Review of the NASB Classic Companion

I thought I'd take a page from a couple of other bloggers (Rick Mansfield at This Lamp and Mark Bertrand at Bible Design and Binding) who inspired me to start my own blog and provide a review of a bible, complete with pictures.

Like them, I prefer single column, paragraph formatted texts with no red letters. As many have commented, this is how books that are meant to be read are formatted.

While most bible translations and publishers are addicted to the double column format, the NASB alone among the more contemporary translations appears to be fixated on the verse-by-verse format which drives me batty. A few weeks ago, I finally gave away my NASB single column wide margin (along with most of my English language bibles) because it was just sitting on my shelf unused due to my abhorence of this format.

Well, I finally found an NASB in a single column with the paragraph formatting I've wanted for about 20 years. It's the NASB Classic Companion (1995 update) published by World Bible Publishers (ISBN: 0529110628). I was very excited to finally get my hands on it and while it doesn't live up to my wildest hopes, it is still quite a nice cheap edition.

The picture makes it look browner than it is. It's actually a deep burgundy.

To start with, the form factor is very handy. It's only slightly larger than the ESV Personal Size Reference Edition that I recently bought. It's the same thickness, but about 1 inch taller and 3/4 of an inch wider. It's dimensions are 8.5" x 6" x 1".

The NASB Classic Companion is on the left and the ESV Personal Size Reference is on the right. The lighting in this shot gives a truer indication of the bible's real color than the first photo.

The cover is a cheap burgundy bonded leather that nevertheless is flexible enough that the bible will lie flat provided the bible is opened somewhere in the middle third of the book and with a little coaxing, you can up that to about the middle half of the book (from about 1 Samuel to the end of Mark) though it won't lie completely flat, since one end will hang suspended in the air an inch or so off whatever surface you're using.

When you hold it in your hands, the bible will stay open without anything holding it. However, to see the text easily right into the gutter, use of your free hand will be required to hold the bible fully open at the extreme ends of the bible (the books of Genesis & Exodus on one side and the General Epistles & Revelation on the other).

The poetic sections are laid out nicely. My camera stinks so the text is a bit muddy, but this will give you a general idea. Notice that it does manage to lay flat in the middle of the bible.

I'm hoping that with some use, the binding will loosen and this will improve. As is, functionally speaking, this is better than most bonded leather bindings I've encountered (especially glued ones as this one appears to be). It's not nearly as good as the TNIV Reference bible that I recently bought, which is one of the best functional bonded leather bindings I've ever seen, but it's definitely not as bad as I feared. I've found that bonded leather bindings are sometimes so stiff that both hands are required to pry the book open and keep it that way. That is thankfully not the case with this one.

I can't tell if the binding is sewn or not, but I strongly suspect that it's glued given the price I paid for it (less than $25 Canadian from Amazon.ca) and the tightness of the text block at the spine.

Notice how the TNIV Reference (sewn) binding lays almost completely flat.

In contrast, the NASB Classic Companion looks as if the text flows up first and then outward from the binding. A sure sign that it's a glued binding I'd venture to say.

My edition doesn't have tabs, but you can get one that does. I believe that the cover is available in black as well, but on Amazon.ca, they were sold out.

As mentioned above, the text is single column, paragraph format, but unfortunately uses red letters for the words of Christ. Another problem is that the text goes too far into the gutter (the part where the pages join into the spine). This means that the lines of text are extremely long, over 17 words per line on average, rather than the optimum 12 words per line. Happily, due to the generous font size, following the text across the page is not much of a problem. There is also some bleed-through, but not to the point where I find it too distracting. There are no cross references or maps, but it does contain a short 3 column concordance as well as a topical index and a bible reading plan in the back.

The font size is quite generous for such a handy edition. It's quite a bit larger than the ESV Personal Size Reference which is 7.4 pt type. In comparing the two, I'd say that the NASB Classic Companion is in the 9 pt range. In fact, the print size compares favorably with the TNIV Reference which uses an odd choice in font styles, and which is a much larger bible (the NASB font actually looks a tad larger and darker).

The text on the left is the NASB Classic Companion while the text on the right is the ESV Personal Size Reference. Again, the picture isn't very clear but you can see a distinct difference in type size.

The red letter is annoying to look at for long periods and the bleed through is a tad more distracting behind the red letter text in those instances when the text on the other side is mostly black letter. Thankfully, my focus of study is the Old Testament and since this translation is mostly used for study purposes, I have little occasion to turn to the New Testament in this particular bible, at least not for long periods of time.

You can see that this bible has a problem with text slipping into the gutter. However, it's no worse than what you get with the ESV Deluxe Compact or the cross references in the ESV Personal Size Reference.

All in all, I'm quite pleased with this bible for the price I paid. It won't last forever, but that doesn't matter to me since I usually clean out my old English-only bibles every 5-7 years or so. I tend not to get too attached to my bibles, because I've never come across the perfect one. If I ever did, this practice would change. As it is, eventually a newer and/or better edition will come along to replace it and when that time comes this one will simply have to go.