Customer Reviews

NKJV Greatest Stories of the Bible

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I recently reviewed for Thomas Nelson Publishers "The Greatest Stories of the Bible".

It was a magnificent book. The design makes you think of something printed one hundred years ago. Then the pages themselves have the old feel to them. Once you open the book and start reading you will be kept glued to the pages as you read each of the two hundred and fifty of the most cherished stories of the Bible.

Some of the classic stories included are Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, Jonah and the Big fish, Samson and Delilah, Paul meeting Jesus, Jesus teaching the disciples, and Paul and Silas in captivity. These are only a few representative of the stories included in this one volume book.

One of the great features of the book is it is easy to navigate through the story-book type format used. If you would like a story to read to the younger kids at night, you can pull this book out and quickly find a wonderful story. The stories are short, but straight to the point. Use the stories to lead the family into a much deeper devotional time as it peeks everyone's interest.

One of my favorite stories was at Moses calling in the wilderness when he meets up with God at the burning bush. Before Moses could approach the bush the Angel of the Lord told Moses, "Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand in holy ground." I love that. Further in the story we have God telling Moses, "I AM WHO I AM!" All throughout the book we find these fantastic biblical accounts of God's great actions towards His people.

I think this book is a great addition to anyones family library. We have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

This book is designed to look like a vintage book sitting on your shelf. Fortunately, you get the vintage look without the loose and missing pages. This book is filled with 250 of the greatest stories of the Bible. The stories are listed in the order in which they appear in the Bible and each story quotes the verse the story is taken from. This is not a summarization of the Bible story, but the actually verses from the Bible. This is an excellent resource to turn to when looking for a specific Bible story, yet you don't want to take the time turning through the pages of the Bible to find exactly where it is in that specific book. The translation is easy to read and my children enjoy reading about some of their favorite Bible stories. This is a book every house should have!

This hardback, collectible edition is a great family resource to have on hand. It is not a version of the Bible, but rather is a unique compilation of 250 best-known Bible stories. These stories are in fact excerpts of the Bible taken from the New King James Version. Each story gives the chapter of the Bible from which it was taken. The stories are in order from Genesis to Revelation and the book also includes a great table of contents at the beginning for easy reference.

I enjoyed reading through this book and found the easy format very conducive to reading a lot or a little at a time. It would be ideal for personal enjoyment, family devotions, or reading aloud to your children. The index at the back of the book makes it easy to find a story about a certain Bible character (i.e., Joshua or Moses) or a certain event (i.e., battle of Jericho or plagues).

It took me quite a while to read the entire NKJV the Greatest Stories of the Bible. However, I found this book to be a great addition to our family library. It is set up in a format that lets you to read unchanged biblical text in story book format. It's a beautiful book that's cover is designed to look old and would make a wonderful gift to anyone. It followes the traditional order of the Bible but breaks up the chapters into smaller stories. For example, Genesis 2 is titled, Adam and Eve Challenge God. This format is very conducive to study and allowes the reader to see the progression of the Bible in a unique and understandable way. I loved being able to sit down with my family and scan over the chapter titles and pick something for the nightly devotion without having to do a lot of preplanning. The format allowed me to have a introductory conversation with the children about the content before ever reading it over. I would recommend this book to anyone with a desire to read the Bible in their home in a new and refreshing way.

This NKJV Greatest Stories of the Bible was a very long reading for me. I basically was reading through the Bible for this one. So that should explain why it took me so long to get this review up.

I must admit that at first I was a little taken back by this. At first glance, it appeared to be the Bible, but only certain stories of it. I wasn't too happy about skipping through the "non-important" parts. It seemed it was an easy way to just get the main facts and stories in from the Bible and leave out all the rest. After reading up a little more on it, I realized that it is basically the same thing other companies have put out when they make a book of Bible stories except this is still straight from Scripture. It is not paraphrased into stories. It goes verse by verse. So, in the end, I was pleased with this. It covers 250 of the most "popular" stories, or lessons, that are in the Bible.

It is made to look very vintage and even the pages are browned and roughened up some. I really like the look of it and the quality is very good. The pages do not fall out easily like you would think. It also has a bookmark in it to use to keep your place and has a Table of Contents and an Index.

Book Review
In the New King James Version Greatest Stories of the Bible, the bible is layed out in a series of short stories. The reader is introduced to the characters and taken on a journey from the beginning of the Earth through after the rise of Christ. This story bible reads in the most simple, chronological, story order. I enjoyed reading this bible because it made reading these stories easier, more relatable and understandable in the short story fashion the book reads. There isn't a story in this book of the bible that is more than 4 or 6 pages long. I also liked that there weren't footnotes to distract me from what I was reading, like I am challenged by when reading a regular bible. It was continuous flow through the chapters and didn't jump ahead or to other chapters to verify information. The flow and breakout of the chapters and verses made great sense. I could retain the information easier too because I could stop at defined points when needed. Though it did take me a while to read the book, as it is still the bible and it's a LOT of history, the format and wording of the book made it far easier for me to follow.

The look of the book itself is fantastic! I love the vintage look to the book with the rougher cover art and uneven pages. It gives the book an antique feel. The type was very easy to read and skim through quickly considering the book is over 600 pages in length.

I recommend this book to others, especially if you want to learn about the historic, story, facts in the bible. It makes it as easy as I have seen to start at the beginning and get to the end in the bible with understanding. If you're new to bible reading and looking for more life applicable information, I would not recommend this bible.

I really, really like this book. I think it's such a wonderful concept to have a Bible story book that is actually the Bible! When you first open this book, the Table of Contents lists each story so you can pick and choose (if you so desire) what story you would like to read about. When you go to the story, it's written like a story, however, at the top of the page it tells you what book and chapter you are reading from and each of the verses is numbered throughout the story. I love this because if you want to do more in-depth research into this particular part of the Bible, you know exactly where to go in your own Bible.

You can also go to the back of the book and see the index of people and/or situations that you are looking for. I really like this, too, because sometimes you want to read about a specific person.

I have had the book on my nightstand where I've been reading it in the morning and evening. It's a wonderful devotional book because it is the Bible! I love it because I can read the stories on my own or with my family. I especially love it because it's the Bible. You just can't go wrong when you read the Bible.

I highly recommend adding this to your home library. You'll turn to it again and again. I am keeping it on my nightstand so I can!

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-

I received this book free from the Thomas Nelson Book Sneeze blogger book reviewing program. This book includes 250 Bible stories retold for adults or older children. This is not a translation of the Bible and therefore should not be given to a new Christian or new student of the Bible. It is also not appropriate for young children due to the advanced language used and lack of illustrations. The book itself is attractive looking though and would make a nice addition to ones coffee table or library.

I think it is best suited for someone who is familiar with the biblical accounts as reliably translated in the actual NKJV, ESV, or NIV. The best audience for this book would likely be both a Christian and one who appreciates the art of story telling. It would also be a great addition to family story time at holiday and family gatherings. I can totally envision Grandpa reading this to his children and grandchildren and pulling his family into the exciting truths of the Bible. Overall, I would give this book a 3 out of 5 stars.

How does one really write an objective opinion on the `Greatest Stories of the Bible' anyway? There isn't any new material to cover, and if you're even remotely familiar with the Bible, you already know how the stories are going to begin and end. So with that in mind, when I agreed to review NKJV Greatest Stories of the Bible for Thomas Nelson Publishing, I did so with the expectation of reviewing the product as a whole, as opposed to the stories themselves.

The book itself is nice enough. It has an aged look, complete with worn edges on the cover. However, it's just an illusion, as the cover is smooth and crisp (like a brand new book). The gold accents are a nice touch, as is the embossing. The spine of the book has an image of a well-loved, often-read book, but it's just that - an image. Were it not for the bright gold, crisp writing on the spine (the title of the book), the old, worn look might have actually worked.

The page binding has an aged look as well, with `rough' edges to the pages. In reality, the edges are crisp and the pages are just held together in different ways to give off the appearance of an old book. There is also a ribbon bookmark to complete the look.

The `New King James Version' is easier to understand (as opposed to the original KJV) and that may draw more of an audience for this book. To be clear, this is not a Bible. Rather, this is a collection of the `greatest' stories from the Bible. The first story starts with...The Beginning! And the book wraps it up with The Final Victory (Revelation 22). So the stories are given to you in the same order as the Bible - as expected.

All-in-all, the book is beautiful. But it isn't exactly the heirloom bible it's marketed to be either. This is not a book I would spend money on in a store because I have Bibles with the stories already in them, and see this book as a bit redundant. However, I'm not sure I'm the person this publisher is marketing to either (a Christian who already owns several different versions of the Bible). If I had to purchase a gift for someone I didn't know well, I might reach for this book - but only if it were on sale.