Martin Manser has just completed six years as Managing Editor of Hodder & Stoughton's new NIV Thematic Study Bible. Here he gives a personal view of his work.
Just then the phone rang. Actually, I wasn't working as I had excruciating earache. It had rung a few minutes before with a request to write an article for a magazine. Now it was ringing again and Dick Douglas, director of Hodder & Stoughton's Religious Division, was on the phone asking if I'd go to London to see him . . . on such occasions it seems that initially only the briefest details of the project are given.
A few weeks later found me in Dick's basement office in Bedford Square, London, and he spilled the beans: they were planning to extend their range of NIV Bibles by developing a topical study Bible. Was I interested in pulling the whole thing together? Yes, I was - no doubt the answer came after a few 'arrow prayers'.
All this was in the summer of 1989. I then worked on extensive plans including how we might go about such an undertaking - the number of people involved, the finances, how exactly the volume would be prepared. Dick sought out a number of consultants to assist us and Alister McGrath, Donald Wiseman and Jim Packer responded positively and enthusiastically.
In 1990 we began to commission team leaders: it became apparent that I could not manage a team of 80-plus compilers, but I could manage eight team leaders, with each team leader being responsible for about 10 people.
Sample themes were prepared, along with a 'style guide' - a 100-page document explaining how the themes were to be compiled, to ensure consistency among the many writers. A draft headword list was then keyed in by the then secretary Emma Sealey, who in due course was to take over from Dick as editorial director. The consultants met initially and were confident and constructive about the project.
'Advanced Revelation'
All the material has been on the computer from the word go. Dick Douglas appointed Frank Harper as computer consultant and Frank chose the database programme 'Advanced Revelation' (like Foxpro, for those in the know). Frank and I spent many evenings till very late into the night honing down the precise project requirements. Those early foundational stages were invaluable in manipulating the text in later years and it means that future spin-offs, electronic editions, etc., can be produced relatively easily. (In fact, there are over 100 fields for all the various items on different databases connected with the project.)
Hodders provided each team leader with a computer and they were responsible for keying in their team's material. Many of the team leaders and others (e.g. myself!) had little or no experience of computers so the learning curve was very steep initially.
Team leaders chose compilers for their own teams under the supervision of staff at Hodders and myself, and commissioning of actual themes began. Questions then arose immediately: should x be included in theme a or theme b? What was the exact scope of theme z? How many themes should we devote to the various aspects of a subject and how should we differentiate them? Even bearing in mind the twin aims of a thematic (rather than a purely lexical approach) and the principle of letting Scripture explain Scripture with the minimum of interruption, what precisely did the consultants want? Most of the queries were theological and it was the appointment of Alister McGrath as General Editor alongside myself as Managing Editor that proved so useful. Alister insisted on agreeing the opening definition of a theme with team leaders before the theme was actually compiled.
Thus work proceeded from 1991-93, with monthly progress reports from teams and the consultants, the team of which was enlarged to take in Stephen Travis (New Testament) and Gordon McConville (Old Testament) both reviewing the text at intervals and answering specific queries by post, fax or telephone.
Consultants and team leaders
The consultants were a very good team to work with. We met every year to review progress on the book. The occasions were very positive and there were no shadows among the team. Spurred on by Dick Douglas's enthusiasm we tackled many issues, with our differing gifts and strengths complementing one another to ensure an even approach. Abiding memories are of Jim Packer, his incisive manner, a dislike of having his work edited, and his ability to sort out complex material quickly. The themes of knowing God and predestination, for example, bear witness to his thoughts. Donald Wiseman brought a relaxed approach, showing particular pastoral concern for me. He graciously accepted the decision to miss some of the cultural material which we had originally wanted to include. Alister McGrath has a businesslike, very efficient manner, with a clearly-focused mind and he turns work round very speedily; as Jim Packer said of Alister, 'He works like lightening'. Gordon McConville and Stephen Travis beavered away behind the scenes with precision and scholarship. The (respectively) scrutinised in detail themes on offering and in the millennium.
Maintaining good links with the team leaders was essential in order not to let schedules slip. Keeping track of all the material was a mammoth task in itself and took a team of several support staff to do so. Although all the material was on computer, it had to be transferred by disk from the team leaders' computers to those at my office/home, with backups elsewhere for security. Themes were printed out for review by Alister McGrath, myself, and the consultants and later for copy-editing, to iron out any inconsistencies and tidying-up.
Alongside receiving the actual work a wealth of other aspects of the project had to be tackled, including (1) deciding on the format of the book and its design: numerous suggestions were made, before the present design and format were agreed; (2) the commissioning of over 150 feature panels on key themes, including their location throughout the Bible; (3) the final arrangement of the themes in the Thematic Section. Several attempts were made before Alister McGrath hit upon the nine-fold scheme that was eventually used, with themes beginning with 1000 referring to the word 'God', those beginning with 2000 referring to the words 'Jesus Christ', etc.
The last things
Among the more interesting concluding aspects of the project was choosing which theme references to be included in the front Bible section. Space did not allow for all the approximately 120,000 references in the back Thematic Section to be included in the front Bible part, so a choice had to be made. For example, a verse may consist of two lines of Bible text, but there might be eight references from the Thematic Section that could have gone alongside it in the margin. A complex computer programme was developed that looked at the length of each verse, the number of references to it and the nature of those references, e.g. ones on God were deemed more important than ones on cultural items. So the computer came up with a choice that was a basis for manual checking and editing which took several months.
Was it all worth it? Yes! Anything that makes God's Word better known, read, understood and lived out must be good. Once or twice I have to admit I felt like giving up - but remembering that I was in a marathon, not a sprint, helped enormously, and the prayers and support of God's people proved an encouragement in difficult times.
