If you haven’t read and signed my Bible Typography Manifesto, now’s the time.

I do like the (expected) choice of Lexicon as a typeface, the same font used for the ESV Study Bible and the ESV Single-Column Legacy Bible which I’ve been using for a year or so.

I think I may finally have the “Bible for Life,” for my life, that I’ve been looking for.

I’ve been promised a review copy of this Bible, and I’ll let you know what I think when I hold it in my hands. After that year we’d reconvene and talk about our experience. The New Oxford Annotated Bible includes maps of the Holy Land. Chapter numbers will probably help me in that situation, because preachers do need to tell people where to go in their Bible texts. I have a dream for this Reader’s Bible: if I ever pastor a congregation of Christians who can handle the change, I’d love to ask everyone to use this Bible for one year-both in church services and, if they’re willing, in personal devotions. Furthermore, the way in which real persons and events are actually portrayed is the way of imagination, with unlifelike details. If verse numbers are a series of life preservers spread at intervals of three feet across the English Channel, using chapter numbers at least requires swimmers to go a good fifty yards before stopping. Like biblical prophecy generally, the actual medium is visionary writing the book unfolds as a pageant of visions, much like modern cinematic effects. That is, people accustomed lifelong to the pacing provided by little numbers littered throughout the Bible text (and I am one of them!) often feel cast adrift without them. I’m also not quite sure what to think, because the PDF includes enough of Genesis to show that they still elected to use chapter numbers, but not enough of Genesis to show what they’ll do when chapter numbers interfere with the flow of thought, like when a paragraph extends from one chapter to another.Ĭhapter numbers do rub this purist the wrong way, but because they’re a concession to reality I can’t object too strongly. I’ve been checking the page compulsively for some months, but I can’t say how long the PDF has been up. Crossway has finally put out a sample PDF of their upcoming Reader’s Bible.

Esv bible pdf