Book Review of "The Expanded Bible: New Testament"

“Study the Bible while you read” is the theme statement of a newly released Bible called The Expanded Bible. As a minister, I possess many bibles of various versions. Everyone has their preferences. Some Bibles are good for their modern language while others are good for their “close to the original text” format.

I was excited upon seeing the opportunity to review this newly released book. And upon receiving the book and examining different passages, I was quite pleased.

The positives that I took away from the review: 1) It takes away the need to go to several different translations to see what words or phrases mean or alternate words, 2) It makes it easy to see scripture references to verses or quotes from the Old Testament, 3) It gives you symbols that indicate what study aid is being used (C = comment, L = literal, and T = traditional rendering, and ‘or’ = an alternate wording), 4) Space on the sides for personal study notes, 5) The single column style makes it easy for reading, and 6) the font is clear and easy to read

The negatives that I took away from the review: 1) The symbols mentioned above are at the beginning of the book, so until you learn them you must flip back and forth, 2) with all the study notes, it may be hard to read aloud, if used in that type of a setting, but if you used it for study sake, that would negate this negative, and 3) it only gives helps to, what I presume, the most common words or phrases that give confusion.

It only comes in a New Testament edition at this point. I am sure that an Old Testament edition will be coming out in the future.

For people who would like to have a study Bible that focuses on alternate words and phrases, with some commentary, then this is a good Bible to consider. It is a Bible that I see best to be used for studying and not taken to class.