The ESV Global Study Bible is a one-volume study resource for globally minded Christians everywhere. It has been designed from beginning to end to be highly accessible and value priced for distribution on a global scale.
The Global Study Bible features a fresh design, with a wide range of new features. Each book begins with an introduction, followed by a unique, insightful description of the global message of the book. Likewise, a set of new articles by global Christian leaders apply the Bible to global issues, such as the role of government, the nature of the church, world religions, social ethics, and missions and evangelism.
Each print copy comes with free access to the online Global Study Bible, available anywhere worldwide with an Internet connection.
The Global Study Bible’s notes and maps were adapted from the best-selling ESV Study Bible and contain a wealth of information about the biblical text, history, and geography. With overviews of each Bible book, special facts, and character profiles, the Global Study Bible is an outstanding resource for Christians everywhere who seek to know and understand the truth of the Bible and its global meaning.
Buy One, Give One
For every copy purchased, Crossway will distribute a digital copy free to a Christian somewhere in the world. With this unique global strategy, everyone who buys a copy of the Global Study Bible will have a small part in “equipping the global church through God’s Word.”
Books can be attributed to "Anonymous" for several reasons:
* They are officially published under that name * They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author * They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author
Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.
Hey, it's The Bible, so I wouldn't exactly say it has "READ" status, it's read AND still reading.
There are actually three aspects to rate for review...
ESV: A great translation of the Bible if your focus is towards accuracy. For a more casual readability, I'd recommend the NLT Study Bible (I'll get to that one soon).
This Bible is free to snag from the publisher itself. But speaking of snags, you will NOT be able to just email it to your Kindle, because it's well over 100MB, which is over Amazon's 50MB limit and probably WELL over what your email provider will handle (Google/GMail is 20MB). So you'll need to plug your Kindle into your computer to transfer the file.
The other issue is that frequently, with really LARGE books, I find my relatively modern Kindle Paperwhite, with 8GB of RAM that is NOWHERE NEAR to being full, just crashing and rebooting itself. Note that AFTER the reboot, large books read fine without crashing a second time. Like something in there had to reset itself. I've found that phenomenon to happen frequently with both Study Bibles, but NOT the Standard ESV, so if you find the mention of this phenomenon disturbing and would rather not deal with it, and don't really WANT all the book intros and notes that a Study Bible will give you, then just get the much smaller Standard ESV, it's free as well.
This Bible is an excellent resource for understanding God’s Word in light of His will for the world, with many helpful footnotes. I recommend most strongly.
The English Standard Version (ESV) is my preferred translation for fidelity (informed by scholarship) and for preserving the stylistic grace to which my King James-calibrated ear has been attuned. (Five Stars for the ESV translation!) The online version, offered as free side-bar resource on the ESV's online bible site (ESV.org), is infinitely more navigable than my Kindle version and the study content runs parallel to the bible text. Fantastic resource for "big-picture" perspective-taking, cross-study of key concepts and themes, and also for granular analysis of words and phrases.
The study resources reflect certain assumptions about the Bible's inerrancy that I do not wholly share. But I find that the conservative commentary is an important counterbalance to the more secular New Oxford Annotated Bible's commentary, which reflects the sensibilities of the academy.
The Bible is my all time favourite book - so a review of any translation of the Bible will always get a 5-star rating from me :) But this translation is another one that I particularly like (second favourite after the NLT).
After reading the non-study edition, and listening to the audio of this translation on YouVersion, I decided to get my own copy. And the reason I chose this particular ESV edition was...the maps!! I just love how well done the maps, charts, and other graphics are. There are other Bibles out there with visuals included, but this is so far the best one I've found.
The language is also very user friendly. It's not exactly a 'simple' text (some parts are quite wordy), but it's not as difficult to read as the KJV.
I really enjoyed this edition. It's chock-full of maps and all kinds of study tools. Make sure to look in the back (after Revelation) for more study tools. There's even a reading plan, to help you read the whole Bible in a year, which I just found today (If I'd just looked in the back...). Each book of the Bible starts with an overview of when it was written, where, & by whom. It also includes an essay how each book relates to the global story of redemption. The ESV is a modern translation, easy to understand, while not diluting the theology or the beauty of the poetry & prose.
This is a great resource, whether you are a pastor, theology student, mature Christian, or new believer just trying to learn the Bible a little better. It may seem daunting, but the many essays, maps, condordance, etc. will actually make it much easier to understand. This is the perfect tool for anyone wanting to study God's Word. It's great that as an ebook, you don't have to lug around a giant bible, & it was free on Amazon!
My only criticism is that it's not a red-letter edition, & it doesn't capitalize the so-called "holy pronouns", pronouns referring to the Trinity.
I used "The One Year Chronological Bible" guide put out by Tyndale House Publishers to read through the bible this year. What a positive difference it made. When I've read the bible before from start to finish, there were portions didn't seem to make sense, and that seemed to sound like they had happened previous to what I had just read - even in the same book, and especially in the Old Testament. Using this chronological format, it guided me through in a much clearer way. The bible has so much to offer everyone, and having at least a basic understanding of the Old Testament, helps the reader to understand the New Testament so much better, and brings it to life.
Over the years, I have had several electronic and/or physical Bibles: King James, a miniature New International that I carried in my purse, New King James, Reese Chronological, an illustrated Action Bible, even a Parallel Bible containing four different versions. I have found the ESV Global Study Bible to be the most useful overall, with its special explanatory articles, maps, illustrations, and extensive footnotes / cross-references.
Followed the "Every Day in the Word" plan from esv.org, the same website from which this study Bible was available for free (the notes were, as far as I could tell, doctrinally sound). The plan was also a solid way to get through the Bible in a year, with one passage from the OT, NT, Psalms, and Proverbs every day, going through John, Psalms, and Proverbs twice.
This study Bible has allowed me to understand things I never understood in the past. From geography to ways of life of people during the time when the Bible was written.
Getting the perspective from Christians in other countries who are not in the midst of the idolatrous, materialistic West, was helpful and beneficial. Good notes and introductions to the books.
I have not read the entire ESV Global Study Bible (will probably take my life-time to do!) but I have started using it and read a variety of the articles/notes. I really, really like what I have read and expect that I will continue to find additional reading to be very informative. I am looking forward to continuing to use this study bible as I read/study God's Word. I have told a lot of friends about this free digital study Bible and many of them have also downloaded it.
Merged review:
I have not read the entire ESV Global Study Bible (will probably take my life-time to do!) but I have started using it and read a variety of the articles/notes. I really, really like what I have read and expect that I will continue to find additional reading to be very informative. I am looking forward to continuing to use this study bible as I read/study God's Word. I have told a lot of friends about this free digital study Bible and many of them have also downloaded it.
While the content obviously deserves 5 stars for both the text and the notes, the Kindle version which I have is very difficult to navigate. For that reason this book gets 4 stars.