Two parcels came in the mail today - Oh Hallelujah! Was hoping they would arrive before Christmas, but instead they arrived today. Praise the LORD for their safe arrival.
Of the two, the parcel from Glasgow was especially special. I have been waiting for this for... hmmm... more than a year now?
It's my new RL Allan ESV Bible in gorgeous Chocolate Brown Highland Goatskin... :D
With bigger fonts...better text block cuz of better papers (supposedly)... and lined papers behind!
It's the brand new RL Allan ESV Reader's Version!
ESVR is the fruit of a joint effort by Evangelicalbible.com & RL Allan in trying to produce the BESTest ESV Bible - a Bible with all the features Bible lovers deem MOST important.
So u could only imagine the buzz in blogsphere over the past weeks ever since the Bible was (FINALLY) ready to ship. The SINGULAR question on everyone's mind has been - is the ESVR the ONE? Is it truly BETTER than ESV1?
Before I join in to give my 2 cents on the BIGGEST UPROAR so far concerning the issue of ghosting, here are a few pix comparing the ESVR to other Bibles.
The ESVR is considered "largish" as u can see from the pix. But NOT so large as to make it an inconvenience to carry to the Church, or ur Bible Study class.
* A study of the different "yapp" - from semi-yapp (top) to full-yap (middle) to ESVR's semi/full yapp.
One feature I truly like - the semi/full yapp.
And also the red-under-gold treatment for ESVR is waaaaaaay better than the pinkish ESV1 series. It was a relief to me :)
Now, the MOTHER of all buzz...BLEED-THROUGH or GHOSTING...
Comparing with ESV1:
* ESVR - Top, ESV1 - Left & Right.
With all the recent uproar over ghosting issue, when I received my ESVR, the very first thing I did was to check the level of ghosting...and I must say the ESVR isn't that much better than the old ESV1... :(
Update @ Dec 30th: ESVR paper definitely feels better quality than ESV1. Whiter too.
Comparing other Bibles with BOLD FONTS:
* ESVR - Left, Cambridge KJV Presentation - Right, Cambridge KJV Concord - Bottom.
Some at blogsphere have speculated that the ghosting of ESVR could be due to the extra BOLD typeface it uses... Well, when I compare it to my other two bibles with BOLD typeface, this "excuse" doesn't stand... :(
Comparing to Other Known Bibles with "Opaque" Papers:
* ESVR - Left, InTouch NASB - Top, Cambridge NKJV WM - Right, Cambridge KJV Cameo - Bottom.
Hmmm...clearly the others have better papers :(
So, conclusion - yes, ghosting IS an issue, and there are better papers out there.
But does that mean I am disappointed & gonna send back my ESVR? NO WAAAY!
Somehow I am not really THAT affected by the ghosting issue. The ghosting is only bad at those few places, like Psalms, Job...etc. But the majority of the Bible is totally "readable". Besides, I have "survived" using ESV1 for my daily bible reading for the past year...and I totally enjoyed every single minute of it. (THANK YOU, RL ALLAN!)
So I am going to ENJOY using my new ESVR next year as my MAIN Bible for my daily Scripture reading... :)
Happy New Year to u all!
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