This new Bible releases at the end of this month:
ESV Reader’s Bible. Wheaton: Crossway, 2014.
Bible readers should celebrate this new Bible because it strips out the verse numbers (but, unfortunately, not the chapter numbers!).* It’s the first ESV Bible to do this. Check out the format in this 10-page PDF sample.
*My friend Mark Ward’s mostly enthusiastic review of the ESV Reader’s Bible more passionately makes the same point.
How does this format benefit readers?
- See “Tip #3. Read without any chapter or verse references.”
- See thoughts #6, 9, and 10 here.
- See my book reviews that explain this in more detail.
- See Gordon Fee’s third reason for revising his commentary on 1 Corinthians.
I’m glad to see this published! At least the chapter numbers are mostly “out of the way”. Now if only they released one that followed the Hebrew order of the OT; then we’d be set!
I concur! I’d love to see an ESV or NLT with no in-line verse or chapter numbers, and including the order of the Hebrew Canon. Why aren’t these more common??