Jul 10, 2006
Some days my old school wrestler emerges in my life. When I lack discipline to study, read, exercise, love my family well - I can get a bit hard on myself (all the psycho-anaylyzers, please hold the e-mail, God's grace is real to me).
Many days I can boil down what needs to happen in my spiritual life to a simple phrase - Read your stinkin Bible! I always thought having one of those big margin bible for all my scribbles would be nice - but usually you need a private fork lift and a good back to lug those chunks around. Seeing my back is a bit jacked up from time to time and I own no large warehouse arranging vehicles, I have stuck with my ESV thinline for reading the Scriptures. Well, the dream of a compact, big margin Bible made for writing your thoughts and comments along side the Bible has now become reality.
Crossway has just published the ESV Journaling edition, available in both hard back and calf-skin (for those who have bank and nice tastes). I received mine this past week and have been very thankful for this edition of the best translation available today (ESV). Here are a few of the features I really enjoy:
- Text Size: Small, 7.5 pt font. I love small fonts, so at least for a few more years the text is fine on my eyes. I like the clean look of the pages, but the text may be small for some.
- Two inch margins: The margins on each side are ruled and very wide. The ruled lines are a bit small, but I write small and find this an asset rather than a hindrance. Some may want to use two lines.
- Additional materials: The Bible has some great instroductory material to the Old and New Testaments, a topical listing entitled What the Bible Says About, book introductions to each biblical book (though these are at the back of the Bible, not at the head of each book), a yearly reading plan offering five chapters each day including OT, NT, Psalms, an article on the gospel entitled God's Plan to Save You. Obviously, the publisher wanted to keep this edition compact, but while doing so they still managed to pack some nice features into the journaling Bible.
- Coolness: The original hardback format is just cool. It looks like a fat moleskin with a sturdy elastic strap to keep it compact and a black ribbon for marking your place. This little gem has a high cool factor. Did I say this was a cool looking Bible?
Here is the sample of a page provided by Crossway:
So far, I have been scribbling running verse by verse commentary in my two inch ruled margins. Others may want to journal prayers, thoughts about life, letters to God, etc. Most importantly, this may just help you Read your stinkin Bible. In doing so the wild and fantastic God of the universe may just grab you and throw you out into his mission. Then life just ceases to be normal. Read the book.
One last thought. I like this little edition so much that I think if Jonathan Edwards were alive, he might have just used a bunch of these little black books instead of the hand-sewn interleaved Bible which he used to write down thoughts in his tiny script.
Highly recommended, you can order here:
The ESV Journaling Bible, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006) 1074 pages.
Comments
This looks awesome -- my wife and I are both interested in getting copies... how thick are the pages though? The ESV versions we have right now have pretty thin pages that we'd be afraid of pen going through and/or tearing.
Thoughts?
Posted by: Chip Hayner | July 10, 2006 10:08 AM
I thought Crossway did a great job with this Bible as well when I saw it posted on the ESV blog a few weeks ago. I love wide-margin Bibles, and the margin in this edition is more generous than that of either my wide-margin NASB or my HCSB Minister's Bible.
Overall, I'd recommend this Bible for the person who uses the ESV and likes to take notes in his or her Bible. My only quibbles: (1) I think it would be better without the lines to give more freedom for marking the page. Often, I draw vertical brackets around verse groupings. (2) A single-column text seems better geared toward note-taking, but maybe that's just me. And (3) the font's too small. I had to finally get reading glasses a year ago, and I find that I can no longer see text at a 7.5 font like the one in this Bible without straining.
Posted by: R. Mansfield | July 10, 2006 01:37 PM
what is one supposed to do when one's thought(s) on a verse changes? just curious
Posted by: BV | July 10, 2006 02:24 PM
Ben,
Read it and take notes on the whole thing over a year or two. Then get another one and put the old one on the shelf. Then you can go back and see what you wrote next to certain passages (say Acts 13:48) over time - You can problably see growth, theological evolution, etc. Plus, your family can look back at your Bible notes once you are dead. That is cool.
Posted by: Reid | July 10, 2006 03:30 PM
$$$$
Posted by: Scott | January 29, 2007 04:11 PM
Yeah, the prices have actually gone up on these. I bought mine when the standard deal was 19.99 - even the calf skin version I bought as a gift for a friend at 44.09. They are a bit pricey now.
Posted by: Reid Monaghan | January 29, 2007 06:05 PM
Looks great for a younger generation. Mainly because of the small text.
Posted by: Chris | April 15, 2007 04:12 AM