IT USED to be standard bedside material in hotels around the world and most homes would have a copy on the bookshelf.
Collecting the Bible, one of the world's best known books, has been a passion for Ferntree Gully couple Jim and Ellen Reid.
From tiny editions that you need a magnifying glass to read to massive family Bibles, the Reids have put some of their favourite editions on display at the Ringwood Library.
Mrs Reid said they first started collecting after seeing a Bible exhibition in Perth in 1980 and they now have hundreds.
The oldest is a Latin Bible printed in 1602 and Mrs Reid said the "most handsome" were the enormous family Bibles produced in the last half of the 19th century.
"Some are still like new, as they were too heavy to use," Mrs Reid said.
The Ringwood Library display includes the couple's oldest English Bibles, a handwritten Hebrew scroll of the book of Esther, which is housed in a carved olive wood case, and an olive wood nativity set made in Bethlehem.