In April of 2010, Zondervan released A Reader’s Hebrew
and Greek Bible. Finally, this work combined their reader’s editions of Old
and New Testaments into one volume. For those not familiar with the concept of
a “reader’s” Bible, I’ll take a moment to explain. For those that do know, on
to the next paragraph. (For those that don’t care, well you probably won’t read
this for much longer anyway, though you are most welcome.) A reader’s edition
of an original language Bible is a little like a bike with training wheels.
Open up the front cover and you’ll find the Greek New Testament. As a student
new to the Greek language (or even not so new), you will come upon words that
are not used very frequently in the NT. For these words (specifically those
used 30 times or less), the notes at the bottom of each page will show you the
word with an English gloss. Handy, right? I know. If you begin at the “back
cover” (or the other front cover, since Hebrew is read right to left), you’ll
find the Hebrew Old Testament with similar notes for words appearing 100 times
or less in the OT. Like I said, a bike with training wheels – you’ve still got
to put in work to read, but it provides that little bit of extra stability
right there on the page, rather than sending you off to check a lexicon several
times per paragraph.
The OT is based off the Westminster Leningrad Codex, the
accepted official text of the Hebrew Bible. The font is clear and readable. And
notes are clear and straightforward with numbers in the text coinciding with
the Hebrew word and English gloss in the notes below. For a verb, they also
supply the stem (Qal, Nifal, etc.) with the gloss to aid in your reading. Proper
names are grayed out just a bit in order to save you from spending a great deal
of time trying to parse Amalek. The NT text is “the eclectic text that
underpins the Today’s New International Version” (page 9 of the Introduction).
This gave me pause when I originally looked at this Bible. I found, however,
that any place their “eclectic text” differs from that of the United Bible
Society, they’ve placed a note marking the discrepancy and stating the UBS reading.
The notes for the NT are not quite as clear as those in the OT. The italic font
that they use is a little difficult to read at a glance, but it stands as a
great improvement over Zondervan’s first edition for a NT reader (which I
declared I would not even consider buying until they fixed the text). The
content of the notes are fairly simple – the Greek word, English gloss or two
with a note on the passive gloss (if directly applicable).
Dividing the two testaments is a brief lexicon for the Greek
words used over 30 times and Hebrew over 100 (based on the BDB). Let’s face it,
just because I learned the word in class, doesn’t mean it’s always going to
spring to mind while I’m reading. 8 full color maps grace the center of the
division between the testaments.
This volume makes a great addition to a student’s library.
It serves now as the Bible that I take to church with me. That offers the
chance to be able to practice the language skills into which we’ve invested so
much time and money in a great setting. If the pastor ever called on me to read
before the church, you’d better believe I’d be borrowing my wife’s Bible. But
for reading along during the sermon, this is a great exercise. The notes are ok. I prefer the way the UBS
has parsing and, in my opinion, a better format for their notes (columns rather
than inline notes), but they only offer the NT. For a whole Bible reader, this offering from Zondervan is
my go-to.
