PROVO — Eight years after he headed the committee responsible for publication of the LDS edition of the King James Bible, President Thomas S. Monson paused to write in his journal about what it had meant to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"I have said in private this is one of the major contributions during my service as a general authority," he wrote on Dec. 4, 1987.

President Monson, who currently serves as first counselor in the First Presidency, has been an apostle for nearly 42 years but his opinion hasn't changed, he said this week at a reunion of committee members who produced the LDS edition of the Bible in 1979 and followed it up in 1981 with the church's "triple combination" of unique scripture — the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price.

Scholars inside the church and out credit those editions of the scriptures with helping to change the way church members worshipped on Sundays. The publications also altered the perception of the church in the Christian world.

"They created for the Latter-day Saints as well as those outside the church an emphasis on the fact the Book of Mormon did not replace the Bible," said Jan Shipps, professor emeritus of history and religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University.

The new editions included ground-breaking tools like the LDS Bible Dictionary, an index and new chapter headings and footnotes specific to LDS doctrine. It all took some getting used to, said Kathleen Flake, assistant professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt University.

The church's culture into the 1960s did not include members toting scriptures to Sunday meetings, as many do now. In fact, many LDS talks centered on poetry and stories instead of scripture, Flake said, until church President Joseph Fielding Smith began to encourage a change.

Other influences shaped the scripture-centered culture of the church familiar to members today. Scriptures committee member Daniel Ludlow said Brigham Young University began to require scripture courses, not just religion courses, in the 1950s, and the church began to emphasize scriptures as the manual for Sunday School in the late 1960s.

The 1978 revelation to extend the church's priesthood to all worthy male members needed to be included in the scriptures, Flake said, and members recommitted themselves to scripture study again in the 1980s after church President Ezra Taft Benson counseled members to improve their study of the Book of Mormon.

When the new editions of the scriptures appeared, numerous articles in church magazines explained how to use them and the tools included with them.

Still, Flake said, "There was a period where members brought their scriptures to church but didn't know how to use them. It took Mormons at least 20 years to begin to really talk about scriptures."