Matthew's Bible: 1537 Edition

For USD$1.80, a bible can be donated to underground Churches in China. Churches estimate each bible will save about 3 people. This makes a review to address the choice between a Leather bound or Hard Cover edition seem ostentatious. For some bibles, the choice is clear. For this particular production, some first hand anecdotal experience may be helpful.Both are well made in China, where Christianity is forbidden. The paper is the same thickness. I have asked a statistically significant number of people to look at the pages. Most opine that the pages in the leather edition look and feel better. The difference to me, if any, is very marginal, or psychological. Both the leather and Hard cover editions have variations in print ink, so the print on one page may look darker than another page. This variation afflicts both versions, so there is no de luxe upgrade of print ink quality for the Leather version.The Hard (Cloth) Cover edition has plain Orange cloth cover boards. The Dust Jacket carries the Art Work as you see on the Amazon display. The Dust Jacket should be wrapped in Mylar plastic. The edges of the pages are white and not gold gilded. Initial awe at the nice print gives way to frustration in trying to read it. If you are just curious, then the Cloth cover edition will do nicely. The dust jacket also makes the cloth cover edition distinctive on a book-shelf. If your purpose is to decorate a book shelf, this version is it. The hinges of this cloth edition feel loose. It will be the first part to give way, I predict. However, this bible is very unlikely to be extensively read or used. The Cloth cover edition comes in a plastic shrink wrap over the Dust jacket.The Leather version has rounded page corners, with very generously laid gold gilded edges. The black cover is competently gold stamped on the spine, but the stamping is not impressive and will serve those who wish to remain meek and not loud. It is eminently portable and is really classy. It has a distressed antique look. However, nobody can bring this version around, like use it in church, without his mental status being suspect. It arrives plastic shrink wrapped in a box with art-work on every side of the box, including the underside. Keep this box, as the box is really lovely. If you want to display this bible on a shelf, keep it in the box, as it looks better this way. Plain black Leather bibles are quite easily available (unless in China), so from a distance, this particular Leather bound version looks very similar to all other black leather bibles.The leather on this bible is really unusual. It is thin but tough, strong and stiff and yet takes bending well. It has a synthetic feel to it, although it is genuine leather. This vexed me for a while. So I asked an experienced leather furniture upholsterer for his opinion. He too was puzzled. It does not not look like the usual cow leather. Perhaps from the belly or the neck of a cow. Quite possibly from a goat, as goats have very smooth thin hides, and they are very common in rural China. Leather is not necessarily from a cow, he added. It can be from an elephant (Thailand), camel, horse, buffalo, llama, or whatever is the predominant animal in the area.My leather upholsterer friend handled the new bible with unwashed hands. So I cleaned the leather, later, with surgical spirit treated cotton wool. By the time I realised how unwise it was, parts of the cotton had stuck onto the cover. Removing the cotton with soap and water, I realised the leather emerged relatively unscathed. Normal leather upholstery would have been irreparably stained by alcohol.Most people comment that the Leather version looks prettier and more luxurious when both versions are compared side by side. The leather version also opens up flat, but not as well as the Hard Cover version.The last issue is whether the leather version is worth the price difference. I had double clicked by accident both versions, so I have duplicate copies of each version. I may not be the best person to comment. Like other reviewers, I think the Leather version is worth the difference. However, people entitled to free shipping may have to form opinions of their own.I just had a pastor examine the bibles. He said he would go for the Cloth Hard Cover. In stands up better on his shelf in his "workplace"; leather tends to slouch. The lettering in the Cloth version looks much better spaced and more readable, but after measuring with a ruler, we concluded it was an optical illusion. The gold gilding on the Leather version makes the pages look "sharper", whatever that means, and I do not usually question pastors unless I have a measuring ruler on hand.I have two criteria when it comes to price differences. First, if it less than the cost of an irritating parking ticket, which we get quite often in my country. It is, hence the difference is bearable in financial terms. Second, is it less than what I put on the collection plate on Sundays, and my humble answer is yes, but if I said "tithe" I would be seriously lying. So Leather cover version, all things considered, for me.

This is a beautiful bible! Hard cover, beautiful printing and binding - well worth it!

The Hendrickson edition of Matthew's Bible is a great offering to those interested in the history and development of either the Christian Bible in English specifically or of Bibles in general. This edition is a great addition in their catalog to Hendrickson's facsimiles of the earlier Tyndale New Testament and the later Geneva Bible. The binding is attractive and sound. The reproduction of the original text is clean and clear, rendering it eminently usable. The size is sufficient for people with acceptable eye sight to read the text without problems.However, this facsimile edition is probably not for those lacking a fair degree of erudition. The type is indeed the original Black Letter variant, which is difficult for many to read today due to lack of familiarity (though reading this type can certainly be mastered). Further, the original rendering follows the practice of the time to truncate words and use special signs (e.g., where one sees at the end of a word "met" with a little squiggle or line above the "e", this reads as "ment".) Such abbreviations are a carry-over from earlier books and manuscripts in Latin and was standard practice at the time; it was used by copyists and printers to conserve costly ink and paper. None-the-less, it can initially be confusing to modern readers. Finally, being a facsimile of an original edition, the original spellings are, of course, preserved. Noting that, at the time, English spelling was still far from standardized, many of the spellings are quite different from the standard spellings of the early 21st century (and, in fact, remind me of late Middle English). All in all, for people accustomed to reading late Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and books, there will be few problems; for others, reading this edition could be somewhat daunting until they overcome the learning curve.My background is such that, for me, there are no problems reading this excellent reproduction, so I am enjoying it immensely. With Hendrickson's great success exemplified in this edition, I hope that Hendrickson will, in future, consider publishing reproductions of the Wycliffe Bible (i.e., without transliterating the text into modern type), the Bishop's Bible and the Great Bible. Furthermore, could there be an affordable Gutenberg Bible reproduction down the road for those of us who read Latin?

Excellent facsimile of the original Matthews Bible.

Good for the money, but would of liked to have one more classical, more of the time period.

Another quality bible published by Hendrickson.The binding and the quality of the book is great. The size of the actual book is large and the text is large enough to read. The challenge with this bible is that the typeface is black letter (or gothic) and that means its really hard for an average English speaker to actually read. There are also no verse numbers, so if you want to find something specific, you will need to find the chapter and read through until you get where you need to be.All that said, Tyndale's and Coverdale's work is excellent and this was one of the first mainstream English bible translations. Definitely pick this up if you know what this book is and if you want the authenticity of the text written within.

This is an excellent resource for anyone who loves and studies English Bible Translation. I own most of the major English translation from, Wycliff to Tyndale 1526 and 1536, The Geneva Bible, 1611 KJV, etc..The Matthew’s Bible, being mostly a Tyndale revision, is a beautiful piece of that history.

A biblia toda é uma fac-símile da original de 1537. Nessa cópia fac-símile, até a fonte das letras góticas da original de 1537 foram mantidas, tornando a cópia ainda mais parecida com a original. Excelente trabalho artístico e gráfico! Estou super satisfeito com a aquisição dela e recomendo que outras pessoas como eu, a adquiram para sua biblioteca.

This edition is more easily read than one might imagine. The blackletter type that was the convention of the time looks intimidating at first, but at closer glance it becomes clearer.It’s a small adjustment but it’s so worth it. To read something written in 1537 with such clarity and beauty is an experience I recommend to anyone, especially history buffs.

Una excelente Biblia, de colección. En 1ª de Juan 5:7 está como agregado el versículo (ver foto anexa). Es de muy buen tamaño la Biblia y la letra es difícil de leer pero en lo general una muy buen facsímil.

The font is great. I like old blackletter fonts as they are easy on the eyes. Many would likely have problems reading the font along with the old non-standardized spelling but if you dedicate half an hour or so to learning it then reading it is not a problem.All Bibles should look this well presented.

When I first bought it I was immediately impressed with its appearance. This facsimile (in the hardcover edition) has been beautifully done. It handles really nicely and opens to lie flat with great ease (it's heavy so you would probably want to rest it flat to read it). I bought it over a year ago but reserved writing my review until I have actually started reading it. I have made it the Bible translation to work my way through with my daily Bible reading this year. On 1st January I feared that it was going to be very hard going. While on first appearance the print looked really solid and clear, when it came to actually reading Genesis 1 it felt like the print wasn't as clear as it first appeared. Some of the ornate letters are very similar in appearance and it is sometimes only very fine distinctions which help to differentiate between one letter and another. But I have persevered, and two weeks on it feels almost as simple to read as any other book. Even as I glance back at Genesis 1 it is hard to see why I struggled with it so much at first. So if you start it and find it hard work, don't give up too soon.I would say, though, that if you don't yet own any of Hendrickson's facsimile Bibles, this isn't the one I would start with. Start with the 1560 Geneva Bible, which has a Roman typeface and so is much more easy to learn to read - it's much easier to learn all the common abbreviations when you can easily recognise all the letters that you are given. Then you can move on to Tyndale's New Testament, with an older but clear font. And if you can manage that with ease, then you might stand a chance with Matthew's Bible. But if you can't manage the Geneva Bible or Tyndale, don't attempt this. Sometimes this version is available much more cheaply than the others, but if it is intended as a gift to introduce someone to the world of historical Bible facsimiles, it might not be the wisest idea. For someone used to reading only modern books in modern typefaces, this one would plunge them in at the deep end and they might find it a bit overwhelming. Better to break them in gently.It seems exceptional value for money.It's large and heavy, and printed on nice paper, beautifully done, and yet it often costs less than you could buy an ordinary Bible for.A nice addition to anyone's library - but please do buy it to read, and not just for novelty value. and do please persevere with learning to read it, if you find it at all difficult. Skip past all the introductory pages to start off with. The contents of some of them seem really good, but the font is often much smaller and is much more of a struggle to read. As I found helpful with Tyndale, read a chapter in a familiar Bible first (probably KJV or NASB or something of that sort, where the language is similar), and then read the same chapter in Matthew's Bible when you have and idea of what it is meant to be saying, and compare the two versions for clues whenever you are struggling to decipher a word. You soon get the hang of it. There are no verse numbers in Matthew's Bible, but the text is all arranged neatly in paragraphs, which is one of the things I enjoy about these facsimile versions over many modern Bibles where each verse starts on a separate line, and where verse divisions split up sentences and make them hard to follow. You don't have that same distraction and disruption here.The marginal notes are small but you can generally work out what they say (if your eyesight is decent).