A Reader's Hebrew and Greek Bible: Second Edition Hardcover – May 19, 2020

Great study tool

I learned Greek and Hebrew in my graduate studies and anyone who has done that knows the great joy it is to be able to read the original languages of scripture. With the footnotes, though, getting through the text becomes much easier than if you simply have an NA28 or BHS. To echo what other reviewers have said, I also think that the new binding is a big plus over the previous edition - the book is so large that with a leather or trutone binding it can be a bit cumbersome. With the cloth over board, it fits well in your hands, feels more durable, and in my view is an improvement. However, one might say that calling it a "second edition" was not really necessary since the actual text is essentially the same as the previous - just the binding and the material used for the pages is different (as far as I can tell). The font is a good size as well. Any bigger and the book really would have been exceptionally large. But any smaller and it would be too hard to read. So I feel like they struck a good balance here.One thing that they could have done better in making this was include the BHQ texts of the Hebrew books that have already been released as of 2020 (Ruth, Proverbs, Deuteronomy, the 12 Minor Prophets, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Judges, and Ezra-Nehemiah) rather than the BHS that was in the previous edition. All of those BHQ texts had been released as of the time that this was being produced, so they could have easily updated these books and made it a true "second edition" with some significant updates that have come from recent years of scholarship on these books. All of the BHQ Old Testament will probably not be out until 2030 or so, but those particular books have been available for a while. I assume that there was a reason for this, and perhaps Zondervan was not allowed to use the BHQ texts in this volume since the BHQ texts are so new, but that is really the only area for improvement that I can think of.It would be a great addition to anyone's library who has at least two semesters of the languages.

I am excited to have purchased this book. I graduated from seminary over a decade ago, and I have definitely lost a lot of my proficiency with Greek and Hebrew. I have been looking for something to help get back into the flow of things, and this just might be it.The book contains both the Hebrew and Greek scriptures, which makes it several inches thick. On the plus side, the whole Bible is there in one book. However, it's not as portable as I'd like it to be. But that is the only downside I've discovered so far.The pages and hard over are of really good quality--they just feel good in your hands. The Hebrew and Greek fonts used are very readable, better than my critical editions. Some other reviewers have commented negatively on the yellow paper, but it hasn't been an issue with me. (Your results may vary.)The text itself has footnotes with quick definitions for all infrequent words (occurring <100x for Hebrew, <30x for Greek), so you don't have to look up that one word in the passage that, as it turns out, is a hapax legomenon or something. Each Testament also has a short lexicon with quick definitions for every word not defined in the footnotes. So in theory you should be able to look up any word quickly and easily just with this book. As an added bonus, infrequently occurring names in the Hebrew Bible are indicated in a light grey font, so again, you can quickly see that it's a name instead of getting frustrated trying to translate it as a regular noun.One word about usage: This is not an "academic" book per se. That is, you're not going to be able to do detailed word studies or compare manuscript variants with this book. Even the definitions are just quick glosses, meant to get you down the road, not to provide technical etymological information. The purpose of this book is to help you read and familiarize yourself with the original-language text, or, like me, to keep your language skills sharp. And I believe that it will do this well.

Great for reading. No complaints here.

They greatly improved the font (ie. a kappa looks like a kappa) and the yellowish pages are easier on the eyes. I really like it.

The Zondervan Greek/Hebrew Reader's has been a classic for students of biblical languages, who desire a full biblical text (WLC for OT/Eclectic text (NIV) for NT) with the helps and assist of a Reader's edition. The first edition (black, bonded leather) has been a mainstay for a number of years. This new release (second edition) updates a few things from the previous edition.The second edition comes in a cloth-bound hardcover, which is an upgrade in my opinion from the previous editions bonded leather cover. The cover provides structure to the updated and improved binding. The fonts have been updated across the board, they are bolder and easier to read. This editions brings a lot of great updates and improvements on the first edition.Unfortunately, the glosses provided at the bottom of each page are organized in paragraph form, rather than in columns (UBS5), which makes it a bit difficult to find the footnote number and word you're searching for.Another big change is the paper color. The first edition had a bright white paper, the second edition is a deep creamy yellow paper. While I'm a fan of how readable this edition is (due to font changes), I feel the paper is way too yellow than it should be. (check pics see the difference).All in all, if you can deal with the yellow paper, this is a fantastic edition to have for reading in the biblical languages. **bible graciously provided by Zondervan for an honest review