Red Letter Bible

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cialovesyou said:
Exactly the problem.
What is the reasoning behind the red-letters, when the brains trust are telling us that the gospels are theologised history, and not everything attributed to Jesus’ lips was actually said?
Then the very premise of the red-letters becomes a pointless exercise. And can actually mis-lead people into fundamentalist thinking.
On top of this, the entirety of scripture is the word of God.

Just my opinion of course, you are free to have yours.
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Because it might be good to highlight what Jesus might have said and pull it out of the general narrative.
 
Qwikness said:
I don’t even think an argument against the Red letter is a part of the qwestion, although I can understand that position. The fact is the red letter bibles exist and that cannot be changed. It doesn’t affect me negatively in anyway, so I don’t have a problem with it.
Just wondering, Why God the Father is ignored. In the New Testament he spoke at the Baptism and Transfiguration. No emphasis on that all, seems weird to me.
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Some Evangelical expressions of the faith seem so centered on the Gospel message that I occasionally wonder if some in this camp have read from the OT or the epistle letters. The point is (and I’m admittedly speculating), maybe the “inventors” of the red-letter text were of the aforementioned theology?
 
Oh yes, my Baptist upbringing was very Old Testament heavy. We’d spend from Christmas to Easter going thru the gospel. Then onto Acts and the epistles, then read from the OT up until close to Christmas again.
 
opdsgt said:
Some Evangelical expressions of the faith seem so centered on the Gospel message that I occasionally wonder if some in this camp have read from the OT or the epistle letters. The point is (and I’m admittedly speculating), maybe the “inventors” of the red-letter text were of the aforementioned theology?
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I doubt if there are any Evangelicals who never read Romans and Ephesians. Romans 10:9 and Ephesians 2:8-9 seem to be favourites of all the Evangelicals that I know.
 
Lol, Paul’s discourse on love was recited by the minister at my wedding.😃

But yes, protestants value the bible outside the gospel.
 
I realize that this is an old thread, but because I recently bought a Catholic Bible with the words of our Lord Jesus Christ in red letters and was disappointed, I started looking up the subject, and came here.

My disappointment was not in the red letters themselves, but in the color which was almost brown. Not the bright red of fresh blood, but those of an old blood stain. Did it make a difference? You be it did!

The importance of accenting the words of our Lord and Savior, and doing it properly is extremely important. And yes these words are more important than the other text. Just imagine if we were in a room with all of the Apostles and our Lord, and they spoke, and then He spoke. Wouldn’t and shouldn’t you be more attentive to the speech of Son of God, isn’t it more meaningful than that of anyone else’s in that room, or anywhere else for that matter?

My wish is that I had a RSV 2nd CE Bible with the quoted words of Christ Jesus in bright red, the words attributed directly to our Heavenly Father in bright violet, other Heavenly Host’s in bright blue, the Prophets in bright green.

Now moved from wanting to doing (at least testing).

I am going to try this out.

Eight levels of text color:

Violet – Holy Father
Red – Lord Jesus
Aqua – Holy Mother
Blue – Holy Angles
Green - Prophets
Orange – Satan
Brown - Demons
Speech – black italic – all speech is in italics
narrative – black regular

All subject to change 😉

If you are interested in the idea and would like to contribute or just observe the results of the testing, please contact me at colortextbible@hotmail.com
 
Tom_Morford said:
I realize that this is an old thread, but because I recently bought a Catholic Bible with the words of our Lord Jesus Christ in red letters and was disappointed, I started looking up the subject, and came here.

My disappointment was not in the red letters themselves, but in the color which was almost brown. Not the bright red of fresh blood, but those of an old blood stain. Did it make a difference? You be it did!

The importance of accenting the words of our Lord and Savior, and doing it properly is extremely important. And yes these words are more important than the other text. Just imagine if we were in a room with all of the Apostles and our Lord, and they spoke, and then He spoke. Wouldn’t and shouldn’t you be more attentive to the speech of Son of God, isn’t it more meaningful than that of anyone else’s in that room, or anywhere else for that matter?

My wish is that I had a RSV 2nd CE Bible with the quoted words of Christ Jesus in bright red, the words attributed directly to our Heavenly Father in bright violet, other Heavenly Host’s in bright blue, the Prophets in bright green.

Now moved from wanting to doing (at least testing).

I am going to try this out.

Eight levels of text color:

Violet – Holy Father
Red – Lord Jesus
Aqua – Holy Mother
Blue – Holy Angles
Green - Prophets
Orange – Satan
Brown - Demons
Speech – black italic – all speech is in italics
narrative – black regular

All subject to change 😉

If you are interested in the idea and would like to contribute or just observe the results of the testing, please contact me at colortextbible@hotmail.com
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Not a bad idea! Count me in among the interested. 🙂
Though personally I would really like to see a New Testament which has Old Testament quotations or allusions (much more subtle and tricky to find in a translation) in italics or something. 🙂
 
Catholics gotta be different. If you look in the Rainbow Study Bible, you will find the words of God in purple, both in the Old and New Testaments. The words of Jesus are underlined.
 
patrick457 said:
Not a bad idea! Count me in among the interested. 🙂
Though personally I would really like to see a New Testament which has Old Testament quotations or allusions (much more subtle and tricky to find in a translation) in italics or something. 🙂
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An interesting problem came up almost right away, that is dealing with “nested quotes”.

When you start closely examining who is saying what in the New Testament, you quickly find that many times they were just talking Old Testament.

For example Our Lord and Satan in the wilderness were speaking, but the exchange was a battle in scripture quotes from Deuteronomy.

When you use color text, these things become very visible, and directly attributable to their source with minor redirecting because they are word for word.
Catholics gotta be different. If you look in the Rainbow Study Bible, you will find the words of God in purple, both in the Old and New Testaments. The words of Jesus are underlined.
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I have seen the Rainbow Bible and think that it is great for what it attempts to do.

But what I am proposing is quite a different idea.
 
Tom_Morford said:
An interesting problem came up almost right away, that is dealing with “nested quotes”.

When you start closely examining who is saying what in the New Testament, you quickly find that many times they were just talking Old Testament.

For example Our Lord and Satan in the wilderness were speaking, but the exchange was a battle in scripture quotes from Deuteronomy.

When you use color text, these things become very visible, and directly attributable to their source with minor redirecting because they are word for word.
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I’m not just talking about that. I’m also talking about allusions (instead of more direct quotations; i.e. where they preface it “it is written”) present in both the dialogue and narration. Something like: “And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take.” (Mark 15:24; cf. Psalm 22:18)

Take for example the Passion narratives. This is one of them places in all four Gospels where the Scriptural allusions and quotations congregate.
 
patrick457 said:
Something like: “And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take.” (Mark 15:24; cf. Psalm 22:18)

Take for example the Passion narratives. This is one of them places in all four Gospels where the Scriptural allusions and quotations congregate.
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Ah yes!
Ok, imagine a PDF format Bible with majority grey text, and reading a in Matthew and finding a section in black, which when clicked automatically transfers you to the Psalm. Clicking on a similar black text section there, sends you to Mark, and clicking black there sends you back to Matthew.

A sample I worked up today has no such links of course, but any non specific relationship (not a direct quote) could be linked as described.

Here is a chapter from Luke to show how the color coding could work.

filejumbo.com/Download/0C0686EC9F85A293

Yes considering both PDF “and” print-on-demand hard copy just for straight reading (note no chapter or verse used in either form).
 
I actually did work on this a little more.

Soon learned that each book would have to have it’s own color key, which really is no problem.

Here is an example chapter (nothing truly complete):

colortextbible.yuku.com/topic/11/The-Gospel-According-To-Luke

colortextbible.yuku.com/topic/8/The-Book-Of-Genesis

The next step would be to get copyright permission to do the RSV2CE, but I haven’t got there yet.

The big question is of what value it might have to other readers than my self.

Any thoughts?
 
I honestly find it distracting, and confusing. It seems to me that you can tell who is doing the talking so long as you read the scripture in context. 🤷
 
Certainly not for everybody I guess.

When I look at the color text, it makes the writing come alive like a play, with different voices for the colors, and the narration in black.

Search Luke for Mother Mary’s words, and instantly they pop out, and you can see everything she said at the time, all at once in the light blue.

When an angel speaks anywhere throughout, the text is always in dark blue.

I guess to me, depending on who is speaking, there is a different weight to their words, and the ability to instantly scan a page for everything they said at the time, provides a better interpretation of the part they played in the scene.

Yes, it is the Bible as a script, with no numbers, titles, and reformatted as natural speech, without altering the versions text.

The thought was to make the words be the most important thing, and the reading as close to being there, as being told the story by the original author.
 
Tom_Morford said:
Certainly not for everybody I guess.

When I look at the color text, it makes the writing come alive like a play, with different voices for the colors, and the narration in black.

Search Luke for Mother Mary’s words, and instantly they pop out, and you can see everything she said at the time, all at once in the light blue.

When an angel speaks anywhere throughout, the text is always in dark blue.

I guess to me, depending on who is speaking, there is a different weight to their words, and the ability to instantly scan a page for everything they said at the time, provides a better interpretation of the part they played in the scene.

Yes, it is the Bible as a script, with no numbers, titles, and reformatted as natural speech, without altering the versions text.

The thought was to make the words be the most important thing, and the reading as close to being there, as being told the story by the original author.
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I understand your desires for the text. It’s just not something I would use. I would suggest you make the colors darker though. It’s easier on the eyes.
 
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