When it comes to shopping for Bibles, there are a lot of options to choose from these days! To be honest, there are so many that it can be a little bit overwhelming. As a collector of Bibles, I am often asked: which Bible is the best one?
Honestly, that's not an easy question to answer! With various translations, learning styles, and even exterior styles, there really is a Bible to suit everyone and their individual needs in a Bible. The truth of the matter is, the BEST Bible is the one that YOU will actually read.
Personally, I love having a variety of Bibles at my disposal as I feel like they can all offer different benefits. So, I was thrilled to have the chance to check out and share the new CSB Lifeway Women’s Bible.
About the Bible:
Designed to assist women of any age as they study God’s Word, the CSB Lifeway Women’s Bible will inspire you to laugh, grow, and worship alongside your community. It includes an in-depth collection of inspirational articles, and devotional commentary from prominent voices in the Lifeway Women community. As you explore God’s Word, your life will be changed, inevitably affecting those around you, impacting lives one woman at a time.
Features include:
- Easy to read text
- Full color design elements
- Encouraging articles by respected Lifeway writers
- Biographies of women in the Bible with real life appilcations
- Inspirational quotes
- Bible genre introductions
About CSB:
The CSB was created using optimal equivalence, a translation philosophy that pursues both linguistic precision to the original languages and readability in contemporary English. We believe that you don’t have to choose between faithfulness to the original text and clarity. The CSB text has been proven to optimize both, making it ideal for preaching and study, and for sharing with others.
If I'm being honest, one of the first things that drew me to this Bible was the cover style. Yellow happens to be my favorite color, and this stunning marigold cover certainly caught my eye right away. I absolutely adore it, though it is just one of four of the simple cover options available.
Of course, style may be great, but content is most important. I feel like CSB is not as well known a translation as many others, but it's one that I have personally enjoyed using for the last few years. I find it to be very readable, helping to make sense of what I am reading. I'm not an expert on translations or the original words used by any means, but I appreciate that this translation strives to allow readability without losing the intent of the original.
The first thing I noticed as I flipped through the Bible was that it was very visually appealing and readable as well. While I would not call it large print, it does feature a 9.5 point font that is larger than what we often see in Bibles. I have eye issues that can sometimes struggle with those smaller prints so this was certainly appealing to me. Likewise, each page has just one column of text (as is typical of most books, versus the two columns we sometimes see in Bibles), which I personally find easier to read as well. While this is not a journaling Bible, there is plenty of unlined space in the margins to allow you to take notes as well.
I enjoyed the included articles, both those that are full length and the brief closer looks at various versus throughout. The book introductions are always beneficial to me, setting the scene for what I am about to read and I felt like these were done well. They let you know the author, the big picture, a summary, key verses and a timeline. The introduction of genres (the major prophets, the Gospels, etc) is not something that I recall seeing in many Bibles in the past, and I really thought this added a nice element as well. There are some great full color maps included as well, and while I personally don't always use the maps included in Bibles, I know that these are quite helpful to many others. I also appreciated that there was about a 90 days and a 3 year reading plan at the end as well.
Overall, I felt like this Bible really offers a lot of great content that can help readers and learners of all kinds to dig deeper into their knowledge of the Bible. This is a Bible that is not only eye catching and beautiful, but very practical as well.
You can purchase your copy of the CSB Lifeway Women's Study Bible here: https://bit.ly/3LHM3lY
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