The 1599 Geneva Bible is a remarkable Bible for many reasons: it was the first English Bible translated entirely from the Hebrew and the Greek, it was the first Bible with chapter and verse divisions, it was the first with a legible font, and the first with maps, notes, and chronologies and indices. Most importantly, it was intended not for displaying in churches, but for family reading.
With this in mind, the Modernized Geneva Bible (MGB) updates archaic syntax, spelling, and vocabulary of the first iconic Geneva version, allowing you to read without distraction the …
The 1599 Geneva Bible is a remarkable Bible for many reasons: it was the first English Bible translated entirely from the Hebrew and the Greek, it was the first Bible with chapter and verse divisions, it was the first with a legible font, and the first with maps, notes, and chronologies and indices. Most importantly, it was intended not for displaying in churches, but for family reading.
With this in mind, the Modernized Geneva Bible (MGB) updates archaic syntax, spelling, and vocabulary of the first iconic Geneva version, allowing you to read without distraction the most important English Bible of the Reformation: The Geneva went into battle with the Puritans in the English Civil War, the Geneva made enemies of popes and kings across Europe, and the Geneva even went to America with the Pilgrims.
But the MGB New Testament is not a facsimile edition intended for scholars of the Reformation. The thirteen thin volumes of the MGB New Testament are meant for one thing only: to be pulled off the shelf and read again and again; to be dog-eared and written in; to be consumed. We Christians learn to desire the pure milk of the Word as newborn infants (1 Pet. 2:2), for without feeding our souls we cannot grow spiritually.
Every design decision for this MGB New Testament was made to encourage daily Bible reading:
Readers’ format makes the Bible easy to read compared to a typical two-columned Bible with economy-size font;
Unlike most other readers’ editions, the MGB retains chapter and verse markings to allow you to keep track of Bible reading plans or sermon references;
The thirteen thin volumes are easy to finish in a sitting or two (an average reader can complete the shortest volume in 30 minutes, the longest in just over 2 hours);
Creamy text stock and flexible paperback bindings are easy to hold;
Lined note pages and reading logs for each volume allow you to make the MGB New Testament your own;
Beautiful, textured, and foil-stamped slipcase makes the MGB NT elegant and easy to store.
The Geneva’s original translators—Englishmen in exile from their homeland in Geneva—followed the work of William Tyndale, who famously vowed that he would help even the lowly farm boys to know more Scripture than the scholars of his time. Amen and amen!
The 27 books of the New Testament are separated into thirteen slim volumes for the MGB: