Sometime around 2008 (I was around 10th grade), my father purchased matching Bibles for him and me. That Bible is currently sitting on my desk – I still use it sometimes, but I have to greatly limit its use because the binding has broken and because the leather has holes worn in it in several places. At first, I accepted this as the general life span of a Bible and also accepted that leather, when it has received the amount of use and wear that a pastor gives, can have holes worn through it. I began to look for someone to rebind this special Bible, and I got in contact with a fantastic, old-school bindery in Vermont who happened to be somewhat of a leather expert.
As I spoke with this wonderful gentleman, Malcolm, he informed me that real, authentic leather will never wear to the point of having holes in it. As disappointed as I was at hearing that (especially since it was marketed as genuine calfskin of high quality), I learned several other things about that Bible that were substandard in its production. A couple of months later, I happened to be talking to my friend Joshua Jones about my Bible situation, and I expressed to him that I had decided that I was going to have my own Bible made with the best possible components. Malcolm had given me hope that a truly lifetime Bible was, in fact, possible to make – it just wouldn’t be cheap. I, for one, was willing to pay a great amount of money to have a Bible that would last my entire lifetime. I spoke with Joshua about what text to use (I was used to the Scofield layout), and he suggested that I use the Scofield without notes. That way, there would be the familiar layout, but there would be plenty of room to fill in outlines. I began to talk to different experts in the bookbinding world, intending to purchase a new Noteless Scofield Bible and have it rebound.
I spoke with Royal Jongbloed, a company in the Netherlands (regarded as the best Bible printer in the world) hoping that they would be willing to print this Bible for me. By this time, I had several friends who wanted one made as well. My contact at Royal Jongbloed graciously informed me that to run a printing of 15 copies would be impossible. They had a minimum requirement of 1000 copies. My Bible project went out the window for a couple of months.
During those couple months that it seemed that there would be no new Bible produced, Joshua and I continued to discuss things that we would like to see it have. During those conversations, we came to the idea that if we were going to be able to have the Bible that we wanted to use for the remainder of our lives, we were going to need to become Bible publishers, and we were going to need to come up with well over $100,000 to get it started. Though the idea of going into business was never intended, Joshua and I became business partners to make this dream a reality. Smith and Jones Bible Publishers was born.
Over the next year, I had many conversations with different experts all around the world. Malcolm had recommended a bindery in Bristol, England that was, in his opinion, the best that could be found (it was also who he had apprenticed under). I contacted them, and while our project was much too big for them, they put me in contact with an unmatched leather expert named Steve. Steve develops leather that is far above anyone else in terms of quality. In addition to discussing leather and what would be the best leather for our Bible, Steve also gave me the name of another binder named Duncan. While Duncan couldn’t handle our project, he gave me the name of two fabulous older men who had been in the bookbinding world for decades. One of them was Werner. For 60 years, Werner oversaw the production processes of World Bible Publishers and Nelson Bible Publishers. He told me how he had been hand chosen to develop a custom Bible for the pope years ago. Werner gave me a wealth of information from leather to thread to how to care for a new Bible. The other older gentleman was Chuck – a retired chemist that specialized in bookbinding adhesives for decades. I had many conversations with Chuck who enlightened me on just how terribly bound most Bibles are that are popular among most fundamental Baptists. We discussed the problems with most commonly used adhesives and discussed what the two best possible adhesives were and where to acquire them.
Armed with this knowledge as well as the knowledge from countless other people that I spoke with, I began putting the pieces together. As we spoke to Royal Jongbloed, Joshua and I decided that it may be best to have them bind the Bibles as well as to print them. I spoke with them, and they agreed to use our top-quality leather as well as to make a couple other customizations to their normal process to meet the standard of what we were trying to produce. As an added bonus, I learned that Jongbloed used an adhesive in the same family as one of the ones that Chuck had told me about.
As time went on, we got to the point of needing to figure out what we would do about our text. After trying to design a noteless Scofield myself, I took the recommendation of Jongbloed and contacted 2K Denmark—regarded as one of the top Bible designers in the world. 2K used their great expertise to design our noteless Scofield with the wide center column. I quickly learned that there would be a huge difference between our Bible and any other Scofield out there – any Scofield that can be purchased is a scan of the original. As a result, there are imperfections, and the letters are sometimes blurred or fuzzy. By employing 2K Denmark, our Bible is able to be crisp and sharp.
As we were getting into the production of the Bible, Joshua and I decided that we would like to only take the amount of money that we needed to live on and give away the rest. In June of 2022, we decided to start a non-profit that would receive and use all the proceeds from Smith and Jones Bible Publishers to support missions, help churches that are financially tight, help with the costs of camp meetings and other revival meetings, and support other solid ministries as the Lord would lead.
After being delayed significantly by the Russian/Ukranian war, we were further delayed by paper shortage issues, text proofing issues, and several other things. Feel free to read about these things here. As of right now, we are expecting to have the Bibles in the United States and ready to ship about by around May 2024.