The NLT Inspire Prayer Bible is Tyndale’s newest addition to their popular coloring & creative journaling line of Bibles. It has wider margins added to its list of features and includes all new artwork, much of it with a prayer theme.
ISBN: 9781496424075
Tyndale provided this Bible in exchange for a review. I was not required to give a positive review, only an honest one. All opinions are my own.
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This Bible is available at (includes some affiliate links)
and many local Bible bookstores
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CONSTRUCTION AND MATERIALS
I was sent the metallic gold leatherlike over board edition of the Inspire Prayer Bible. It measures 8″ x 7.25″ x 2.25″ and weighs abut 3 pounds, 9 ounces. There are two attached ribbon bookmarks, one turquoise, and one deep pink. The page edges have a bright multicolor watercolor design on them. Similar designs on the box and an alternate cover look like stylized flowers but these pages edges don’t look flowery to me.
We are guessing the paper is about 38 gsm. It is a soft off-white. It has a sewn binding and thick cardstock like endpapers with illustrated verses. The paper is similar to what’s found in most art journaling Bibles almost all art mediums that have worked fine in other Bibles or marketed as safe for Bibles should work.
This Bible is also available in a softer cover with sort of reverse colorization. It has a leatherlike cover done in a bright multicolor watercolor pattern and gold gilt page edges.
TYPOGRAPHY & LAYOUT
The Inspire Prayer Bible is set in a single-column paragraph format. The header has the page number in the outside corner and the guide verse reference centered over the text.
It has many of the standard settings of an NLT, like section headings, poetry set in stanzas, and letters and quotes offset.
The font size is 8.65 point. Six lines of text and the five spaces between them barely fit in the height of a penny. The ink is all black and stays consistent darkness throughout.
The only footnotes are translators’ notes. Asterisks in the text indicate the presence of a note and the reference numbers in bold help you tell the footnotes apart.
One of the really nice features of this Bible is the extra-wide margins. They are a full 3 inches wide.
The margins that don’t contain artwork have 36 evenly spaced very light lines that are just over 2 1/2 inches long. In the previous versions of the Inspire I have found these lines very useful for keeping my writing and hand lettering even and level. The lines are light enough not to be a nuisance behind most artwork.
ARTWORK
The artwork is a key feature of any illustrated Bible. The Inspire Prayer Bible has 400 new line-art illustrations to color. You’ll find many of the full margin illustrations you’d expect from this type of Bible.
There are also 96 full-page illustrations.
Each book gets its own illustrated title and an illustrated key verse on the first page.
All of the books except a few of the smallest ones also get a full page coordinating illustration of another verse from the book on the page across from the starting page.
There are a few illustrations that don’t have a verse with them. These can mostly be found at the end of books and decorating pages like the Note to the Readers, and Indexes.
Index of Designed Verses
One of the features that all Inspire Bibles include is the Index of Designed Verses. I find this to be a nice addition to illustrated Bibles. It’s a good way to find a verse to color or find out if a verse you are currently studying has already been done. I might actually use these indexes a little more than the average user since they are very useful for comparison photos and articles about journaling specific topics.
PRAYER THEME
Prayer is an important aspect of Christian living and I really like that it was chosen as the theme for an Inspire Bible.
They introduce the theme with a short article titled Welcome to Inspire Prayer. It’s all about the importance of prayer. They have included both the Lord’s Prayer and a prayer asking for help as you read and pray through scripture with illustrated frames. Also at the front of the Bible is a page of Bible journaling tips and 2 pages of verses about prayer printed out.
This Bible includes 32 see-through vellum pages inserted throughout the Bible. These have illustrations and the prayers of various people throughout history printed on them. They are done in lots of beautiful colors but always have some portion of the picture left clear. You could leave them just the way they are or color in the blank spaces to make each page more your own.
I have found that almost all art mediums will work on these pages but plan on much longer drying times for anything wet you use, even pens and markers.
Many (but definitely not all) of the verses chosen for illustration in this Bible have something to do with prayer.
One type of illustration I didn’t highlight in the Artwork section was the prayer prompts.
Tyndale has included 142 Inspired Prayer journaling prompts to inspire personalized prayer. These are illustrated with the start of a scripture-inspired prayer at the top of the margin and a lettered Amen at the bottom. There is generally at least half of the margin’s space left blank in between for you to add your own thoughts or prayer. These have an illustrated version of the verse that inspired the prayer on the facing page. Prayer prompts are listed in the Index of Designed Verses as Inspired Prayer.
I love how the illustrations on both pages go together. I think it’s a very thoughtful touch. It leads to one of my few complaints about this Bible. They seem to have taken a lot of care to make sure that facing pages either go together like with these prayer prompts, or at least coordinate, like the beginnings of books. In at least three or four places though a vellum page has been inserted between facing pages. I know they want the vellum fairly evenly spaced out but they shouldn’t have put them between coordinating pages, especially since they don’t match the pages on either side when it happens.
All in all, I think the Prayer theme is well done. There is enough here to encourage you to pray more often and more thoughtfully. At the same time, it’s not so much to overwhelm you or so formulated to stifle creativity.
COMPARISON TO ORIGINAL INSPIRE AND INSPIRE PRAISE
I’m sure some of you want to know how the Inspire Prayer Bible compares to previous editions of the Inspire. I’m using the first release hardcover editions of each for comparison.
For our original review of both, you can use these links: NLT Inspire Bible (softcover edition) NLT Inspire Praise Bible
The Inspire Prayer is larger and heavier than both of the previous Bibles, but I think you gain a lot for the extra size. The Inspire Praise is 1/4 inch thicker and 7 ounces heavier than the original Inspire Bible. The additional illustrations (more pages) and slightly thicker paper to make whiter paper the same opacity were the reasons for the added size. The Inspire Prayer is 1 inch wider and about 10 ounces heavier than the Inspire Praise because of the much wider margins that give you more room to write and create in. Features and size are often a tradeoff in Bible design and everyone has to decide what is most important for them.
The artwork is all different in the three Bibles but there are obvious similarities in art style and themes. There are actually very few verses illustrated in more than one of these Bibles and almost no verses appear in all three. Matthew 6:9-13 (The Lord’s Prayer) and Psalm 8:1 are the only 2 I found going through a little less than half of the Scripture Indexes. I like this because it gives all of us a chance to do our own response to almost every verse if we own more than one of these. It does make it harder to make direct comparisons though.
The difference in width is much more obvious with the Bible open than with it closed.
The vellum sheets are very similar in both the Prayer and Praise Bibles. I personally like the scriptures in the Praise over the historical quotes in the Prayer. I can see the value of seeing how other people have worded prayers to help us put our own yearnings into words though.
Isaiah 26:3 is one of the verses I found in both the Prayer and Praise but not in the original Inspire. It’s interesting to see that they both have a flower theme but are very different besides that.
The text layout is the same in all three but none of them have the same pagination. For example, both of these have Pasalm 94:15 through 96:4 laid out in the exact same way but this text is on page 704 in the Inspire Praise and on page 721 of the Inspire Prayer Bible. Keeping the same layout makes the Bibles easier to produce and easier to use for those familiar with the layout. Page numbering differences happen because of the number and placement of full-page illustrations.
With it’s whiter pages and vellum inserts the Inspire Prayer is more similar to the Inspire Praise but I wanted at least one picture of just the original Inspire Bible and the Inspire Prayer Bible together. I think the difference in page color might be slightly more distinct than this picture makes it look like.
One other point I’d like to make in comparison. Both the original Inspire Bible and the Inspire Praise Bible included the full Introduction to the New Living Translation and a list of the translation team. The Inspire Prayer Bible has only the short Note to the Readers that usually accompanies these two and a web address where the other two can be found.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE NLT INSPIRE PRAYER BIBLE
The NLT Inspire Prayer Bible is a great addition to the Inspire line from Tyndale. The Prayer theme is well implemented and will resonate with many especially, I think, in 2020. The wider margins and the large quantity of all-new artwork will make it a great choice for those looking for either their first illustrated journaling Bible or their next Bible to keep journaling in.
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This Bible is available at (includes some affiliate links)
and many local Bible bookstores
_________________________________________________________
Tyndale provided this Bible in exchange for a review. I was not required to give a positive review, only an honest one. All opinions are my own.
Photography by Lucinda M Brown