I received my new ESV Study Bible yesterday. I’m a big fan of the ESV translation and was eager to see this new edition to the pantheon of Study Bibles now available. Admittedly, things have gotten a bit ridiculous when it comes to Study Bibles. I just saw the “Leader’s” Study Bible yesterday where the Bible is filtered through a leadership paradigm. Those attempts at study Bibles hit me as niche marketing and poor hermeneutics as editors make the text fit with their personal agendas.

Back to the ESV Study Bible. I eagerly rushed home yesterday afternoon having been alerted by Connie it had come via UPS. It is a big Bible- it may be  the largest study Bible on the market.  It is filled with resources. What do I like so far?

• It’s the ESV text- I really like the translation philosophy of the ESV that strives to be “essentially literal” and readable.
• Maps, charts, and diagrams- this study Bible is filled with colorful maps and visual aids.  It seems there is one on every other page.
• Excellent articles-  extremely well done.  They are varied in scope and well written.  If I was teaching Bible in a Christian School, I’d be tempted to require this Bible for students’ use just to have them read these articles.
• Extremely thorough in terms of intros and background material- this type of content is critical for proper understanding of the Scriptures.  “Who wrote the book and why?” are key questions that must be answered.
• I like the font used for the Scripture text- that may seem silly, but in this age of choosing fonts via our word processing software, that becomes more and more of a noticeable feature and I like what I see here!  I just haven’t figured out the name of the font yet.

What I’ve read of the notes are quite good.  This Study Bible will not have the distinctly Reformed perspective that I would hold to, but it certainly is committed to solid, evangelical orthodoxy.  It is not anti-Reformed.  I looked at Romans 9, for example, and the notes affirm God’s Sovereign election.  There are a lot of “our guys” who went to work on this effort with J.I. Packer being the theological editor.  Covenant Theological Seminary, the denominational seminary of the PCA, had a few professors who worked on it.

Bottom line:  I’ll still keep my Reformation Study Bible handy, but I look forward to using the ESV Study Bible as well.  It will make for a very helpful tool for personal Bible study as well as for teaching others.  I give it two thumbs up.