Mark Strobel had kindly sent along a snapshot of his new R. L. Allan NRSV bound in goatskin. I haven't seen one of these up close and personal yet, but the photo certainly whets my appetite. The typeface looks clean and modern, and the use of dotted lines in the center column reminds me of the Cambridge Pocket Cross-Reference I reviewed earlier.
If you're looking for a nice edition of the NRSV, I don't imagine you'd go wrong with this one. It's available from Bibles-Direct.com and sells for £65.00, which works out to about $133 in our increasingly worthless American money.
I have this, and must confess I don't love it. No maps, no glossary, not much in the way of frills. Cross-references are minimal.
Posted by: Phil | December 11, 2007 at 05:23 PM
Does this edition include the Apocrypha? I had considered this for a while, but settled on a new Oxford Annotated Study Bible instead. I was a little disappointed to see that Oxford had used leather inferior to that in my 2nd edition OASB. I sure would like to have a Bible with such a fine binding as an Allan Bible someday.
Posted by: Greg Terry | December 11, 2007 at 06:23 PM
No, it does not include the Apocrypha -- another reason it isn't my ideal Bible. It is well bound, but it is very bare bones. (Part of my problem was unreasonable expectations -- I thought "reference bible" meant "study bible", which this is not).
FYI, I also recently bought the Cambridge NASB wide-column in goatskin, and it is quite a bit more fun to use (sadly it too lacks the Apocrypha) - maps, concordance, x references, and note pages -- not to mention soft soft soft.
Posted by: Phil | December 12, 2007 at 01:35 PM
I recently purchased an NRSV in goatskin from Allan's. There were two problems with the Bible. One, the binding at the base of the spine came unglued. Two, the listing for the Bible says semi yapp, and the Bible I received definitely wasn't semi yapp. I contacted Allan's, and they exchanged mine for a new one. The binding itself on the new one was semi yapp and seemed excellent overall, except I had the Bible imprinted with my name and the imprinting does not look professional. It is smudged and cracked in places. Ironically, the imprinting on the first Bible I sent back was excellent. Overall, I really like the binding of the second Bible, but greatly disappointed in the imprinting. I imagine they would replace it again, but I am not certain I want to pursue this further since the whole process so far has lasted several months. Of course, since the Bible was nearly $160 altogether, one expects the quality to be excellent in all regards. In all fairness to Allan's, I will probably buy from them in the future.
Posted by: Pastor Chris | January 18, 2008 at 06:45 PM