Bible Review: New King James Version Study Bible - Second Edition - Full Color

 I grew up with the King James Version (KJV) and therefore memorized most of my scriptures in KJV.  My first KJV Bible was used for many, many years to where I could visibly tell you where on the page most verses were located.

Over the years I changed over to the New King James Version.  I like its similarity to the KJV, yet it is clearer to read and understand, as KJV was written in 1611 in Elizabethan English so many of the words and their meanings in KJV are different now in 21st century. 

The KJV was translated to English from the Textus Receptus Greek for the New Testament and Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament. If that matters to you, then you should like the NKJV as it too was translated from the same above mentioned manuscripts. If that last sentence doesn't matter to you, don't worry about it.  Let's move on :-)

Now, about this specific version. 

First, a quick summary of some of the features of the updated version on the New King James Study Bible are:

NEW attractive full-color page design

NEW stunning Bible-land photos and graphics

NEW in-text maps and charts 

Full cross-references with textual notes

Book introductions, outlines, and timelines

Bible Times and Culture Notes

Word studies and indexes

Reader-friendly notes and articles ideal for extended study

Deluxe NKJV Concordance including proper names

Maps

Center-Column

The above mentioned features are "some" of the main features, but this Bible is full of other great features and information that would make this review much longer. Let's go over some of these features. As stated above, this full color edition is very colorful and has many stunning photos and graphics.  Also, this Bible is full of helpful maps and charts. As is standard in most Bibles, it has a center column of cross-references and some textual notes, but one thing unique about this is the center-column is shaded a light gray (I personally like that).  The book introductions, outlines, and timelines are excellent. As you read through you will see olive call blocks of information on "Bible Times & Culture Notes" you will find this quite helpful and informative. One of my favorite features is the gray block at the bottom of some pages with "Word Studies" that has great information and also references "Strongs" corresponding number for further study. And one final notes on the features - it has a larger and better concordance than I have seen in most Bible (starting at page 2145-2339). 

 Introduction, Outline and Timeline

Large Concordance

Closing thoughts: As colorful as this Bible is, it does NOT have the words of Christ in red.  While this doesn't matter to me, I thought it was worth mentioning.  

This bible has a total of 2400 pages (that's big), but with all the valuable information it needs to be that many pages. As to be expected, it is also quite a heavy Bible weighing in at 3.8 pounds (but I have heavier, so it's no big deal to me).

My final analysis is this Bible deserves more than four stars so I'm going to give it five stars.  If you're looking for a NKJV Bible you should consider this Bible!

TO order the ISBN: 0529114380 (Hardcover, also available in bonded leather and imitation leather).  NOTE: When you order make sure it is the new 2014 edition. Check Amazon.com or ChristianBook.com (as well as many other book retailers to order)

Thank you to Thomas Nelson and BookLook bloggers for providing me with a copy of this book to read and review; all opinions are my own. I was not required to give a positive review.