While this blog topic took me by surprise, in retrospect, the Bible's design does warrant some attention. It's the only book I own three copies of, but have never read. Looking at my bibles now (first time ever), they seem more textbook than regular book, which leads me to believe they should be designed more like a textbook.
The few times I have actually read a passage in a bible, I was always annoyed at how tedious the passage was to find. If I was designing a bible, I would assign a different color to each of the Books and attach a color corresponding tab to the beginning of each Book. Another idea is to have the Books thumb-notched. Maybe this is a breach of bible design protocol, and I'm sure it has been done before, but I'm a firm believer in practicality. A table of contents would also be useful. For a book that is usually used for reference and, it should be easier to navigate.
I understand why a bible has two columns, but I'm curious about the reception of the one-column epub versions I've seen. Reading a 6x9 book with two columns is a headache. I realize, in a print version, if you didn't have two columns, the book would be as thick as an unabridged collegiate dictionary. However, if the book title was placed on the side with tabs, the margins wouldn't have to be so low and more room would be available for the placement of the text. I think this is one of the few books I would prefer to read on a an eReader.
