ESV Study Bible Review
Looking for an ESV Study Bible review that gives you the quick facts and cuts out the fluff? A review that condenses the myriad of others? Here you go …
Strengths: ESV Study Bible Review
- Multiple edition styles to suit your personal design and color preferences.
- The ESV guarantee. If you find a defect get a replacement of equal or greater value.
- Smyth sewn binding. Considered the most durable binding process. A hard Bible to break or wear out! Allows Bible to lay open, very useful for long study times. This was verified by many customers.
- The ESV Study Bible is thicker and heavier than previous study bibles. Makes you feel like you’ve made a good investment.
- The ink is nice and dark and the font size is very easy to read.
- Fabulous full-color illustrations and maps unlike many grayscale study Bibles. A very impressive touch.
- Purchasing customers receive free access to a complete online edition with the ability to write notes and perform searches — speeding up study time. However, many have commented that they don’t use this feature much.
- Comprehensive introductions to each book.
- Study notes are incredibly extensive and use significant portions of each page, being also printed slightly smaller than the Bible text. Overall format is similar to the NIV Study Bible.
- The outline titles of each book (as listed in the intros) are paragraph highlighted as they appear throughout the notes allowing the reader to quickly identify a primary outline transition.
- Secondary points in the outlines are simply highlighted behind the text as they appear in the notes. Again, this allows the reader the ability to follow the whole outline without referring back to the intro.
- Contributors to the study notes are made up of a spectrum of trusted scholars in Evangelicalism.
- On the most part it allows for differences in theological convictions through the careful wording of controversial topics. In many places it gives multiple views and lets you make a decision based on the Words of scripture.
Weaknesses: ESV Study Bible Review
- Study notes mainly focus on explanation and almost never on application making this a more suited Bible for leaders. Learning to live the truth of scripture is the goal of studying the Bible. New Christians might be overloaded with information and distracted from walking out faith. This could be a downside to most study bibles.
- The study notes in some places can be partial and light compared to other works on those passages. It must be noted that no single work can cover everything.
- Some claim that the description of it’s doctrinal position as “classical evangelical orthodoxy, in the historic stream of the Reformation” is not totally accurate. It has been claimed that the ESV Study Bible leans more towards Calvinism. But, we’ll leave that up to you to decide. Either way, it’s a smaller and less significant point when considering the breadth of information.
Conclusion
After considering an ESV Study Bible review it is important to think about what your personal needs are in a study bible and balance that with your theological convictions.
In the end, this is truly a great resource, and anyone who makes an investment in an ESV Study Bible has made a good decision and should not be disappointed.
Buy an ESV Study Bible today