Barnard Silver’s scriptures are aged and modern, worn and pristine.

They have rough bindings and sharp, crisp pages; white leather and blue vinyl, with brown, black and a hint of gold mixed in.

And they won’t fit in any scripture bag.

Over six decades, Silver has built a library of latter-day scripture that today ranges from an 1830 first-edition Book of Mormon off the Grandin Press to a July 2008 Spanish El Libro de Mormon. In between these bookends is a stunningly voluminous and diverse collection.

These books reflect Silver’s personal testimony and heritage, with each one telling its own story along with the message of the Restoration.

“We’ve learned to treasure each edition,” said Cherry Silver, Barnard’s wife.

Silver simply loves the scriptures. He has served eight missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and found the books to be “the most important” element of the work in each instance.

“The power of latter-day scriptures to change a person is immense,” he said.

He also has an affinity for language. As a 12-year-old boy, Silver was struck by the phrase in Doctrine and Covenants 90: 11 that states, “every man shall hear the fullness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language. … ”

His subsequent life has been rich with international experience. Silver speaks fluent French and Spanish, in addition to some Greek, Japanese, Swahili and Senefou. He has visited 50 countries and been involved in some form of missionary work in about 30 nations.

One such opportunity arose between 1974 and 1976, while he was working professionally in the Ivory Coast. Silver says he was “constantly” giving away copies of the Book of Mormon. “We couldn’t keep enough in stock,” he said.

About a decade later, Silver was called as a mission president and asked to open missionary work in that nation, which he refers to by its French designation — the Cote d’ Ivoire.

While Silver has handed out his share of copies of the Book of Mormon, he’s also spent a lifetime acquiring them.

He was 14 years old when he began working for a man in his Denver ward named Virgil V. Peterson, who was the Colorado state archivist.

“We just talked books,” Silver said. “He started me on collecting.”

At age 18, Silver purchased a first-edition Book of Mormon from Peterson. It was a volume that once belonged to early church member Simonds Ryder, who became critical of Joseph Smith when the Prophet misspelled his name and eventually left the church.

Today, Silver owns 1,503 non-English copies of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price, along with numerous English copies. Approximately half of those books came from Peterson’s original collection, which Silver purchased more than a quarter-century ago.

While Silver has been around the world, most of the copies have been procured close to home — with one exception being a volume that he purchased at a used bookstore in Japan. He credits friends such as Peterson, Sam Weller, Curt Bench and Ken Sanders with assisting the effort. There was also Fred Rosenstock, who owned a bookstore at which Silver worked and who would provide him with LDS works.

Although the books were recently on display, Silver keeps them in secure storage.

This collection is more than just the Book of Mormon in each of its respective translations. Silver has acquired “almost every printing of every latter-day scripture published.”

The focus on printings makes the collection significantly more expansive in both size and scope. Japanese-language editions alone require four feet of shelf space and span an entire century. Among those are several unique volumes, including a 1909 edition with a greenish-gray jacket, one of only three known copies; a gold jacket-wrapped edition printed for the 1970 World’s Fair in Osaka; and a white leather edition produced for the Tokyo Temple.

Much of the collection resembles an old meetinghouse library shelf, with plenty of familiar light-blue paperbacks featuring the angel Moroni statue on the cover.

But there are also unique treasures, like an 1852 copy of Das Buch Mormon that contains a sketch of a winged angel on the inside page.

Silver owns a copy of the first non-English translation of the Book of Mormon, an 1851 Danish-language edition. The brown leather volume with worn edges and gold imprint is personally inscribed with a message from Erastus Snow to fellow apostle Orson Pratt.

The French translation from 1852 is missing a binding and is kept in a plastic sleeve. Silver calls this “an original, original copy.”

He also has a copy of the rare 1855 Hawaiian Buke a Moramona, translated by George Q. Cannon. The book, one of only 250 printed copies, belonged to James Keeler, one of the first missionaries to the islands.

For Silver, the value of these books goes beyond bindings and inscriptions. These volumes have also tied the 76-year-old Latter-day Saint to both family and church history.

Snow, who helped translate the Danish edition, is the grandfather of Silver’s late uncle. Cannon is Silver’s great-uncle, and the 1886 Spanish Libro de Mormon was translated in part by Jaime Z. Stewart, another great-uncle.

The Silvers were surprised to discover the dual significance of an inscription inside the 1852 French edition. It was written by President Taylor, Silver’s great-great-uncle, to Amasa Lyman, Cherry Silver’s great-great-grandfather.

“The power of Elijah permeates my life,” he said.

None of the antique volumes, however, has a hold on his heart like the 1987 Livre de Mormon does.

After Silver was called to be the first mission president in the Ivory Coast, he arranged to have three leather-bound copies made of the French translation. He gave one to the president of the country and presented another to the LDS Church.

He kept the third for himself, and treasures it above all others.

“I think this is the rarest of all bound copies,” he said.