The two Bible versions you see cozied up together on the couch were engaged in a brutal cage match about a year ago moderated by Rick Mansfield and myself. They’ve now outfitted themselves in heavy-duty study Bible versions and are itching for a rematch. A friend sent me a copy of the CEV Learning Bible and Laura at Tyndale sent me a review copy of the NLT Study Bible so now I can throw these two Bibles in the ring and let them battle it out.
Initial reaction? The covers say it all. The NLTSB has no pictures (just a few maps) and is grayscale (with the exception of words of Christ in red). The CEVLB is stuffed with pictures and is full-color. A monochrome vs. polychrome layout makes a big difference. While the color adds interest and excitement it is also really distracting. The text gets sidelined by the artistic layout. On the other hand, NLTSB touts itself as “created by a dream team of today’s top Bible scholars” but such a dull gray layout threatens to send you to dreamland. Yawn.
I will make periodic comparisons of these two editions in the coming months. Expect the same outrageous opinions and satirical slander that you’ve come to expect at Lingamish.
If you have questions please send them my way and I’ll try to answer them.
CEV Learning Bible: Christianbook.com and Amazon (I get a commish if you buy using the Amazon link)
NLT Study Bible: NLT Study Bible blog. Review copies available at the NLT Blog [All gone]
The 2007 Bible Version Cage Match series: Bible Version Cage-Match Round 1, Bible Version Cage-Match Round 2, The Scam Is Revealed, Bible Version Cage-Match Round 3 (Rick did you post another after this?)
I thought the NLTSB had bi-colour text? At least that’s what Nick Norelli says. That’s not “monochrome”, although in my opinion (see my comments on Nick’s post) it is an abuse of colour.
There’s no color in the text of the NLT Study Bible.
David, I never posted after round 3. But I’m willing to. We can just say it was a long hiatus. Let me get a review of the NLTSB up first. I got mine in the mail yesterday.
Sorry. Words of Jesus in red. Not my favorite feature, either.
Rick, I think we can focus on the NLTSB since it has some momentum. You decide.
Rick, do you dispute what Nick and David now agree on? Or are you so far looking only at your Genesis sample, which of course doesn’t have words of Jesus?
BTW I sent my request Thursday morning and had the Bible in my hands Friday afternoon. Laura must have been really wowed that I was a contributor at Better Bibles…
Since you are doing a cage match… Two big questions (at least in my mind) that I’d like your take on:
1) Teen – adult non evangelical
2) Child (say 7-13)
I might need some suggestions for other versions to throw in the cage for those demographic groups…
Peter, I may have misunderstood. Yes, i do have my full NLTSB which came in Friday, and yes it does have red letter for the words of Christ. I was under the impression that the references to color were in regard to other parts of the Bible. We saw full color in the Archaeological Study Bible and lots of red highlighting in the TNIV Study Bible. The NLTSB is monochrome throughout EXCEPT for the words of Christ.
Just heard that all the review copies are gone.
[...] a similar vein, Lingamish is just about to start comparing two new study Bibles. He has been sent a review copy of the NLT [...]