New Bible carves up stories along historical timeline
By Tim Murphy

Bob Sanford wanted to create a Bible that would bring order and clarity to the text. Instead, he's waded right into one of the great debates of biblical scholarship.

"The Chronological Study Bible" will be released this fall in the midst of a Bible-publishing boom in the United States. In an industry that now as much to do with profits as with prophets, Sanford expects his new edition to have wide appeal.

"(Our challenge) is to take the scholarship and make it enjoyable to a readership that enjoys history," said Sanford, who oversees the Bible division for the giant Christian publisher, Thomas Nelson.

The company has carved out its share of the industry's estimated $500 million annual haul by cornering the market on niche markets, such as families and teenagers.

The latest edition rejiggers the order of books, psalms, and Gospels in an effort to provide a historical framework for a text most scholars consider chronologically challenged.

So, for example, whole sections of Isaiah and Nehemiah are reordered to better reflect an accurate historical timeline; the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are merged into one based on Mark's chronology; and some of St. Paul's letters (which traditionally appear later in the New Testament) are woven into the Book of Acts.

Some biblical scholars, however, aren't buying the idea...

Read on