REVIEW: NIV Essentials Study Bible

TITLE: NIV Essentials Study Bible
AUTHOR: various
SERIES: none
PUBLISHER: Zondervan
PUBLISHED DATE: November 26, 2013
ISBN: 978-0310442417
BUY IT LINK: Amazon

RATING: 5 stars

SYNOPSIS: The NIV Essentials Study Bible helps you quickly and easily understand, interpret, and apply God’s Word to your life. The variety of features in this Bible presents a multifaceted, exciting format for studying Scripture. There are many different ways to explore God’s Word: question-and-answer studies; detailed in-text study notes; timelines, photos and charts; helpful devotional insights; and profiles of Bible characters. Now you don’t have to choose, because the NIV Essentials Study Bible provides you the chance to explore the Bible using all these study methods and more. With each of these lenses included in one Bible, you will discover how to best understand the essentials of Scripture.This edition includes the entire NIV Bible text with the world’s best notes for learning. It incorporates the finest content, images, and study tools from the most popular Bibles that are loved and used by Bible readers just like you. It features:

• Flyover Lens: Start each book of the Bible with the right perspective from easy-to-read introductions from the popular Essential Bible Companion.
• Unpack Lens: Easily understand and interpret Bible passages with bottom-of-the page study notes and in-text charts from the best-in-class NIV Study Bible.
• Dig Deep, Look Close Lens: Understand the fascinating historical significance of the Bible with articles and photos from the bestselling NIV Archaeological Study Bible.
• Q&A Lens: Get concise, easy-to-grasp answers to your most perplexing questions about the Bible with questions and answers from the beloved NIV Quest Study Bible.
• People Lens: View Scripture from the perspective of the 100 most important people in the Bible with notes for the student of any age excerpted from the timeless NIV Student Bible.
• Guided Tour Lens: Get a bird’s eyes view of Scripture with a Guided Tour, also excerpted from the category-leading NIV Student Bible.
• Insight Lens: Find meaning in the Bible by reading these magazine-style call-outs from the NIV Student Bible.
• R&R Lens: Reflect & Respond with this quick inspirational focus time, which unveils the sweeping narrative of the Bible as seen in the award-winning The Great Rescue, NIV.

REVIEW: I'd like to thank BookSneeze and the publisher for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I can't say enough good things about this Bible. I truly loved how the publisher combined parts of several different study bibles into one. I have an NIV Study Bible, so the notes at the bottom of the page were nothing new to me. However, the geek in me loved the notes from the Archaeological Study Bible.
The maps at the beginning of each book helped to clarify the geographical region visually, and the notes on some of the important people of the Bible helped to teach about them more in depth.
The reading plans gave me inspiration to take up the reading of the Bible that I completely fell through with earlier this year. I'll make this a New Year's resolution, again.
The language in this Bible was very understandable, the NIV version is definitely one of my favorites for ease of reading, instead of stumbling over thee's and thou's. If I'm going to read the Bible, then I want to be able to understand what I'm reading, otherwise it does me no good. Reading the entire Bible is a huge undertaking, one that not many of the population do. The history presented in the Old Testament is so old, the culture is so vastly different from ours, the archaeological notes in this study bible help to clarify the why's behind the people's actions, or little details that we may not understand because its such a vastly different culture than our own.