The next entry in my Book Review series, I’ll be giving my review of the Sola Scriptura reader’s bible by Zondervan
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Reader’s Bible Overview
While this review is specifically about Zondervan’s offering within the reader’s bible realm — the Sola Scriptura — a good bit of this book review will be speaking to the merits of reader’s bibles in general.
For those unaware, reader’s bibles are bibles that don’t have the reference tools that have become standard in the modern bible. This means that, unlike your “normal” bible, reader’s bibles (typically) won’t include the following:
- Chapter and verse notations
- Section Headers
- Footnotes
- Cross-references
- Parallel page formats
- Concordances
- (And in the case of the Sola Scriptura, at least) Red Letters indicating Jesus’ words
Being that reader’s bibles don’t include all of the things listed above, it makes for a very different reading experience when you’re used to standard bibles. But I believe that “different”, in this case, is a real positive.
Because things like chapters, verses, and section headings have become standard, many people don’t ever consider the fact that the neither the OT scriptures or the NT scriptures were written with them. Chapters and verses (as well as the other things listed above) were introduced to both the OT and NT scriptures gradually over time, with the current chapter-and-verse format arriving rather late — around the mid-16th Century.
Sola Scriptura Format
You can’t talk about reader’s bibles without talking about their formatting, because that’s really what makes them what they are.
So let’s talk about the design and formatting of the Sola Scriptura.
As previously mentioned, there are no chapter/verse/heading/reference notations within the text*, which lends the text to being clean and clutter-free. But what I do like, is that (very discreetly) at the bottom of the page they included the chapter and verse range of the text to still give you some general bearing as to where you are in a particular book.
(*The Psalms being the exception. Because it is a collection of writings it is, in fact, still divided up into “chapters”.)
Here are three examples of the page format in the Sola Scriptura bible:
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Now, the next thing to note is how the Sola Scriptura is configured, as far as the books are concerned. It’s actually broken up into 4 volumes, rather than one bound book. And here’s how that breakdown looks:
…….Vol. One – The Torah and Former Prophets
…….Vol. Two – The Latter Prophets
…….Vol. Three – The Writings
…….Vol. Four – The New Testament
They also made some changes to the book orders within some of the volumes (especially with the NT), but in the front of each volume they take the time to explain their rationale as to why they configured them the way they did. And I’ll say I can appreciate the thoughtfulness in which they went about making their choices and I think they’re reasonable.
As far as the book’s physical construction goes, Sola Scriptura is hard-bound — “cloth over board” — style. I like it, it feels sturdy and substantial. The pages are bright white and are themselves rather thick and sturdy. Based on the build quality, I anticipate these books will hold up to decades of use, no problem.
How this book found me
Good books almost have a way of finding you. In my experience, the way some books find their way to me and the timing in which they find me can be interesting in its own right. So, along with discussing the book itself, I usually like to take note of the circumstances that put the book in my path.
The circumstances surrounding my introduction to the Sola Scriptura reader’s bible are fairly mundane. I’d heard, at some point prior, about certain bibles “without chapters and verses” and one day I had a random recollection of “those” bibles while I was book hunting online. So, I decided to look them up.
What I discovered was that they were called “reader’s bibles” and there’s a decent (albeit not enormous) selection of them to choose from. As I researched them more deeply, the idea of being able to cleanly read the bible without so much clutter and distraction was enticing to me. So I did a little comparing, and settled on the Sola Scriptura as my choice.
How it’s impacted me
I really have fallen in love with my reader’s bible. It’s become an invaluable tool for me in so many ways. I would go so far as to say that the reader’s bible format has become my preferred way to read the bible. As a matter of fact, the more I use it, the harder I’ve found it to read my “other” bibles — the formatting really has become uncomfortable and distracting to me.
Here are some of the ways using a reader’s bible has impacted me:
- Because of its clean formatting, it’s helped me be less distracted when reading, which has encouraged me to read more.
. - Again, because of its format, it’s made reading the bible feel more natural, like how I would read any other piece of literature.
. - It has helped me shift from some of the “proof text-y” tendencies that are encouraged, in part, by the way our bibles are typically formatted.
The presence of chapters and verses, while great for quick navigation and reference, can — if you’re not careful — give the impression that the bible is made up of lots of little individual maxims or pieces of collected wisdom that can be isolated and parsed together to form narratives how we please; when, in fact, the writings in the bible are mostly long, full works that speak to specific topics and ideas that weave throughout the entirety of scripture. But, over the centuries it’s become a regular practice to pull out certain verses from their overall story and piece them together to make points that they were never intended to make.
Using a bible that is formatted more simply has gone a long way in helping me break the habit of handling the bible that way.
. - Related to the last point, my reader’s bible has forced me to have a deeper familiarity with entire books of the bible. Rather than being able to easily pick out little verses here and there to memorize by rote (potentially out of context), I’ve been forced to gain — and maintain — a view of the overall picture of the books, as well as understand how their content flows from beginning to end.
Rather than simply memorizing verses, I’m becoming more familiar with the Word — which invites me into a similar way of handling the scriptures as the Jews (and early Christians) would have in their much more oral cultures.
To illustrate this, my mind goes to Jesus commencing his mission soon after his wilderness trial. In Luke 4 Jesus, in the synagogue of his hometown of in Nazareth, stood up, had the scroll of Isaiah handed to him, he unrolled it, found and read aloud a short passage that described his mission, then rolled the scroll back up and handed it to the rabbi/attendant.
Ummm excuse me?? Have you ever read the book of Isaiah?? It’s enormous! By word count, it’s the fifth-longest book in the entire bible at just over 37,000 words! The passage Jesus cited was Isaiah 61:1-2, and is a grand total of about 50 words. And I will again remind you: He had no chapters or verses for reference! In that enormous scroll of Isaiah (or perhaps it was a one volume of the larger Isaiah text) Jesus had to be familiar with the ENTIRE text of Isaiah in order to find that proverbial “needle-in-a-haystack”. He had to know Isaiah in order to be able to find that passage in a reasonable amount of time.
But that’s what’s beautiful about not having a way to quickly navigate the Word … you’re forced to wade into it and get intimate with it. You can’t just jump in for what you’re looking for and jump out. You have to sit with it, learn it, and be deeply familiar with it!
With all that said…
Would I recommend it?
100% I would.
I believe our standard, more reference-y bibles are good too. I’m certainly not saying you should throw yours out … but if you want to have a tool that will encourage you to really dive into the story and travel through the Word like the breathtaking (and compelling) work of art that it is — as opposed to more of a scholarly, religious text — then I would highly suggest you get a reader’s bible and have it as a part of your essential tool set.
If you’re interested in purchasing a copy of the Sola Scriptura NIV reader’s bible, you can purchase one HERE.
But as I stated before, there are number of other choices out there. They come in a small handful of translations and come in multi-volume or single-volume configurations. So, search around and find the one that you think fits you best.
I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!
-Alex