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Cambridge NKJV Topaz Bible Review

Randy A Brown

The NKJV Topaz is Cambridge’s newest addition to the Topaz line. Following the design of the ESV, it presents the NKJV text in a large print, verse-by-verse setting with preaching, teaching, and public reading in mind. It makes a great companion to the Clarion, Pitt Minion, and Wide Margin editions. It’s available in black, blue, or green goatskin and black or brown calf-split. I’m reviewing the brown calf-split, ISBN 9781108965361, and the blue goatskin, ISBN 9781108949835, both made in the Netherlands by Royal Jongbleod, and designed and typeset by 2K/Denmark.

Cambridge provided a discount for the brown Bible and loaned me the blue Bible in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to give a positive review, only an honest one. All opinions are my own.

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This book is available from (contains some affiliate links)

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Amazon

Cambridge

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Table of Contents

  1. Video Review
  2. Cover and Binding
  3. Paper
  4. Typography
  5. References
  6. Presentation and Family Records
  7. Concordance
  8. Maps
  9. Comparisons
  10. Conclusion

Video Review

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Cover and Binding

I’m reviewing the blue goatskin and the brown calf-split. Let’s look at each one independently and see what’s different between them.

Blue Goatskin

The blue goatskin has a smoother grain than I’ve seen in most Cambridge Bibles, which is the opposite of the ESV Topaz in black goatskin. The grain looks natural. I like the look and feel of the grain. It has perimeter stitching and a 1/4″ yapp. The front has HOLY BIBLE printed in gold. The spine has HOLY BIBLE, NEW KING JAMES VERSION, and CAMBRIDGE printed in gold. The spine also has 5 raised spine ribs.

The liner is edge-lined calfskin. The edge-lined tab is a touch stiff out of the box. It did have trouble staying open in Genesis, but this Bible is on loan, so I didn’t break it in or use it enough much. The text-block is Smyth sewn.

It has three double-sided satin ribbons in various shades of blue. They’re long enough to pull to the corner to open the Bible easily. They’re 3/8″ wide. the head/tail bands are blue and white. The overall size is 6 5/8 x 9 7/8 x 1 1/4″. It weighs 2lbs, 5.8oz.

It’s flexible, but not too floppy. I had no trouble carrying it, but I did have a little bit of trouble holding it in one hand to read. I preferred to read from the calf-split edition because it lays flatter.

Brown Calf-split

The brown calf-split looks more like mahogany than brown. I love this color. Like all calf-split editions from Cambridge, it’s stamped with a pebbly grain that looks and feels natural. It’s indented around the perimeter. The front has HOLY BIBLE printed in gold. The spine has HOLY BIBLE, NEW KING JAMES VERSION, and CAMBRIDGE printed in gold. The spine also has 5 rib indications. It has a 3/8″ yapp.

The liner is brown pasted-down vinyl. The text-block is sewn. It has no trouble staying open on any page. The stiffness of the cover and liner makes it easy to hold in one hand to carry and read.

It has two brown 1/4″ double-sided satin ribbons. They’re long enough to pull to the corner to open the page easily. The head/tail bands are brown and gold. They help complete the elegant look of this Bible. The overall size is 6 3/4 x 9 15/16 x 1 1/4″. It weighs 2lbs, 6.3oz.

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Paper

The paper is 28gsm Indopaque by Papeteries du Leman, Thonon-les-Bains, France. This is the same premium paper that’s used in many premium Bibles such as the Turquoise, goatskin Clarion, Pitt Minion, Concord, Quentel, Personal Size Quentel, etc. It’s ivory in color and highly opaque. I love this paper for reading. It’s smooth to the touch. I had no issues separating it with my fingers. It has 11 pages in the back that can be used for notes. The blue goatskin edition is art-gilt with blue under gold. The calf-split edition is gold-gilted. I love the look of art-gilt, but it does get damaged and show wear easily. I find regular gold-gilt easier to use because I’m not as worried about keeping it pretty.

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Typography

The NKJV text is presented without its standard formatting in a double-column verse-by-verse layout. Each verse is indented. Verses that continue the sentence from the previous verse start with a lower-case letter. There are no paragraph markers. It includes the standard NKJV section headings in bold all-caps. The lead-in to the book names, verse numbers, chapter number, and chapter title in the references are in red. Section headings, book names, and all reference and footnote keys are black. The header shows the book name and chapters in the outer margin and the page number in the inner margin. Cross-references are placed in the outer margin and footnotes are placed in the footer.

The layout was designed and typeset by 2K/Denmark using a 10-point typeface called More Pro Book. This is a red-letter edition. Both the black and the red are a dark semi-bold, and both are consistent throughout. The footnote and reference keys are superscripts. I found them large enough to see and small enough that they don’t cause too many unnatural pauses when preaching.

It has around 6-8 words per line. It has enough space between the words and the lines to be comfortable to read. It was slow-printed with line-matching, meaning that the lines are printed in the same location on both sides of the page. This greatly reduces show-through and improves readability. It has extra space in the inner margin to bring the text out of the bend and onto the flat part of the page. The text just starts into the bend. The fact that the spine is only 1.25″ helps this a lot.

Cross-references are placed in the outer margin starting at the top of the page. They’re separated from the text with a line. This design keeps all four columns of text together, keeping you from having to jump across the non-biblical text to continue reading. One advantage of this is it has a lot of empty margin space that’s good for writing notes. Having the references and footnotes separate makes them easier to find.

One thing that does stand out as odd is in poetry. The standard NKJV setting starts poetic breaks on a new line and each line starts with an upper-case letter. They’ve retained the upper-case letters, but not the poetic breaks. Some might prefer preaching from this layout instead of a standard poetic layout, but I find the upper-case letters in the text to look odd. The problem with v-b-v for me is that nothing stands out and you can’t identify the type of text at a glance. I’d prefer to see a poetic setting and letters indented even in a verse-by-verse layout. My guess is the columns needed more words per line to make this work.

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References and Footnotes

Cross-references are placed in the outer margin to keep the text on both sides of the page together. Those at the top are for the inner column, and those at the bottom are for the outer column. They’re separated from the text by lines. The pilot verse in the margin is bold. The cross-references cover both words and themes.

It has fewer references than the NKJV Pitt Minion and Clarion. There are enough to help with study and sermon prep, but I’d like to see it have the same number of references as the Clarion. Since it has the outer margin dedicated to the references, I’d like to see the margin filled up. The extra space can be used to add your own references, and I’d guess you’ll need to if this is your primary reference Bible. Fortunately, there are a few references in the footnotes.

Here are a few examples of references to help you compare:

All of the NKJV translation footnotes are included. Footnotes provide explanatory notes, alternate translations, cross-references, NT citations of OT passages, textual variants, etc. The textual variants identify the manuscripts with the variant readings. This is one of the strengths of the NKJV in my opinion. I’m glad to see them included. I find them useful for personal study and sermon prep as they give insights into the text.

They are placed in the footer and are separated from the text by a line. They’re printed in a larger font than the references. I like that the footnotes are separated from the references. This helps make a cleaner design and makes the references and footnotes easier to find.

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Presentation and Family Records

In the front are several pages for records printed on thick, non-glossy paper. It includes a page to show who the Bible belongs to, the family record of the husband and wife, children, marriages, grandchildren, and deaths. There are a few blank pages before the family pages. All of this thick paper helps give the Bible structure, so I’m glad to see it included.

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Concordance

The concordance is 155 pages with 3 columns per page. It includes proper names and significant topics. Dashes are used to indicate when a keyword applies to a different person, place, or topic. It has lots of entries. This is a lot larger concordance than the one used in the Clarion. It’s a good concordance for study and sermon prep.

Sample entries include:

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Maps

In the back are 15 pages of maps on thick semi-glossy paper. They are bright and colorful and they’re highly detailed. They include borders, import commodities, dates, routes, passes, settlements, distance, topography, mountains, cities of refuge, cities, tribes, vegetation, kingdoms, battle sites, satrapy, city walls, city gates, older city walls, seven Churches of Asia, etc.

It also includes an 8-page color-coded index to maps. The index is printed on the same paper as the maps. They identify settlements, political (nations, provinces, and regions), physical land, physical water, travel, and Jerusalem. I’m always glad to see a map index included and I find the Cambridge color-coded index to be one of the best available.

Maps include:

  1. The Ancient Near East in the Late Bronze Age
  2. Regions of Palestine and Surrounding Areas
  3. Sinai and Canaan at the Time of the Exodus
  4. Israel within Canaan
  5. The United Monarchy of David and Solomon
  6. Israel and Judah: The Divided Monarchy
  7. The Assyrian Empire
  8. The Babylonian Empire
  9. The Persian Empire
  10. The Hellenistic World after Alexander
  11. Jerusalem in Old Testament Times
  12. Jerusalem in New Testament Times
  13. Palestine in New Testament Times
  14. The Roman Empire
  15. The Eastern Mediterranean in the First Century AD

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Comparisons

Here’s how the Cambridge Topaz compares to a few similar Bibles.

ESV CalfskinTopaz

The ESV Topaz matches the NKJV Topaz in every way except it has calfskin instead of calf-split, and the ESV elements such as cross-references, footnotes, section headings, table of weights and measures, and the concordance. The paper, fonts, ribbons, and maps are the same. The ESV’s normal poetic setting doesn’t stand out when placed in a v-b-v format because each new poetic line starts with a lower-case letter instead of an upper-case letter like the NKJV uses.

Quentel

The NKJV Quentel is about the same size as the Topaz. They use the same paper. The Quentel font looks slightly larger with more space between the lines, but the Topaz might be a hair darker for both the black and red letters. The Quentel presents the NKJV text in a double-column paragraph layout and includes more references.

VBV NKJV Premier Collection

The Thomas Nelson NKJV Verse-by-Verse has the same footprint, but it’s about 1/4″ thicker. It has a v-b-v layout in double-columns, but it retains the poetic setting and indents letters. The font looks to be the same size, but the TN is darker and includes red highlights. It includes book introductions, a concordance, and maps. The Topaz does have higher quality materials and construction, but that’s reflected in the price difference.

NKJV Preaching Bible

The Thomas Nelson NKJV Preaching Bible was designed with preaching in mind. It has thicker paper and slightly darker font. It’s black-letter, has blue highlights, and has more words per line. It’s a vbv, double-column layout, but poetry is set in stanzas and letters are indented. References and footnotes are combined in the footer. There isn’t a concordance or maps. It has slightly lower quality materials and construction, but that’s reflected in the price difference.

Clarion

The NKJV Clarion has the same paper, an 8.75 font, a paragraph format with poetry and letters set in a different format, and a lot smaller footprint. It’s noticeably thicker, which many find to be awkward in the hand. It’s designed to be a personal size Bible for carrying and reading. The Clarion has more references, but it also has a smaller concordance. It makes an excellent combo with the Topaz.

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Conclusion

The Cambridge NKJV Topaz Reference Edition is a well-made Bible. As always, Royal Jongbloed has done an excellent job with the high-quality paper, print quality, and bindings. I like both cover options, but I”m actually drawn to the calf-split. I find it easier to hold open to read and it stays open much flatter. It’s reinforced, so it should last for a while. 2K/Denmark has done an excellent job of designing a layout that’s ideal for public reading. The red highlights and red-letter text look elegant.

Some may find a poetic setting difficult to preach from, but I’d like to see the poetic setting added back in. For me, the formatting is one of the advantages of the NKJV- even in a vbv setting. I question why it has fewer cross-references than the NKJV Clarion when it clearly has the space for even more references. Placing the references in the outer margin does help make them easy to use. The larger concordance does help, though. I like that the references and footnotes are separate. I like the design direction to keep the text together and that the text doesn’t run into the gutter.

Similar to the ESV Topaz, MSRP is a little higher than I’d like. Premium Bibles do have higher costs in materials, design, and manufacturing, so I do understand that price, but I hope to see the prices drop over time. I do expect the NKJV Topaz to be a popular edition of the New King James Version. Verse-by-verse is popular and this one delivers. It’s excellent for preaching, teaching, and study. If you’re interested in a high-quality NKJV but don’t want a poetic setting, the NKJV Topaz is a great choice.

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_________________________________________________________

This book is available from (contains some affiliate links)

Christianbook

Amazon

Cambridge

_________________________________________________________

 

Cambridge provided a discount for the brown Bible and loaned me the blue Bible in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to give a positive review, only an honest one. All opinions are my own.

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