What are the most interesting / novel illustrated editions of the Bible?

October 17, 2015 4:54 AM

I am interested in building a collection of illustrated Bibles that are varied in form. What are the most unusual Bibles that you know of? I cannot afford thousand-dollar tomes, so mass-produced ones would be better for me. Anything from reproductions of Medieval manuscripts to very contemporary ones would be interesting to me.
posted by mortaddams to Religion & Philosophy (12 answers total)

Best answer: Under the "very contemporary" heading, my kids like the comic-book format of the Action Bible.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:39 AM on October 17, 2015

Best answer: Also, under the 'very contemporary' banner, there are now Manga Bibles (e.g., http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Manga-Bible-Extreme-Tniv/dp/0340910461)
posted by davemack at 6:07 AM on October 17, 2015

Best answer: Not the whole bible, but there's Robert Crumb's interpretation of the Book of Genesis
posted by crocomancer at 6:15 AM on October 17, 2015 [7 favorites]

Best answer: The Jerusalem Bible, illustrated by Salvador Dali.
posted by klausman at 6:18 AM on October 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: How about Barry Moser's Pennyroyal-Caxton Bible?
posted by SobaFett at 6:18 AM on October 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: There was a huge commercial market for deluxe, often illustrated Bibles ("family Bibles") in the Victorian period, both in the UK and the US. You can pick these up for anything from a few to several hundred dollars, depending on condition, the state of the illustrations (if present), and the binding. Here's a sample of eBay listings. The most famous of the Victorian Bible illustrators, by a huge margin, was Gustave Doré.

Although this may be too far afield for your collecting tastes, there's a long tradition of Bible adaptations for children--"Bible stories," "tales from the Bible," "Biblical tales," etc.--and those will usually have illustrations.
posted by thomas j wise at 6:20 AM on October 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The Brick Bible

Warning: even though it's LEGOs this one's not for young kids.
posted by fuse theorem at 6:37 AM on October 17, 2015

Best answer: You might try to find an edition of the Tyndale Bible, generally considered the first translation into English. Might or might not be visibly interesting, but it would add breadth to the collection.
posted by SemiSalt at 6:59 AM on October 17, 2015

Best answer: The Saint John's Bible in seven volumes, with contemporary illustrations and calligraphy.
posted by apartment dweller at 7:31 AM on October 17, 2015

(individual volumes can be purchased separately)
posted by apartment dweller at 7:37 AM on October 17, 2015

I adore Michal Meron's The Illustrated Torah - it's a Jewish book, so the breakdown is by weekly portions with their accompanying section of the Prophets (and obviously there's no New Testament).
posted by Mchelly at 4:38 AM on October 18, 2015

I've always loved the little line-art illustrations from 'Good News for Modern Man', a New Testament translation into modern language from the late '60s. Here's an image depicting Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Jesus, and one of Jesus preaching to the multitudes from a boat.
posted by DandyRandy at 1:31 PM on October 19, 2015