One of the greatest advantages of the Clarion’s design is the verse numbers blend in more than most Bibles. This makes them easy to ignore and keeps the focus on the text. This is great for reading but it can be difficult for personal study or following along in Church or a group study. It can sometimes take several seconds to find a verse which can be frustrating and even awkward if you’re the preacher or leader. Some editions fix this by making the verse numbers slightly bolder so they stand out more. This works but it can also affect readability and takes away from the beauty of the layout which is one of the advantages of the Clarion in the first place.
Some prefer to use the Clarion just for reading, but this does away with the advantage of it’s other tools. The Clarion is a nice reference Bible and it would be a shame not to use it as such.
One of the key design features of the Cambridge Clarion is to place references and footnotes in the outer margins. There are several advantages to this design. One is they are placed as close to the verses they correspond to as possible. Fortunately they also show their chapter and verse numbers in bold, making them easy to scan quickly.
When looking for a verse, instead of searching through the text look to the outer margin at the bold chapter and verse numbers. Once you find the references for the verse you’re looking for look across the line of text next to it for the verse number. Most of the time the verse will start on that line. If the verse doesn’t start on that line it usually starts on the previous or next line. Sometimes the verses will be further away but this works most of the time.
