Should “The Book” Be Panned?

Thirty million copies sold. Published in 40 languages. A ten-million-dollar advertising budget, including prime-time television. All royalties going to a charitable foundation.

The Living Bible, completed in 1971 and having appeared in numerous formats with such great success, has now made its grandest entrance of all under the simplest of titles, The Book.^a The back cover of Publisher’s Weekly (April 19, 1985) warns booksellers: “Don’t Let America Discover You Without The Book.” The publishers of The Book expect this dignified appearing edition of The Living Bible with its simple, cream-colored title to sell at least a million copies a year for the next five years.¹

Ostensibly this would seem to be an occasion for great rejoicing. Millions of people who previously shunned the Bible as archaic and dull will now find it, in this version, interesting and instructive.