Crossway ESV Heirloom Legacy Bible Exclusive Edition (Goatskin, Navy Blue)
Today we're looking at the most beautiful Bible my eyes have ever seen: the Crossway ESV Heirloom Legacy Bible, Evangelical Bible exclusive edition, in navy blue goatskin. I have a few pros and really only one con. (You'll notice a different set, different sound and not-as-good lighting. The Lord has led me in a completely different direction, and I'm here for a few weeks.)
From the moment I took it out of the box I've been in love with this Bible. It's been my main Bible for the last couple of months, and I don't think I'll ever use a different style: the single column, the wide margins, everything about it. It has three ribbons. I know some people aren't fans, but I use them for my expository reading and would be lost without them. Crossway and Evangelical Bible collaborated on this edition. Nobody is paying me; I'm reviewing it because I love it so much.
The box and the cover
The box is black with art gilding around the edge, and inside you get Evangelical Bible's card and their signed invoice, which I always love. The Bible comes wrapped in felt, which protects it in shipping and storage.
It looks almost black, but depending on the light it can look really blue. The front cover, which I've worked with, is very supple. Before I broke it in it was really stiff, and the back cover, which I haven't worked as much, is still much stiffer. It's a thick piece of leather; once you break it in, it's really great.
The page
Look at how the margins sit on this page. There's enough room to write, to make notes, and to add little symbols in the inner margin, which I like to do. The box says it's modeled after the Renaissance ideal of a perfect page, with finely tuned proportions based on old books. Sure enough, I saw a very old book in a museum a few weeks ago with the same proportions. The art gilding is beautiful, and the ribbons are a very nice blue (blue is my favorite color, fun fact) and very high quality.
The one con: the paper
The paper is great quality, printed in the Netherlands, and it's so soft, like high-quality cotton. But it's so thin that any humidity or water will ruin the page. If you bend a page (I did this by accident while trying to show you a spot in Romans), it will never lay flat again. Hold a page too long and it starts to ripple. I accidentally spat a little on a page in the Psalms and it ruined it; if you get water on it and try to wipe it off, it smears. Every book will do some of that, but this is to an extreme, and I feel like slightly thicker paper would have avoided a lot of it. Of course, thicker paper means a thicker Bible, so there are ups and downs.
It also means you can't carry it the way I carry my Thinline, which I just throw in my backpack. This one has to be in your hands.
In the back there's a really full and helpful concordance, good maps (I'm not a huge fan of glossy paper, but they're helpful), and blank sheets for notes.
A few more things
A few things I didn't show: it's stitched around the edge (I really wanted something stitched, not glued), it has four raised hubs, and it's very floppy. We always joke that the floppier the Bible, the higher the quality. The inner liner is calfskin, very high quality.
I know it's pricey, but if I may poke you a little: how much did you spend on your last iPhone? That's sort of the standard I live by. It's about priorities. I strongly recommend this Bible. As far as the setup is concerned, I'll never use a different kind of Bible.
Soli Deo Gloria!
