A Well Bound Bible

As a person who marks up the Bible as I study it, I don’t want to switch to a new copy anytime soon. Once I have worked slowly through a text, my notations are invaluable for future readings and for answering questions in class. They’re also very helpful when teaching survey courses on the Bible, since it’s not always possible to re-read, for instance, 1 Kings the night before I lecture for three hours on the whole book .

For these reasons  I have been very frustrated with some copies of the Bible that I have marked up in the recent past. Why am I frustrated? For the simple reason that these Bibles have fallen apart. Genesis is ready to fall out of the copy of the Bible I have been using.

This has led me to wonder whether the people who publish these Bibles actually expect them to be read! A poor binding is no trouble if the thing isn’t going to be used. More likely, the assumption is probably made that people will just switch to a new copy every so often.

But I’ve recently acquired a new copy of the Bible, and I’m very pleased with this binding. It has the added benefit of being a Hebrew English diglot–Hebrew in one column, English in the next (NKJV). This is great for the OT, but unfortunately, the NT is also in Hebrew instead of Greek. Oh well. Nothing’s perfect.

What would make this one perfect? Well, there are no cross-references in the text. In my experience, the best set of cross-references comes with the ESV Classic Reference Bible.

So if I could blink three times, this Bible would have this fine binding, Greek as the NT Diglot text, and the ESV’s cross references.

NKJV 2 Thessalonians 3:1 “Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified, just as it is with you . . .”

N. T. Wright and John Stott on Different Sides of the Issue

According to this report, N. T. Wright is not pleased with some evangelicals in the Church of England who have announced that they will no longer fund the COE’s apostasy:

The Bishop of Durham, The Rt. Rev. Dr. N. T. Wright has come out blasting a Covenant drawn up by a coalition of Church of England Evangelicals who have said they will break with bishops who do not proclaim a clear unequivocal gospel and they will train a new generation of ministers and clerics committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. They also said they will also no longer give financially to the Church of England to support structures antithetical to the gospel and support only self sustaining centers. They also believe that the Church of England has now become two churches – one which is focused around the gospel, the other that gives priority to human reason over Scripture, and because of it they can no longer support the present structures in the Church of England.

The signers include such illustrious figures as evangelical patriarch the Rev. Dr. John R. W. Stott, Bishop Wallace Benn, President of the Church of England Evangelical Council, The Rev. Dick Lucas, The Rev. David Phillips, (Director of Church Society and the leadership of Church Society), The Rev. Simon Vibert (St Luke’s Wimbledon Park, Diocese of Southwark and Chair of the Fellowship of Word and Spirit) and The Rev. David Petersen, (Principal of Oak Hill College) to name but a few. They are the crème de la crème of British evangelicalism.

Read the whole thing.

Here’s the Proposed Covenant.

Here’s the list of signatories–below the names are responses to “Questions that may be asked.”

And Wright’s response is here.

May God bring Gospel renewal to Anglicans who love his glory and tremble at his word.

HT: Mike Bird