main inspiration that page layout, the Isaiah scroll. It's just simple and elegant and spacious. And it's just the text, you know. And I could have gone even further with it by separating each book out on its own or separating, you know, the three Isaiah’s from each other, etc, etc. But because, you know, scrolls couldn't contain this much text. But I think just separating it into volumes, obviously, was necessary if I wanted to use nicer, thicker. paper. But it's also sort of a symbol or signpost that, hey, this is a library. This is a collection of texts. And it deserves our attention in a different way than this sort of lab table, dissecting, approach that we've taken into it for the last several hundred years.
Seth Price 32:48
By the time this airs it I don't know where it will be in there. But there's a handful of us that are going through a book by Alexander Shaia. We're going through the Gospel of Mark right now and I have stopped reading the Gospel of Mark out of my traditional Bibles, and I started reading it as I'm going through leading this small study on this book, out of yours. And what I'm finding is where I used to prooftext things in like, you know, turn the mark, or Matthew 12, verse, whatever, I can't do that when I do it this way. And it's forcing me when I try to talk about Scripture to tell a bigger story, when I'm talking about something that was said. Like in the past, I would be like, Tom Brady had 76 fantasy football numbers. And now I can't talk about it without talking about the whole team. And that's a really bad metaphor. That's a really bad metaphor, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. Yeah, it forces me to wrestle with Scripture in a way that I would argue that it's just as much study because I can easily memorize, I can remember like parts of To Kill a Mockingbird and that type of stuff. Because paragraphs were formative. Like you'd read it you're like, “Oh, my gosh”, that's, you remember parts of Lord of the Rings are parts of other stories that are well told that matter. You remember them, it doesn't matter how it was formatted on the page, but it's hard to reference back to.
But I like that around. Like, I feel like, I'm pretty sure mark is on page like 98 or 86 or something like that, like, that's about Mark 6 somewhere in this vicinity.
Adam Lewis Greene 34:13
So I mean, there's also a different way of reading now than there was in antiquity. I mean, who are the greatest expositors of Scripture of all time? I mean most of them. were not using a reference Bible. You know, St. Augustine, Maimonides you know, they, they knew the text because they had to, and that was the way that they read it. They were just constantly reading it straight through. And I'm sure they had little marked up manuscripts or whatever but there's a certain intimacy that I think is accomplished when you cut off some of these interruptions, like cross references or footnotes and things like that. Obviously, those are good tools to have. It's great that we have those things I would never argue against that but it is a different kind of space to enter into with the text. I think entirely different. It has the potential, maybe not for everyone. Maybe some people aren't bothered by the reference Bible. Maybe they can sort of see through that and ignore all the distractions. But for me, it really was about creating the space that I wanted to read the text within.
Seth Price 35:20
I would argue, for people that haven't read a Bible formatted (this way) is yours the only Bible formatted this way?
Adam Lewis Greene 35:26
No. There are others. There are others now actually. I'm not gonna advertise for them. There are others now.
Seth Price 35:33
I would argue if you've never read the Bible in a different format, much like you don't know what cables like if you grew up on rabbit ears and rabbit ears are just fine because they've always been fine. But once you have cable, you can see the differences and there's nothing against rabbit ears. And I'm probably dating myself a bit. (Laughter) There's nothing against that format, but there's other formats and they have their own function and form. One is more quickly able to navigate to number 206 you know, ESPN or whatever, and you can quickly get to where you need to be. And the other requires nuance and requires you to adjust the antenna. Let's call that prayer. Like, it's gonna require more intention to get the signal inputs. It requires more time and more patience, another bad metaphor. So there we go.
Adam Lewis Greene 36:19
You got it. I think that's a good metaphor, because for at least for people who are of our age and older.
Seth Price 36:25
Yeah, yeah, well, yeah. Although I don't know, when rabbit ears stopped. So, I'm curious. And this would be a deeply personal question. I'd like to wrap up with this one, before we plug what you're doing now, as you had to wrestle through the text, and you know, you're redoing it. And I remember seeing like the product update saying, you know, we had to get other people that know more about this text than than I do. Because if we're going to retranslate it like the commas matter. The periods matter, the syntax matters. And so what are some of those things that as you were going through it, you're like, you know, personally like, Okay, well, we got to reprint it this way. But now that I see that like, I can't unsee that. And then it changes the story of some of these other things like you like, Oh my god, nobody ever told me this. I didn't know this, and scholars probably knew it. But you're like, Oh, I can't, that genie is never going back in the bottle.
Adam Lewis Greene 37:13
Yeah, I think, well, a lot of it is that initially we set out with a team of copy editors, right. And we spent a long time we worked with a very experienced proofreading company, Peachtree Editorial, they've done a lot of Bibles, they and my copy chief, a guy named Will Palmer, he, they, and I all worked together for months to create a style guide where we decided okay, we're looking at the Jacobean English and the commas and the semi-colons and usage in ASV that needs to get updated.
And so those things you come across all sorts of situations and so the style guide begins to get really, really long. And then we gave the style guide to a team of copy editors, and they start applying it to the text and you start to see (that) there are a lot of decisions that need to be made like a semi colon versus a comma versus no comma. I mean, it can change things.
And then the other thing was without footnotes is there's a little bit of a weakness there. Because the ASV very often has this like most reference Bibles, they have in the margins like a more literal rendering of the Hebrew. And a lot of times, I really just wanted to put those in the main text, because they are so much more visceral and human.
So like, for example, oftentimes, throughout the Hebrew Bible, a prophet-say Moses-will say something and at the end of what they've said, it'll say, you know, thus says Yahweh by the hand of Moses. But a lot of times the translators took out “the hand of”. It'll say “this says Yahweh by Moses”, or something like that. And I thought, well, why would we take out by the hand of Moses? You know, I mean, that's just a great bodily image. And that's the way that the Hebrew saw the world. So why would we take that out? Or translating things like, instead of center, translated as translating it as I or something like that. Or in Daniel, there was an example, like, we're talking about Mordecai being hung on a gallows when the literal is “tree” so why not just give me the more concrete translation, you know? And so I'm seeing that in the margins (and) I'm thinking well, I want to incorporate these (and) that's like a more intense editorial change than just switching around commas and eliminating Jacobean English. But if I'm going to do that, I need to run it by people who know the Hebrew and then the Greek and Aramaic. So, we then came to need to have scholars to read through the text, make suggestions, point out errors, things like that, you know. So they suggested a lot of clarifications or things that, you know, we've come a long way in 120 years with the original languages. So they were able to help with that process, for sure. And it gave me a sense of peace. You know, I was very anxious about the editorial process until I finally made the decision, which was a financial decision, like, do we have enough money to pay these guys to spend the time to do this?
Seth Price 40:30
Yeah, they're not gonna volunteer.
Adam Lewis Greene 40:33
Yeah. And so it was a considerable chunk of money, but I think it gives the final product a sort of legitimacy that it wouldn't otherwise have had.
But I think the other thing too, is like, I would notice things that maybe weren't even noted in the ASV and I would say like well what do you think of this? I'd be able to run it by scholars. So like, for example, 2 Timothy 3:16 is the “all Scripture is God breathed”.
Seth Price 41:02
That's the inerrancy clause.
Adam Lewis Greene 41:04
Right. So in basically every Bible, you're going to get that traditional translation, “All scripture is God breathed and useful for..,” etc, etc. But in ASV, the ASV is sort of infamously known for translating it differently. And it says something like,
all Scripture that is God breathed is useful for…
and if you look at the original Greek, there are problems there. The Greek is complicated. And so you can Google it, or you can go look at Peter Enns. But that translation is strange and contested. So I was able to ask the scholars and was able to say, Okay, well, what do you think of this translation? Is it as ridiculous as everybody says it is?
And I asked David Desilva, who is a professor of New Testament at Ashland Theological Seminary, and he said, it's actually a perfectly viable translation. And I was suggest you keep it because it's, you know, because it's different. And because it adds a dimension to the text, it confronts the reader with another possibility that is actually perfectly viable if you look at the original Greek. So those are examples of things where the help of scholars and editors was a huge help.
And I think the resulting translation, you know, like I chose to use the ASV and update it, because there was no other full translation of the Bible that included the Hebrew Bible, the Apocrypha, the New Testament, that sort of adhered to Robert Alters philosophy of translation. So the ASV was sort of the closest thing I could find, the closest and most recent thing, that falls somewhat in line with his translation philosophy. It's not perfect, but then I was sort of able to bring, with our rules and with the scholars, I was sort of able to bring his approach a little bit more into focus with our revision, which is the American Literary Version. So yeah, and there are a lot of examples, but it's like it'll get old fast.
Seth Price 43:04
I like it. So you probably heard me pulling out books. I was looking for my copy of the New Testament, but that's the one that's at work because I was reading it yesterday. You probably hear me slide them out. I'm like, I'm gonna go to 2 Timothy.
Adam Lewis Greene 43:15
Yes, Bibliotheca sliding out of a slipcase.
Seth Price 43:17
Yeah, well, yeah. Does it have a sound? You recognize the sound?
Adam Lewis Greene 43:20
Yeah, the cloth and I know the cloth.
Seth Price 43:22
Yeah. Well, so your case is actually the perfect level to get you off of the small coffee table that I use. So your version of the Bible is literally holding up every interview that I do is, like quite literally.
Adam Lewis Greene 43:40
I love that. That’s is perfect. It also works as a great stepstool everyone. I wouldn’t recommend it but you could.
Seth Price 43:46
Yeah, maybe the wood one, but I'm a big dude. And that's not gonna hold me up. Um, so there's gonna be links to Bibliotheca in the show notes and from what I understand a bulk of people like when people ask me, oftentimes people ask me or I’ll respond to people when they ask, you know, what's the best version of the Bible for people to read. And I will say, here's the two that I read. And it's usually an NRSB and then Bibliotheca and I'll pair other ones with them. But I always say, the one that you will read, and the one that you'll read often, that's the best version.
But is your revision to the ASV going to get included elsewhere? For people that only read Bible on a digital format?
Adam Lewis Greene 44:23
I do hope so.
Seth Price 44:25
Who do I have to call when? I have no c C lout but I will call.
Adam Lewis Greene 44:30
(laughs)
It’'s just like, you know, we were talking about, I think before you start recording, we were talking about how we're just trying to do everything. And you know, and it's, I think, it's just me and my wife running this business and trying to survive. So, I've got conversations started about making a digital version of the text.
Seth Price 44:53
Well it should already exist right? Because you had to submit a digital version to the printer?
Adam Lewis Greene 44:56
Right. So it's a digital version of the text, but we would have to reincorporate verse numbers, right? If we want it to be a searchable text.
Seth Price 45:06
No, no, no, no.
Adam Lewis Greene 45:07
Okay, okay, fine. Well, then it’s easy. I'll just make it available in PDF form and then there you go.
Seth Price 45:11
I like that there's no verse numbers, because that's too easy to slip back into the older way of reading it. But maybe that’s just me.
Adam Lewis Greene 45:18
But I’m just saying that if I want to make the translation. If I want to enter that world of sort of like competitive Bible translation, which I have not determined whether or not to do, then I would have to sort of reincorporate the verses and the all the proper I don't know even what you call it the code language or whatever; to make it you know, work on say, you know, all the Bible study tools com or Bible gateway.com or whenever so that it's a searchable text that you can compare with others. You know what I mean? I would like that, because I think the translation is really good. I mean, it's the ASV but in my opinion, we removed the archaicisms and we made some improvements.
Seth Price 46:04
You know what, let me rescind my “No”, because I'm thinking about it wrong. I was thinking about reading a digital version of Bibliotheca. But my question is letting people read this version of the Bible in whatever format they need to. So I'm going to rescind my no, it's not a fair No. Okay. When I was like, No, don't do it. Don't do it. Because I was thinking about it at a personal level.
Adam Lewis Greene 46:22
Well, yeah, I mean, obviously the reason I did it was was to get people this experience, right? It's not just about the format but it's also about the materials. The physical object in the way that feels and smells and yeah, and the way that it even just sits in a room when you're not using it. So it's all these things, all the parts contribute to a greater whole right. So it's that translation is one aspect of the project but the physical form, is what completes it in my opinion.
So that's why it's kind of been like it's been a backburner thing. It hasn't been a huge priority to get the translation out there. And compete with the NIV and NRSV and ESV or whatever. Because that's kind of that's not what I set out to do with this project.
Seth Price 47:08
That's a great answer. What are you doing now? What’s next for Adam Lewis Greene?
Adam Lewis Greene 47:15
Well, the most exciting bit of news that I have, well, first of all, IBibliotheca has been, you know, I don't know if you'll give like a little summary of Bibliotheca when before I start talking, or whatever, before the recording, but….
Seth Price 47:29
You don't know if I'll give a what?
Adam Lewis Greene 47:31
Are you gonna give a little summary of like, what Bibliotheca is because I just realized we haven’t really talked about what it is?
Seth Price 47:38
Well, let's do that. So I probably won't. Usually what I do is I give people a preface of, here's what you're going to hear us talk about right away they can quickly hit the eject button. Like sometimes if I'm going to deal with inerrancy, which I also could have brought up when we talk about something here, but we're going to deal with that at length and you're not comfortable with that. Just hit delete. But I can or…you can.
Adam Lewis Greene 48:01
Bibliotheca started as a Kickstarter project, wherein I attempted to raise $37,000, that was the goal on Kickstarter. And as you know, being one of the first backers it kind of went crazy. And it went viral and it ended up, the campaign ended up, raising $1.4 million in 30 days. So it was definitely scratching some kind of itch that was out there for lots of different types of people, not just Christians-and all different types of Christians as well.
And so, since then, it has sort of continued to be…it's required a lot of my focus, time, and energy.
Seth Price 48:48
You just wanted to do a one off run, right, like you wanted the Bible this way for you. And you're like, if I'm gonna do it, let's just let's just do it for a handful of other people.
Adam Lewis Greene 48:56
Exactly, exactly. Just like it was like, what's it gonna take to get maybe 500 of these made because that's about the minimum amount any serious bindery and book printer is going to consider if you want to have it professionally done on an industrial level, and so that was $37,000. That was my calculation. And that was basically at cost, which is why the Kickstarter campaign is so much cheaper than what is for sale now. Because I have to run a business, you know, like I have overhead. But it's like, with the Kickstarter, I wasn't thinking about overhead. I wasn't thinking about, you know, buying equipment and things like that.
So it's like, there was really no profit built into the Kickstarter. But luckily, we raised enough money to stay above water, we came pretty close a couple of times. But anyway, we ended up finally publishing. So the Kickstarter campaign was in 2014, we finally published it right at the end of 2016, beginning of 2017, sending it out to backers and people who pre-ordered it, and it has continued to sort of stay steady. There's been a steady flow of interest in Bibliotheca. Which I am both surprised by and grateful for.
And so that has been, you know, like I'm still a designer. Like that was the plan was to do Bibliotheca that would sort of be my weekend project. And I remain a freelance designer. But it's been more like, I do freelance design in my spare time and Bibliotheca is kind of my…that's my business. But it's turned into a publishing company, where now I am working on other projects. And the biggest news of late is that I just finally, after many, many years, actually before Bibliotheca I've been wanting to buy a Heidelberg cylinder printing press. And these are like the height of letterpress printing machine was made in the 1950s. It's like this 13,000 pound, steel monster, and I'm gonna use it to Print to print some really nice books. Hopefully, if I can figure it out. It's gonna be a lot of tinkering. A lot of trial and error, but, but I have a couple of projects in mind, like shorter works that I like to do on the printing press. And obviously have them beautifully bound, etc. But, you know, as far as details go, I don't have any to offer.
Seth Price 51:28
That's all gonna be under the Bibliotheca umbrella, or that's an entirely different entity?
Adam Lewis Greene 51:33
So now I started my business is now WritPress. So that's my company name, which again, is kind of silly, because it's really just me and my wife.
Seth Price 51:45
As, working in a bank, most businesses are you and your wife. So I meet so many business owners that there are that it's a huge business, but it's two people.
Adam Lewis Greene 51:56
Oh man. It even continues to get crazier and crazier. We've been using, this is a little bit off topic, but we've been using a fulfillment company since we launched the campaign because when we had to fulfill the first order, right…
Seth Price 52:13
Somebody has to warehouse it.
Adam Lewis Greene 52:15
Everyone who pre-ordered it, we had something like 30,000 units or something like that and 22,000 of those had to go out the door right away. Like there's no way we were going to do that ourselves. So we hired a company with a giant warehouse and we've been housing our inventory there. It was up in Pennsylvania since we launched, since we published, and our service agreement with them finally expired. So that our monthly cost to stay there on a month to month basis, just ended up being too costly.
So even the price of shipping went up and all that stuff because our initial agreement has expired. So we just recently moved all the remaining inventory, which compared to what it was is not that much, but for one person to just houses all this inventory…we just moved all of our remaining inventory from Pennsylvania, down here to North Carolina.
And, you know, I had to rent a forklift and it showed up on a 53’ truck and like me and my wife and my two little, almost four and almost two year old were there.
You know, like they were crawling in the boxes and …
Seth Price 53:27
I hope you got your kids the little airplane thing so they could direct you.
Adam Lewis Greene 53:30
(Laughter)
Yeah, they loved it, man. They love to help and yeah, like, in climbing the boxes when they're empty. And it's really like you said, it's kind of it's probably doing too much. I probably I probably should hire a couple, a couple of people to do that kind of thing. But I enjoy being a part of that process. You know, like I designed every letter in that book. You know, like I designed the typeface. I oversaw the editorial process with people who were qualified to actually carry it out. And then I, you know, typeset it, I oversaw the printing production, chose all the materials. And now just having received the inventory and overseeing that process. I just love having that perspective and knowing what it takes to do everything from from start to finish. Because I hope to be to publish more works and I want to know every step along the line and know how to do it the best way I can.
So that's where we're at now, you know, like, hopefully in 10 years, we'll look back and think remember when we unloaded all that inventory ourselves and I drove a forklift around for six hours in the hot sun.
Seth Price 54:45
So where do they go then, Adam, if they want to connect with you, they want maybe they listen to this and they're like, hey, quick question on something you said like where would you direct them to, to do any ad or data copy of obviously Bibliotheca or to keep track of Writ Press?
Adam Lewis Greene 54:58
Sure. The website is bibliotheca.co you could just you could also just probably Google Bibliotheca Adam or Bibliotheca Kickstarter, and you'd find it.
Seth Price 55:14
I will say if you just Google Bibliotheca it takes you to like an Italian website. I think like,
Adam Lewis Greene 55:18
Well, that's funny. Well, 3M has the company called Biblioteca, which is like library solutions.
Seth Price 55:25
Like it literally takes you to something like that, which is kind of related but differently related like I'm usually that's not where I wanted to go.
Adam Lewis Greene 55:33
Right. It's like the second or third one down if you google Bibliotheca we have Amazon inventory, which is like a necessary evil for me. But you know, we have competitors now who like to use our company name as a keyword on Amazon. So we have to be there. Well we “don’t have to” nobody's twisted my arm. But chose to be to be competitive and then we have a store bibliotheca.co or writpress.com, it's the same website. And if you have questions, I would say, please email us your questions. Don't necessarily expect an extraordinarily prompt response. But we will do our best to get back to you. The email is support@bibliotheca.co.
And we love questions because I know the text is not accessible in the digital realm, and people have lots of questions about how this or that was translated or how you did this or that and when we left to answer those questions, get that information out there.
Seth Price 56:41
Perfect. Well, man, I've greatly enjoyed it.
Adam Lewis Greene 56:45
Yeah, me too. I wish we could talk for for longer, but uh…
Seth Price 56:49
Well, we could always do it again. We just have to figure out a topic. So yeah, there's no rules about that. (Laughter from both)
So anyway, thank you again, so, so much, genuinely enjoyed it.
Adam Lewis Greene 56:59
You're very welcome and thank you as well for having me. I appreciate
Unknown 57:07
Today's music was provided with permission by Mountain Tops; stuff is fantastic. You'll find links to them in the show notes as well as Bibliotheca and all of the different things that we talked about in here today. I’d love your feedback and so if you have any send it to me. I can't wait to talk to you next week.
Be blessed everybody.