Yes, the plural of Bible is Bibles (although “bible” in itself comes from the Greek word for “books”, which is a plural already). But the way of developing the plural of Bibles is apparently being a Christian for a long time.
When I was a child, my father had a collection of different translations of the Bible and I didn’t understand why. I had my trusty NIV (brown hardback, gold lettering, sticker of a bird saying “Always be joyful!”) and that was fine. After all, NIV stands for Nearly Infallible Version. 😉
As well as that all-purpose Bible, which now lives at my parents’ house, I also had a wee Authorised/King James Version of the New Testament and Psalms which I think may have been my grandmother’s, and which very rarely got any use; I don’t have much time for the 400-year-old Authorised, although admittedly the Psalms sound lovely in it.
The first addition to my collection was another brown NIV, but this time a pocket-sized paperback that I could take with me to church and on holidays and so on. This was in 1999, the year I got much more serious about my faith, and eight years before smartphones were invented. This Bible has seen a lot of use, and perhaps too much travel and rough treatment, as you can see from the state of it.
Somewhere along the line someone recommended the New American Standard Version to me as the English translation that sticks closest to the original Hebrew/Greek. It’s not the smoothest read, for that reason, but it’s good for checking the more literal meaning when you don’t speak the original language. That was a yellow paperback. I don’t have it any more; I probably got rid of it once you could get that version on a smartphone.
I also picked up a Novum Testamentum Graece (Greek New Testament) at a second hand stall (I think) after I had learnt a bit of Greek, and someone also gave me either an Old Testament in Greek or a New Testament in Hebrew. Why?? I don’t have that any more, although I think the Novum Testamentum Graece may still be kicking around somewhere. (Or not. I think I may have lost an entire box of books between house moves one time but, with my memory, it’s hard to be sure.)
That was my entire collection in the pre-smartphone age. You’d think that now hundreds of translations are available on an app, I wouldn’t have added any more to my collection, but you would be wrong.
My church was reading through a version of the Bible that is printed like a normal book (not in columns or on onion-skin paper), laid out in a different and more logical order than the traditional canonical order, and with helpful introductions to the context of each book. I think they had copies to take either free or subsidised, so that’s how I ended up with this one. It’s funny how the full-page printing makes paragraphs and chapters seem so much shorter and fools you into reading longer sections.
Then the Very Big Bible. This is an Authorised Version again, but a really impressive one with photographic illustrations, fancy decorative text and places to write births, deaths and marriages. It’s meant to be a family Bible, obviously, so how did I end up with it? It was left outside my flat door in a carrier bag during the darkness of a power cut. Very mysterious! I do actually know who it was, because he forgot his blood donor card somewhere in the Psalms, and I thanked him, but I won’t out him here because he clearly wanted to be discreet. I get this out whenever people come round for Bible studies and it makes quite an impression.
Then finally, the Quite Big Bible. I got this one because I wanted to read Maccabees again (I don’t remember why), which I had read during my degree and which is found in the Apocrypha. None of my Bibles had an Apocrypha in it (the stuff between the Old Testament and the New Testament which is apocryphal – hence the name – and of varying quality and value) so I suppose it was about time I plugged that gap. The Bible I got for this was an annotated Bible with introductions to each book and oodles of footnotes, which are often very useful, so this is now my go-to Bible for my morning reading over breakfast. I could just do my daily Bible reading on my phone, of course, but I already spend enough time on it, and I don’t like to start my day by staring at a screen that keeps pinging notifications at me.
Apart from the Quite Big Bible in the morning and the old faithful bashed NIV in bed, I mostly do use my smartphone, because I can get the New Testament on it in the original Greek. My Greek is nowhere near good enough to comfortably just read the Bible in Greek, but it is good enough to read along while the English is being read. You get some interesting insights that way, and the odd laugh.
For instance, there’s this verse (Ephesians 5.19) that suddenly seems to break into English:
λαλοῦντες ἑαυτοῖς ψαλμοῖς καὶ ὕμνοις καὶ ᾠδαῖς πνευματικαῖς ᾄδοντες καὶ ψάλλοντες ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ ὑμῶν τῷ Κυρίῳ.
For you non-Greek-alphabet readers, it appears to say, “Greekety greek psalms, hymns & pneumatic odes greekety greekety greek” 😂
And my favourite, from Revelation 8.11 where the angel chucks a star called Wormwood into the sea, turning the waters “bitter”, and many people die from the bitter water. Doesn’t sound too humorous, until you read it in Greek, and both “Wormwood” and “bitter” are… absynth! So everyone dies because the water has turned into absynth. Drink responsibly, folks!
Less stuff has probably accreted to me because I have moved around so much, but I’ve still managed to pick up a decent collection of Bibles without trying, and I even have a button box like my grandmother used to! Hers was much, much bigger, but give me time…
What stuff have you collected without meaning to? Or do you just want to chew me up for not liking the Authorised Version? Have at it in the comments.
K C Murdarasi 
My first NIV was the red version of yours.
Glad youvhavr a button box but you really need those pans with the red and yellow handles to go with it;-)