Friday, August 14, 2009

The Expanded Bible

I received a free promotional copy of The Expanded Bible New Testament the other day (hardback, too, and not paperback as the offer stated - Thanks, Thomas Nelson!) for posting my "review" here and getting it publicized on another blog. The print edition looks identical to the online PDF document.

I find that reading it in book form is not as cumbersome as I thought it might be. One can easily learn to read just the bold-faced type (i.e., the modified New Century Version (NCV) text) while ignoring the inserted bracketed [ ] comments, only stopping to read them when one wants to.

If the NCV translation as supplemented by the L (Literal) comments and alternate (or) translations is a faithful rendering of the Greek (and I like what I've read so far), this will be a helpful study Bible for those who do not know NT Greek, and I'll likely be recommending it as such to people. (Note: The comments don't just expand on the Greek and provide translation options; they also give other useful study and background information.)

Wayne Hastings of Thomas Nelson confirmed for me that the Old Testament should be out in about two years. That, to me, is a massive undertaking, but it will be a welcome and useful one, judging by this New Testament effort.