As many of you already know, yesterday morning the Church announced a new 2013 edition of the LDS scriptures. Nothing exceedingly groundbreaking — no new or changed doctrine, for example — but still exciting, at least to scripture nerds like me (especially since it’s been over thirty years since the last major edition came out).
Here’s a quick overview of the changes I found interesting (keep in mind that I’m a typesetting/editing geek and so most of what I find interesting is dreadfully dull to ordinary folk):
Standardized formatting on title pages across the standard works.
In the Book of Mormon, they’re now using roman text for anything that was on the original plates and italics for the extracanonical additions (like the chapter headings). It’s a small change, but it’s nice, since some people don’t realize that most of the book headings are part of the original and not a later addition.
Standardization of things like “house of Israel” and “firstborn” in the Book of Mormon.
“Rereward” in the Bible is now “rearward” (so hurray, it now no longer looks like “re-reward”).
The introduction of the Book of Mormon now says “a record of God’s dealings with ancient inhabitants of the Americas” (not “the ancient inhabitants”), to provide clarity and greater accuracy. Also, “they are the principal ancestors” is now “they are among the ancestors,” again for clarity and greater accuracy. Which is great.
There are a few new paragraphs in the D&C introduction adding interesting historical information.
The D&C 13 heading no longer mentions the banks of the Susquehanna River as being the site of the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood. That section heading explanations page has the details.
The first three verses of D&C 89 (the Word of Wisdom) are no longer attributed to Joseph Smith but are part of the revelation itself.
D&C 135 is no longer attributed to John Taylor.
The Harmony of the Gospels (in the study guide section) now uses a portrait layout instead of a landscape layout. Finally.
Larger typeface on the JST section at the back.
New JST entries and footnotes. I haven’t checked them out yet, but I’m looking forward to it.
The 2013 edition is already available at scriptures.lds.org and in Gospel Library, and the print edition will come out in August. And yes, of course I’ll be getting the print edition.
I’ve gotten some questions as to whether I’ll be updating my reader’s editions with these changes. You know, I haven’t decided — mostly because I’m not sure whether the changes are covered by copyright or not. The study guides are, of course, as are the chapter headings, but I don’t include those in my editions (mine are based on pre-1923 editions so that I’m positive it’s public domain). We’ll see.
I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner, but I’ve released the Kindle version of my Book of Mormon reader’s edition. I’ve also updated the formatting on the EPUB version so it’s nicer (indented paragraphs and all that). Kindle versions and updated EPUBs of the D&C and Pearl of Great Price will come in the near future.
Update: I’ve finished and released this. Sorry it took so long.
This isn’t done yet, but it’s coming along nicely:
It’s a study edition of the Book of Mormon, with extra large outside margins and more line spacing so there’s plenty of room for taking notes. I’ve also moved the verse numbers out of the way so the text stands on its own.
When I finish it, I’ll release a free PDF on here as usual and make a paperback perfect bound hard copy available on Lulu at cost. (It’ll probably be around $20 plus shipping. I asked my local copy shop how much it’d cost to print and bind this — around 580 pages — and they said $60 for the printing costs alone, so it looks like Lulu is going to be much, much cheaper.)
Introducing some simple LDS scripture reading charts, starting with the Book of Mormon. They’re available in PDF in nine different languages for now (Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai), with more to come.
The more I read the scriptures, the more they reveal themselves to me. It’s almost like a fractal. From far out, it seems like there’s not that much detail, but the more you zoom into the fractal, the more you find. And there’s no limit to how far you can zoom in. Infinite beauty.
I’ve noticed, too, that when I’m not as diligent in reading and studying the scriptures, they seem to lose their color, becoming flat and boring and dry (at least in my mind). But as soon as I get back into them, they burst into vibrant color and three-dimensionality, vivid and electrifying enough to remind me that this earth is not my true home and that there’s a world even more real than this one waiting for me.
Put another way, the further I get from the scriptures, the darker and hazier things get, spiritually, but when I return to the word of God that I love so much, it’s like the world fills with light so piercing and clear that there’s no way I can deny that there is a God and that he’s full of love and joy and truth.
A week or two ago I was reading the Book of Mormon with my wife and noticed the part at the beginning where it talks about which books were part of the small plates of Nephi and which were part of the large plates. I don’t normally think of the Book of Mormon broken up that way — usually, I just think of it as a flat list of books — but the idea intrigued me.
What’s different? Just the divisions between books and chapters. Beyond the main small/large plates grouping, I’ve made new books to indicate where the record changes (for example, the Book of Omni actually has several different authors, and I’ve broken it up so they each have their own record; I’ve also pulled the record of Zeniff out of Mosiah into its own book) and made the authors’ lineages more clear in the table of contents. The words themselves haven’t changed, nor has the order of the text.
So yes, it’s different and even a little weird. Keep in mind that this isn’t by any means meant to supplant the standard edition — it’s just another way of looking at the Book of Mormon. Enjoy.
(The book is a reader’s edition compilation of twenty-two sermons from the Book of Mormon. It’s also available in PDF and you can print a hard copy through Lulu.com.)
The ePub edition of my reader’s edition of the Book of Mormon is now available. You can read it in Stanza or iBooks on your iPhone/iPad, in Aldiko on your Android, or using any number of other EPUB readers. (For iPad reading, I should add that the PDFs work nicely in iBooks, and the typography is (ahem) much better than iBooks’ EPUB display.)
Maker’s note: I’m finding that my md2epub script has made EPUB production incredibly easy. Granted, I’m working with books that don’t involve charts or tables or images or pull quotes or anything complicated, just straight text, but it’s still a breeze.
Following in the footsteps of my reader’s editions of the Book of Mormon and D&C, here’s that reader’s edition of the Pearl of Great Price I mentioned earlier.
It’s available in both PDF and EPUB. You can also buy a hard copy on Lulu.
Let me know if you find any typos or if the EPUB doesn’t work on your reader.
