Readers Preference Reviews

If you are a conservative Christian you will find this an excellent survey of the New Testament books. If you are not then you will probably find difficulty with many portions of the book.

One of the things that I really liked the way the author brings the reader up to speed about the history of the area between the Old and New Testament time periods. He does an excellent job covering the rise of the Greek Period, through the Hasmonean Period, and up to the Roman Period, including the rule of the Ptolemies and Seleucids.

The King James Version of the Bible is one of the most popular translations available. Some like it best just because of tradition, some because of the poetic flow of so much of the text, and others for a wide variety of other reasons. If the King James is your favorite version then this is one of the few Study Bibles available for that translation.

One of the most useful of Bible study tools, "Figures of Speech Used in the Bible" should be in personal library of anyone who is serious about Bible study. The writers of the Bible often used figures of speech that were common during their time. In fact we often use figures of speech in our everyday conversations without paying much attention to it but we do expect others to understand that we were speaking figuratively and not literally.

One of the unique things about this Bible is the inclusion of eight study courses for church school and small groups. The eight courses are divided into four Old Testament courses (Exploring the Pentateuch, Exploring the Historical Books, Exploring the Books of Poetry, Exploring the Books of Prophecy) and four New Testament courses (Exploring the Life of Christ, Exploring the Ministry of Christ, Exploring Paul’s Letters to Churches, Exploring the Other Letters and Revelation).

Many Christians would be surprised to find that the early Christian church was not one with a common theology with only very minor differences between them. In fact there were many major differences between the early churches. Some believed that Christ was entirely human and not divine at all. Others believed he was entirely divine and not human at all. And, of course, there were a wide variety of beliefs between those extremes.

This is Today’s New International Version of the Bible organized not by book and verse but as one seamless story from beginning to end. One of the difficulties for many people who study the Bible is the fact that it is not organized chronologically but the historical books often cover the same period (i.e. 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles) or are organized by the length of the book (major prophets vs. minor prophets) or other ways. This is a unique way of presenting the complete Bible story that brings pattern and structure to all the disconnected stories we tend to learn in church.

This Bible has several features to help the reader quickly understand the purpose and direction of a book or chapter and then examine the passages in detail. The name Light Speed Bible is because of this format and the Light Speed Reading course. At the beginning of the Bible the introductory matter details this reading technique that with practice will allow the reader to read through the entire Bible in just a few days. The Light Speed reading technique involves reading through a large section of the Bible three times at different speeds.

Many of us learned the stories of Genesis with Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, and Joseph in Egypt as children. But what if there is much more to these stories and to the book of Genesis? What did the book mean to its original intended audience? Are there relationships that we miss because we don’t understand the original language, social environment, and historical context in which it was written? Professor Gary A. Rendsburg thinks so and shares his wealth of knowledge about these and other features of Genesis in this excellent study.