Copyright
The following copyright notice is authorized for use with the CEV and is included in the front matter of the download files:
Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Bible text from the Contemporary English Version 2nd Edition (CEV®) is not to be reproduced in copies or otherwise by any means except as permitted in writing by American Bible Society, 101 North Independence Mall East, Floor 8, Philadelphia, PA 19106-2155 (www.americanbible.org).
Introductions
Each Bible book is preceded by an introduction.
Additionally, there are introductions for each of the following subsections:
- The Old Testament
- The Pentateuch
- Historical Books
- Books of Wisdom and Poetry
- Prophetic Books
- The New Testament
- The Gospels and Acts
- Letters of Paul
- General Letters and Revelation
The introductions to each of these subsections are presented in both a longer and shorter format and are identified as such. It is recommended that if any of the section introductions are included in a product only the longer or shorter versions should be used (i.e., include none of the introductions, or include only the longer introductions, or include only the shorter introductions).
Bible Book Titles
Book titles appear twice for each Bible book—once at the beginning of the book introduction and once before the first chapter of the book. If the book introductions are included in a product, it may be preferable to remove the title that appears before the first chapter of the book to avoid repeated titles.
Run-In Chapters
For printed editions of the CEV, there are twenty-three Bible chapters in which the opening text of the chapter should run in to the last paragraph of the preceding chapter. These chapters are the following:
- Genesis 50
- Exodus 8
- Deuteronomy 2
- Judges 6
- Judges 8
- 1 Samuel 2
- 1 Samuel 4
- 1 Samuel 10
- 1 Samuel 14
- 1 Samuel 16
- 1 Samuel 27
- 2 Samuel 12
- Ezra 5
- Nehemiah 10
- Jeremiah 42
- Daniel 11
- Hosea 2
- John 8
- 1 Corinthians 11
- Galatians 4
- Wisdom of Solomon 12
- Wisdom of Solomon 16
- 1 Esdras 9
In these chapters, the first verse number is retained (in addition to the chapter number).
In digital products, treatment of these instances is left to the discretion of the licensee. The most common treatment in digital environments (and Scribe’s default treatment) is to retain the chapter number as a separate heading, making it more difficult to run these paragraphs into the preceding chapter.
Hyphenation
The Bible contains many names for which a typesetting program may not have correct hyphenation settings. See Scribe’s Bible Hyphenation list for guidance on how certain words should hyphenate. IDTT files downloaded from this website also include a hyphenation dictionary that can be loaded into InDesign.
Footnotes and Cross-References
Footnote sigla (style “fnref,” “fnnum”) are iterated alphabetically by Bible chapter. They use the entire alphabet before beginning again with “a,” and they restart the cycle at each new chapter with “a.”
Cross-reference sigla (style “enref,” “ennum”) are iterated numerically by Bible chapter, restarting the cycle at each new chapter with “1.”
The chapters containing footnotes and cross-references appear directly following the Bible book to which they correspond.
The chapter-verse citations at the beginning of the notes (“bcv” style) may be retained or removed at the licensee’s discretion.
Duplicate Footnotes
Treatment of duplicate footnotes is left to the discretion of the licensee. This is often more of a concern in printed editions, in which the most common preference is to prevent a footnote from appearing more than once on a given page. In digital environments, in which there are not any explicit “pages,” it is recommended that licensees maintain one-to-one correspondence between the in-text sigla and the notes themselves.
When making the effort to eliminate duplicate footnotes in printed editions, it is important to take into account the relettering of the alphabetical note sigla as well as corresponding adjustments to the chapter-verse citations at the beginning of the footnote (if those are being retained). See Scribe’s Deduping Procedure for some tips to help this process go more smoothly. If you require assistance with this process, Scribe can help; please contact bibles@scribenet.com.
In the CEV, there are 56 instances in which duplicate footnotes appear consecutively. Each instance of these duplicate notes has been retained by default, and it is left to the discretion of the licensee whether or not to retain each instance in a final product. The list of duplicate footnotes is available here for download as a Microsoft Word DOCX file.
CEV Duplicate Footnotes
Word and Character Counts
Word and character counts are available here for download as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Included are counts for the full Bible text as well as breakdowns for front matter, back matter, section introductions, Old Testament, New Testament, Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha, footnotes, and cross-references.
CEV Word and Character Counts
Scribe’s Bible QC Checklist
See Scribe’s Bible QC checklist for aspects to review in all Bible designs and typesets.