Bible Books: The Bible as a Product

Something unexpected happened to the Bible in America during the century after the Revolutionary War: Despite the proliferation of massive numbers and multiple editions of Bibles in the newly independent nation, the Bible’s place in American culture declined. Why? Paul Gutjahr, who teachers English and American studies at Indiana University, proposes that the Bible ceased being the nation’s most-read text in those years because of changes in the American publishing industry.

Concentrating on the five p’s (production, packaging, purity, pedagogy and popularity), Gutjahr charts an engaging course through the cultural and material history of America’s first hundred years. The journey begins with the American Bible Society’s effort to put the Good Book in every American household by flooding the reading public with low-cost Bibles. Rival publishers then produced more specialized and expensive Bibles with elaborate bindings, illustrations, maps and commentaries. In the process, Gutjahr argues, the once sacrosanct Bible lost its “changeless aura” and became just another commodity in the marketplace.