I won this from commenting on the NLT blog. I was very surprised to get mine this early. Thank you very much to Tyndale.
The dust cover has been removed for these photos. I think they could have done without it. Having the design on the hardcover looks very nice and is similar to what the BECNT and NIVAC commentaries do for example.
The pages are very thin and there is quite a bit of bleed through compared to what I’m used to. I wouldn’t mind if the Bible was 15% thicker with heavier paper but I’m sure even more people would then complain about how the Bible is too heavy and thick. Since it’s a study Bible I think this is just fine and it’s not bad enough to reduce readability. I would trust the publisher knows what people want and struck the right balance. The photo below shows the NIV Thompson Chain Reference Bible and a typical pew Bible so you can see that it’s relatively compact.
I have two other very minor gripes.
The red letter text isn’t quite consistent in color saturation level from page to page. When it’s darker and more saturated it’s easier to read. Maybe in subsequent printings this will be taken care of. Most people probably won’t even notice this. (Sorry I pointed it out.) Of course this could be easily fixed by not having red letters! But we won’t belabor that point.
In the Hebrew and Greek Word Studies, transliterations of the Hebrew and Greek are used without the actual Hebrew and Greek words being shown. I’ve learned the Greek alphabet and would like to see the actual Greek words in addition to the phonetic English transliteration of the underlying word. I look forward to using this feature in any case.
One of my favorite features at first perusal are the Theme Notes. I call them little surprises. They pop up here and there and they’re like a box of chocolates—you never know what you’re going to get. For example, in the middle of Ezekiel you’ll find God’s Sovereignty and Human Responsibility. These are usually a few paragraphs at the most and include Scripture references to the left of the text. This can be seen on page 5 of the NLT Study Bible Features Guide (PDF file) in the lower left.
For a list of reviews please see the NLT Study Bible Reviews Roundup page.
