To understand the history of Western thought, it is necessary to have read the Christian Bible. (This obviously does not deny the importance of other books.) To be ignorant of it is to be be ignorant of the underlying ideology, the fundamental text, of much of European history. Only a simpleton would presume to critique or claim to understand Western thought with no knowledge of the one book that has been for centuries the common background, misleading or not, accepted or not, to all assertions about the underlying truths of reality.
I am agnostic (raised as a child in the Presbyterian Church). I do not claim to know one way or the other whether there is a supra-human being who created the cosmos or our small part of it. Conviction is not in itself knowledge. My statement concerning the historical importance of the Bible is not to persuade anyone to believe in such a being as the god of the Christians or to tout the Bible as the "Word of God". I'm not persuaded myself. What I'm saying is that if you want to understand Western civilization you need to be familiar with the Bible.
Thirty-four years ago I read it through (with the exception of Psalms) in the original NAS translation. Not having a copy any longer, and wanting to reread it, I looked for a hardcover edition of the updated (in 1995) NASB that had the least amount of exegesis. I didn't want the distractions a heavily annotated study Bible would present. My purpose in buying the book was to read it as a collection of historical texts incorporated into a master text of great historical and current cultural influence. Any internal study of it, of the interrelationships among the various texts, would call for a shelf of commentaries.
For those who are unaware: the updated NASB, unlike the orignal NAS translation, has no Elizabethan pronouns: 'Thee', 'Thou' and 'Thy' are out and 'You' and 'Your' are finally in. From the Hebrew, 'Elohim' is translated as 'God', 'Adonai' is translated as 'Lord', 'YHWH' is translated as 'LORD' except when 'YHWH' occurs near 'Adonai', in which case the two are translated together as 'GOD'. The NASB is considered the English translation most concerned with accuracy and fidelity to the original texts, arriving at an unambiguous "exact" translation, rather than, at the other extreme, paraphrasing the meaning through imprecise, conversational language.
This Zondervan edition uses a single column of text, rather than two. It is formated by verse, not paragraph. A boldface verse number indicates a paragraph beginning, but there is no indentation. No red lettering occurs anywhere in the book. Although this is not a study Bible (nor does it contain cross references), chapters do have subheadings to give some indication of content. For example, Judges 16 has three subheadings: Samson's Weakness, Delilah Extracts His Secret, and Samson Is Avenged. The lack of cross references adds to the clean look of the page. Variant readings or NASB clarifications are placed at the page bottom.
As mentioned, there is no commentary or exegesis. There are also no extra-biblical introductions to the various books. The Apocrypha, of course, are absent, this translation being a Protestant enterprise (the copyright is held by The Lockman Foundation). Fourteen colored maps follow the concordance, an index to the maps, and seven unlined sheets labeled for note-taking.
The wide outside margins of this edition give the page a more open, expansive feel. Zondervan could have moved the text a fraction more in from the center, though. It's not like there wasn't any room. The font type is easy to read, and the text from the other side of the page, although visible if you look for it, is not distractingly visible. The binding of this hardcover is not sewn but glued.
Overall, this book is tastefully done, not gaudy or cluttered, neither inside nor out. The gloss-coated hard covers are brown, with color variations to simulate the coloring of brown leather. The spine has, in a darker brown font, the words 'Holy Bible', capitalized, the first word above the second, then at the lower spine 'NASB' with an icon beside it, and then 'Zondervan', also capitalized, its three syllables stacked below an icon. The front cover has, in the same quiet, darker brown, 'Holy Bible', again capitalized, written horizontally within a thin-lined rectangle, and at the top end of the cover in smaller capitalized text 'New American Standard Bible'. The only thing on the back is, in very small text, the isbn number at the lower right. The wide-margin format didn't result in a book wider than average: the dimensions are 6-3/8" by 9-1/2", which is a common size for hardcover books.
If you're looking for a Bible with a clean layout, a translation that supports close reading, and with no extras besides a few maps, this is it.
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