Nelson Signature Slimline KJV
The picture says it all, right? According to the official site, the Nelson Signature series is "bound in the softest, most supple and durable calfskin," and you can clearly see the result: a Bible that can bend over backwards -- literally. These days, the edition pictured (#2019) goes under the title KJV UltraSlim Bible, but when I purchased it back in 2000, they were still calling it the Slimline Edition, so I'll stick with that nomenclature. Whatever you call it, this is an excellent Bible -- and, I would argue, a historically significant one.LUXURY VS. QUALITY
A generation or two ago, the fact that a Bible was printed on India paper with a sewn binding and a calf or goatskin binding would have signaled quality. Today, quality has been redefined as a luxury. We pay a premium to get what it would have been unthinkable to omit not too many years back -- and if we do pay, there's always the chance a well-meaning brother will come along and denounce us for our extravagance. So we're left with a strange paradox. By traditional standards, most of the Bibles available to us are shoddy productions, but saying so makes us seem superficial.
J. Mark Bertrand is a novelist and pastor whose writing on Bible design has helped spark a publishing revolution. Mark is the author of Rethinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World (Crossway, 2007), as well as the novels Back on Murder, Pattern of Wounds, and Nothing to Hide—described as a “series worth getting attached to” (Christianity Today) by “a major crime fiction talent” (Weekly Standard) in the vein of Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin, and Henning Mankell.
Mark has a BA in English Literature from Union University, an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston, and an M.Div. from Heidelberg Theological Seminary. Through his influential Bible Design Blog, Mark has championed a new generation of readable Bibles. He is a founding member of the steering committee of the Society of Bible Craftsmanship, and chairs the Society’s Award Committee. His work was featured in the November 2021 issue of FaithLife’s Bible Study Magazine.
Mark also serves on the board of Worldview Academy, where he has been a member of the faculty of theology since 2003. Since 2017, he has been an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. He and his wife Laurie life in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.