You See Dry Bones

A copy of NKJV Greatest Stories of the Bible was provided to me free of cost for review by Thomas Nelson as a part of their Book Review Bloggers program.

This book is somewhat a Bible, somewhat a novel.  Thomas Nelson basically took all the stories out of the Bible and put them in order and made it read like a story book.  They did a great job with the aesthetics of book. The hard cover has an ancient feel to it and the pages and typeface really add to the “epic tome” sort of feel. I could imagine Bilbo Baggins reading this book by the fire to his little hobbit kids.

What I liked

I liked the way they took the time and care to arrange the stories into a readable format. If you wanted to use this book as a great bed time devotional for kids, I think it would work. You could quickly locate the story you wanted to read. In turn, I used it once or twice during my morning readings. I was able to quickly search a story, read it, and be on my way. I think for families who read together, this is a great resource.

What I did not like.

Being a bit of a geek, I missed the footnotes, cross-references, and, in some cases, the rest of the story. For example, the Gospels were sown together to make for one continuous story. However, I sometimes wanted to read a little more but it was not there. It was on to the next story.  Sometimes the order of things (especially in the New Testament) would confuse me. Instead of being able to simply go to the text I was looking for, I had to go to the table of contents to find it. I know it is supposed to be easy to navigate, and in some cases it is, but for me, it was a challenge.

My final thoughts:

I recommend it to families who would read it together. To the serious scholar or even the budding Bible student? I would pass. This Bible is not really made for anything more than a quick reading. For the most part, it is hard to study out of.  I would not recommend it to newer Christians as the format could be confusing. Since I am not the intended audience, I am going to give it four stars. I think for those looking for such a thing (a story book Bible), this one fits the bill.

-Don-