The Expanded Bible, initial thoughts

Thomas Nelson will soon release their new Expanded Bible.

I write these 'initial thoughts' in the hope I will be one of the first to do so, and so qualify for a free review copy.

Wayne Hastings, Senior Vice President and Group Publisher of the Bible Division for Thomas Nelson Publishers, wrote earlier today on his blog (I first saw it on Twitter) what they are trying to achieve:

Why is it different?

• It meets the needs of the contemporary student of the Bible by combining devotional reading and in-depth study in a completely new way. Users can now study the Bible while they read with study aids and resources placed in-line with the text of the Bible.
• It joins Bible text with traditional wordings, explanatory comments, additional wordings, literal meanings and expanded word definitions, all integrated within the text of the Scripture.
• It offers readers a unique Bible study experience by making them a part of the process and decisions made by scholars while developing a translation.

The end result is a Bible that is highly readable for devotions or study purposes that includes a richer in-text explanation of the Scripture. The experience will help customers grasp all that God is saying and give them a complete meaning of words and their alternative wordings. It’s like having a robust Bible reference library at your fingertips without having to flip a page or grab another book.

I remember when I was a young christian trying to discover for myself what the bible was saying, and so think through my faith. I assembled a personal library of different bible translations to compare and reference books like concordances, commentaries and bible dictionaries to look things up - and would regularly find myself sitting in the middle of a pile of them spread around me all open at pages relevant to what I was looking into. It seems to me the 'Expanded Bible' would have been of enormous assistance to me back then.

Even now, with over 20 years under my belt actively thinking through my faith (and teaching others), I am sure the 'Expanded Bible' will help re-ignite my understanding of God as revealed in scripture. The free New Testament .pdf eBook you can download from a link in Wayne's blog post certainly encourages me to think so.

I look forward to receiving my free review copy, and writing further on how useful it turns out to be.

Comments

[Vaughan Rivett]

Did you get your free copy?

[Gavin Knight]

I'm told it is not expected to ship until July