If what you want doesn’t exist, you probably have to make it yourself
What I wanted was simple: a tiny Greek New Testament that could be easily carried in a pocket so that it could be read anywhere. On vacation – on a bus – at the lake – during a boring lecture. But no one* publishes such a thing anymore.
*I have since learned that the Orthodox church in Greece apparently publishes some pocket GNTs! Amazing.
Just Use a “Bible app?”
No thanks. I can’t stand staring at smartphones. I’m convinced they do far more harm than good.
Moreover, call me a romantic, but I want to hold and look at physical books. Books are actually readable, unlike pages of text on screens.
About Me
I’m an easygoing rural pastor. I love to try to read and study the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament in their original languages. I feel that such is an act of worship. I also like to make stuff.
I feel that almost anybody would be deeply enriched and profoundly changed if they carried a Greek New Testament around everywhere they went and read it often.
Crafting Pocket GNTs
I started experimenting with printing texts of the Greek New Testament at home and binding them myself. I built a couple book presses, tried different types of hand-stitched binding, and made prototype after prototype until finally I settled on a process that minimized paper waste and build time without compromising the ease of handling that I wanted. My kids also helped me make marbled endpapers on our kitchen table using fountain pen ink and copious amounts of shaving cream.
Small amounts of fine, thin paper suitable for such a project are impossible to buy for the average Joe Schmoe. Discovering Tomoe River paper was a gamechanger. It’s now only our Economy edition that still uses a cheaper but thicker paper.