Well, I’m not going to write a full review the CEB New Testament. I won it in a contest, and my Greek is functional. I can make my way through just about anything in the Greek New Testament with my Readers Greek New Testament. But, I probably wouldn’t be the best to comment on the actual translation.
At any rate, I did just want to say a few words about the printing. The typeface and spacing look absolutely wonderful. There could be a bit more of a margin for my liking. But, all in all this looks like a Bible that would be very easy on the eyes. I am glad to see that publishers are starting to take this into account more and more. I have noted in the past that Ignatius Press is another publisher whose books are relatively easy on the eyes. And sometimes I binge read their books because I don’t feel myself stopping quite as often on account of my eyes or anything like that (not to mention I also enjoy the content). The pages are just the right size to make you feel like you are making progress through a book. This New Testament reminds me of that.
Of course, this is only the New Testament. And once the Old Testament is added to a translation I assume that sometimes making the text easier on the eyes must often be sacrificed due to space constraints. Otherwise, you end with a Bible that is about a half a foot thick. But, kudos to Abingdon Press for a beautiful text nonetheless.
The complete CEB (Old and New Ts) is coming out in August and it’s reported to be just as nicely typeset! More info on the complete text can be found on the CEB website http://www.commonenglishbible.com. If you’re interested, there’s also a great CEB Twitter feed @commonengbible and a Facebook fan page called Reading The Bible where passages from the CEB are posted daily: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Reading-the-Bible/156994314317608