Scripture, brought together for today.

A.O.B. is a new family of Bible editions from Cooked Light, created to make the historic Christian Scriptures accessible to a modern reader without asking them to begin with a particular denomination, tradition, or theological position.

The name says what it is:

An Original Bible.

Not a new translation of Scripture, but a new way of bringing the Scriptures together, presenting them, and making them readable.

One Bible. Many traditions.

The Christian Scriptures have been preserved, printed, translated, arranged, and read in different ways across centuries and traditions.

A.O.B. begins with that inheritance, rather than choosing one tradition and excluding the others. The editions draw together the books preserved within the historic Christian traditions, allowing readers to encounter the wider body of Scripture in one place.

For the curious reader, the lifelong reader, and those familiar with Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, and other Christian traditions; A.O.B. offers the opportunity to read, compare, and explore.

A new original

A.O.B. is not intended to replace the historic Bibles from which its texts descend. It is an original editorial work, a contemporary presentation of Scripture shaped by the history of the English Bible, while designed for the reader of today.

The language is clear and contemporary, while retaining something of the character and strength of the English biblical tradition. Where older English remains clear, it is allowed to remain. Where language has changed enough to obscure the meaning, it is brought forward.

The aim is simple:

to make the text readable without making the reader dependent upon an interpreter.

The editions

The A.O.B. editions share the same WORD verbatim text, presented through different traditions and perspectives.

Each edition follows a particular line of inheritance, tracing how Scripture has travelled through people, places, languages and generations.

Angle’s follows the English line from Tyndale through Rogers to KJV.

American follows that line onward through Geneva and the English settlers who carried Scripture across the Atlantic.

Further editions will explore other lines of transmission, drawing on the histories and traditions through which Scripture has travelled around the world.

The words remain the same. The angle changes.

Where it began

A.O.B. grows out of the work behind WORD verbatim.

That project began with a simple question:

What would happen if all the historic Scriptures in English were brought together, carefully updated, and allowed to speak for themselves?

The answer is becoming A.O.B.