The Words of the Zoehrer Family

Creating the new Cheon Seong Gyeong

Zoehrer
July 3, 2013

First Edition of Cheon Seong Gyeong:

Binding of several copies of Seong Hwa Publication books into one volume: problem overlapping themes, double paragraphs

Often not the original text of Sun Myung Moon's speeches but embellished texts of other already published books used

A lot of misquoted texts. (If anyone actually read the first edition, you'll surely have noticed!)

Second Edition of Cheon Seong Gyeong:

Official publication committee was inaugurated on August 23, 2012

3 publication policies:

1) The first policy was to use the original text from Father's speech books.

2) The second policy was to add texts from the year 2000 and onward,

3) Third policy to serve as guidance for the Cheon Il Guk era.

Stages of publication process:

1) Planning

Theme -> Chapters -> organization of verses.

Work division. "The first volume is about God. Volumes 13, 14 and 15 are about Cheon Il Guk, True Parents and True Parents' prayer, respectively. We were focused on deciding the titles of chapters and verses and also subsidiary themes and divided our work by the absolute theme. The work was divided among 40 members."

2) Researching

Researching speeches, based on 615 volumes of Father's speech books, recruited people who have experience publishing Father's words.

3) Editing

"At this stage we arranged Father's words by theme. We tried to maintain the policy to use the original texts from Father's speeches. Our editing was focused on story telling. It was very hard work to weave a narrative together based on speeches that were given in different places, different times and to different audiences. This task required expertise. We selected texts and placed texts by subsidiary theme numerous times."

4) Supervision

Supervision "included four policies:

1.) suitability of theme,
2.) logic of paragraph,
3.) connection between the texts and
4.) suitability for reading out loud during Hoon Dok Hae.

In order to do this, the editors did Hoon Dok Hae numerous times and re-arranged the texts and edited or changed the texts frequently. We appointed 120 supervisors from elder members, pastors, leaders of organizations and Japanese representatives on December 29, 2012. We edited with exhaustive planning and supervision."

5) Verification

"The editors gathered the ideas from 120 supervisors. Mr. Young Whi Kim and Mr. Jae Seok Lee worked as team leaders and had five professors each to verify the texts through discussion. [...] When we finished verification, we started to compare the new version with the original texts of Father's speeches. There are two reasons that we executed the comparison. One is to avoid duplication of the texts and the other is to mark the correct source. We recruited almost 300 people to verify and check every paragraph through underlining the original speeches."

6) Printing

"After Foundation Day, 10 editors were separated into two groups and read the whole book seven times to find misspellings and omitted words. After they proofread and copy-edited the books, then they started printing."

7) External Appearance

"We made the books to feel good to touch and to be thinner, lighter, look better and be easy to research. We used 42 grams of thin paper. We produced the best quality box case to protect the scriptures." "We bound fine and coated materials between covers and papers to make it durable."

"Newly created Cheon Il Guk Scripture cabinet: We made a very precious cabinet. True Mother designed the cabinet. We used roses, lilies and cranes for exterior design. We varnished with lacquer and used mother-of-pearl inlay. We created a cabinet that could remain a thousand years because it is strong and resistant to humidity and temperature."

Ref. www.familyfed.org/members/index.php?option=com_contentandview=articleandid=4378:publication- process-of-new-scriptures-unveiledandcatid=99:nationalandItemid=376

My Personal Opinion:

If there is anyone in the world who has the right to edit True Father's words or put them into a proper form it is True Mother. We should be aware that the first edition of the Cheon Seong Gyeong has some flaws as the text is not always in tune with the original records and contains many duplications and lack of chronological or logical order. It's leading nowhere to judge an edition project before understanding its background and before having a first hand look at the result. 

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