The ESV Heirloom Bible, Alpha Edition is a high-quality Bible from Crossway that’s both readable and portable in a compact size. This latest edition is in black goatskin and, unlike the previous edition, has a concordance. It was printed and bound in the Netherlands by Jongbloed.
Crossway provided this Bible in exchange for an honest review.
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This Bible is available at (includes some affiliate links)
and many local Bible bookstores
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Table of Contents
Binding
The cover is black goatskin. It’s pebbly and looks and feels high quality. It has perimeter stitching with no printing on the front. The spine has four raised hubs and printing in gold. The liner is edge-lined leather and includes a gold decorative line. The tab is a touch stiff, but it’s not bad. It stays open in the middle of Genesis. It includes three 3/8″ dark red ribbons. They’re angle-cut and long enough to pull to the corner to open the Bible easily. The overall size is 5.5 x 7.6 x 1.25″, and it weighs 1 lb, 4.6 oz. This is the perfect size for carrying and reading.
Paper
The paper is a 28GSM Indopaque, a high-quality French Bible paper with a premium coating. It’s smooth to the touch and is decently opaque, but the show-through does stand out slightly more than I’d like. The color is slightly cream, which I prefer for long periods of reading. There is no glare under direct light. I had no issues turning pages. The page edges are red over gold. There are 14 blank pages in the back for notes.
Typography
The 2025 ESV text is presented in a double-column, paragraph layout with the standard ESV formatting, including poetry set to stanzas and section headings in semi-bold italics. The header shows the book name and reference in the outer margin and the page number in the center, all printed in dark red. Footnotes are placed in the footer starting on the left side of the page. Chapter numbers are also printed in dark red.
The typeface is 8-point, black letter Lexicon. The text is dark and consistent throughout, with extra whitespace to make it highly readable. It was printed with line-matching, meaning that the lines on both sides of the page are printed in the same location to reduce show-through. Unfortunately, there are a few pages where the lines don’t match well enough, but most look great. Verse numbers are larger than normal to help make them easier to find. They’re not bold, but I did locate them easily enough. Footnote callers are large, but they don’t stand out.
Poetry follows the standard ESV method of heavily indenting when the text wraps to the next line. It also runs the line all the way to the end before wrapping. This causes the lines to have hyphens, and there are a lot of poetic lines with a single word. I still found this text to be highly readable.
Footnotes
The standard ESV footnotes are placed at the bottom of the page with the footnote number. They include references to parallel passages, Hebrew and Greek explanations, manuscript variations (without identifying the manuscript), information about objects, places, names, money, references where something is quoted, etc. The footnotes and their numbers are small, so they might be difficult to read.
Extras
Presentation and Family Pages
In the front is a presentation page and several family pages printed on thick paper. They include marriages, births/adoptions, and deaths. Several of my pages are crinkled, but I’m sure this isn’t normal.
Table of Weights and Measures
In the back is a small table of weights and measures. It includes the biblical unit, approximate American and metric equivalents, and biblical equivalents. This information is also covered in the footnotes, but I find the table handy to use.
Concordance
Unlike the previous Alpha, this one has a concordance. The concordance is 34 pages with 3 columns per page. The print is small. It does not include proper names. This is a good concordance for personal study without adding much to the thickness of this Bible. Here are some sample entries and the number of references given:
- God – 57
- Godliness – 3
- Godly – 3
- Gods – 3
Maps
In the back are the 8 Crossway maps printed on thick semi-glossy paper. They are printed with earth-tone colors and include distance, topography, borders, routes, rivers, kingdoms, etc. It doesn’t include an index to maps, but the maps are labeled well and are easy to use.
Maps include:
- The World of the Patriarchs
- The Exodus from Egypt
- The Twelve Tribes of Israel
- Israel Under Saul, David, and Solomon
- Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus
- Palestine in the Time of Jesus
- Paul’s First and Second Missionary Journeys
- Paul’s Third Missionary Journey and His Voyage to Rome
Video Review
Conclusion
The ESV Heirloom Bible Alpha is an excellent small Bible with a high-quality build and materials. The text is highly readable and doesn’t feel cramped. Some readers will prefer slightly less show-through. This is a great choice for carrying, reading, and even preaching if you don’t need a large print. The latest edition of the ESV Heirloom Alpha is easy to recommend.
___________________________________________
This Bible is available at (includes some affiliate links)
and many local Bible bookstores
____________________________________________
Crossway provided this 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.
