The typical Bible may be beautiful in its contents, but lacks a certain literary aesthetic. Margins (when they exist) are skimpy, the typical justified double columns lose the reader's eye, notes distract, rarely-used numbers are everywhere, and the butterfly-thin pages seem to flutter away from the mind like the locusts of the prophet Joel. Little about the design or layout of our modern Scriptures inspires us as much as the contents do.

But a wildly successful crowdfunding campaign is changing that. "Bibliotheca," from California designer Adam Lewis Greene, is a sleek modern 4-volume design (in the 1901 ASV) free of notes or visual distractions, and boasting a simple, original typeface. Design elements have been selected both for beauty and for symbolic meaning—for example, the pages measure according to the proportions of the Ark of the Covenant. As of the time of this writing, Greene's project has smashed his original $37,000 goal with almost $580,000 raised—speaking both ...