The Form of the (Good) Book @ The Master's Artist
As some of you already know, I blog most Fridays at The Master's Artist, a group blog about faith and art, and today I introduced my friends over there to the Bible Design & Binding Blog. So first, let me welcome new visitors coming to us via The Master's Artist. I'd also like to invite BibleDesignBlog.com readers with an interest in the arts to click over and check out the Master's Artist. You might be particularly interested in my post about this place:The Form of the (Good) Book I could try and explain better what The Master's Artist is, but fortunately Greg Wolfe, the editor of Image, already did that. Last month in Christianity Today, he called it "an excellent example of a group blog, a true community of like-minded but highly individual writers. . . . Topics range from the state of Christian publishing to craft issues to lyrical meditations on writing as a spiritual discipline." What do they call it when two communities get together and cross-pollinate? Oh, yeah. Synergy. Let's have some of that!
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.