A quick word before we start. The Amazon links below are affiliate links. If you buy through them, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. And so there’s no question about it, nobody sent me this Bible. I bought it with my own money. I’m writing this review because the CSB is a translation I love and read every day.

Most of you know I teach from the New King James Version. When I’m getting ready for a Friday night study, the NKJV is the Bible on the table, and it’s the one I quote from the front of the room. That hasn’t changed. But when I need to bring a passage on home, I’ll most of the time grab the CSB.

But when I sit down to read for myself, with no lesson to prepare and nobody to teach, I reach for the Christian Standard Bible. A lot of the time I end up with both of them open. I’ll read a chapter in the CSB, come to a verse that stops me, and turn to the NKJV to see how it handles the same line. Then I turn back, and I go back and forth between the two until I’ve got what I came for.

The copy I read from is the CSB Personal Size Giant Print Bible in brown LeatherTouch, and I’ll tell you about it. But this review is mostly about the translation inside it, and why I’ve come to trust it beside my study Bible.

Why the CSB Is My Reading Bible

The CSB came out in 2017 as a thorough revision of the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Holman says a hundred scholars from seventeen denominations have worked on the translation. They call their method optimal equivalence. Where a word-for-word rendering makes sense in English, they keep it. Where a literal rendering would leave an English reader scratching his head, they translate for the meaning. The preface says the CSB gives equal weight to faithfulness to the original and readability for a modern reader.

What that gives me is a Bible I can read for a long stretch without stumbling, one that still stays close to the Greek and Hebrew. It reads well out loud, and it keeps me moving through a whole book instead of a few verses.

Romans 12:1 shows why I like reading the two together. Here it is in the NKJV.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”

Romans 12:1, NKJV

And here it is in the CSB.

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.”

Romans 12:1, CSB

Look at the end of the verse. The NKJV says “reasonable service.” The CSB says “true worship.” Which one has it right? Both do.

Paul wrote logikēn latreian. The first word is logikos (λογικός, G3050), which has to do with reason and the thinking mind. Our word logic comes from the same family. The second is latreia (λατρεία, G2999), sacred service, the word for the work the priests carried out in the tabernacle (Hebrews 9:6). Paul is saying that when you give God your whole self, body and all, you are offering the worship that makes sense for someone who has received His mercy.

The NKJV brings out the reasoning. The CSB brings out the worship. And the CSB prints “your reasonable service” in its footnote, so the NKJV’s reading is sitting at the bottom of the page anyway. With both Bibles open, I get both halves of what Paul meant.

Two Streams of Manuscripts

This is the part I appreciate most, and it’s the reason the two translations work so well together.

In the New Testament, the NKJV and the CSB are translated from two different Greek texts. The NKJV follows the Textus Receptus, the Greek text behind the King James Version. It traces back to the printed Greek New Testaments of the 1500s, beginning with Erasmus. The CSB follows the Nestle-Aland and United Bible Societies editions, usually called the critical text, which give more weight to the older manuscripts found in the centuries since. In the Old Testament both translations work from the Hebrew Masoretic Text, so most of the differences show up in the New.

I wrote about why translations read differently in the Feed Yourself series (Why Your Translations Disagree, and Why That’s a Gift). Most of the time these two Greek texts agree. Where they part ways, it’s usually a word or a phrase. Every so often it’s a whole verse.

The CSB handles those places in a way I trust. When it follows the older manuscripts and leaves something out of the main text, it prints the missing words in a footnote at the bottom of the same page.

Matthew 17:21 is a good example. The NKJV prints it in the text. “However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” In the CSB the verse numbers jump from 20 to 22, and the footnote reads, “Some mss include v. 21,” then gives you the whole verse.

Acts 8:37 works the same way. The NKJV includes the Ethiopian official’s confession, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” The CSB gives the whole exchange between Philip and the Ethiopian in its footnote. So does 1 John 5:7–8. The longer reading, where the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit bear witness in heaven, stands in the NKJV text. The CSB gives it in a footnote and tells you it appears in a few late Greek manuscripts and some late copies of the Latin Vulgate.

The NKJV returns the favor. Its footnotes mark the places where the critical text reads differently. At Acts 8:37 the footnote tells you plainly that the critical text and the Majority Text both omit the verse.

So with the two open together, I’m never in the dark. Each one shows me where it parts ways with the other, and each one gives me the other’s reading.

You may have heard someone say modern translations have cut verses out of the Bible. I understand the worry. But a verse printed at the bottom of the page hasn’t been cut. It has been set where you can see it and weigh the evidence for yourself. And no doctrine of the faith stands or falls on these readings. Peter confesses Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” in Matthew 16:16, and John wrote his whole Gospel so that you would believe the same thing (John 20:31). The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are named together in Matthew 28:19 and 2 Corinthians 13:14, whatever you decide about the longer wording in 1 John 5.

This Edition

Feature	Details
Translation	Christian Standard Bible (CSB)
Type size	12-point giant print
Layout	Two columns with topical subject headings
Words of Christ	In red
Helps	Translation footnotes, concordance, full-color maps, presentation page
Binding	Smyth-sewn, lies flat
Cover	Brown LeatherTouch (imitation leather)
Extras	Thumb index, gilded page edges, ribbon marker
Page size	5.75 x 8.75 inches
Pages	1,680
List price	$49.99

The type is the reason to buy this edition. Holman fit 12-point print onto a page about 5.75 by 8.75 inches, small enough to hold in one hand and big enough to read without squinting. The text runs in two columns with topical headings, the words of Christ are in red, and the translators’ footnotes sit at the bottom of each page where you can find them.

The binding is Smyth-sewn. The pages are sewn together in sections instead of glued at the spine, so the Bible lies flat on a table and holds up to years of opening and closing. The indexed edition adds thumb tabs cut into the page edge, which helps when you’re turning to Obadiah in a hurry. The cover is LeatherTouch, Holman’s imitation leather.

A Pause

The thickness is the price of the big type. Large print on a small page takes a lot of pages, and this one runs to 1,680. It’s a little over an inch and a half thick. It will ride in a bag, but it won’t slide into a coat pocket.

This is a reading Bible. There are no study notes, and cross-references aren’t among the features of this edition. If you want those, Holman’s newer Optimal Type, Digital Study Edition of the same Bible adds an end-of-page cross-reference system and free digital access to the CSB Study Bible.

Who This Bible Is For

If you study from the NKJV or the KJV and want a second translation to read beside it, this is the one I’d hand you. It reads easily, and its footnotes show you exactly where it differs from the text you already know.

If you want giant print without hauling a pulpit Bible around, the personal size is a good compromise.

If you want study notes, buy a study Bible and keep this one for reading.

A Pastoral Word

Psalm 1 opens with a picture of the blessed man.

“But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.”

Psalm 1:2, NKJV

The word for “meditates” is hagah (הָגָה, H1897). It means to murmur, to mutter, to speak under your breath. Isaiah uses the same verb for the low growl of a lion standing over its prey (Isaiah 31:4). He has hold of it, and he means to keep it.

That picture is why I keep a reading Bible. Study has its place, and I’ll go on preparing lessons with the NKJV and a stack of reference books. But Psalm 1 says nothing about how much the blessed man knows. It says he delights in the law of the LORD and keeps it on his lips day and night. Verse 3 says he will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, bearing fruit in its season.

Whatever translation you love, read it like that man. Read it slowly, out loud when you can, and come back to it the next day. For me, most days, that means the CSB, with the NKJV open beside it.

Recommended.