KJV Thompson Chain Reference Bible (Review) by @jongolson on 3Speak
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Hey guys, welcome back to the kingdom Bible reviews. I am here with a, not necessarily a brand new Bible, because I've actually had this for a while. But, like, pretty much everyone on the hunt for the next one, the next perfect Bible, this kind of fell into my pile of Bibles. It's not that I didn't appreciate this Bible. It's just that it's taken a while to get to know how to use it. And you'll understand here in a second as I dive into it. A few notes about this. This is the King James Version Thompson chain reference from Zondervin, and it's in this brown calf skin leather. And where's the box, you're probably asking? I did not buy this with a box, and it's a reason why I got this. I got this Bible super discounted at a local Christian Bible, sorry, a local Christian bookstore. And the reason I got this is this seemed to be such an amazing price for what, not only it's a Thompson chain reference, which is arguably the best self-staffed. study, Bible study Bible out there. This is a fantastic product. It's been around for so long. Zondervin has recently taken over the rights to it, and it's just a favorite of people that want to dive into scripture. But the reason I got this, not only again, like I said, you know, I don't have a Thompson chain, and I thought it would be great, is that this seemed to be... as premium as it gets without paying Thompson, sorry not Thompson, Thomas Nelson Premier Collection prices. I know they offer this in the Premier Collection, not only in the KJV, but also in a host of other translations. And I saw this for so cheap, I had to grab it, because... I felt this, it just came like this. There was, there was like a sale sticker on. There's nothing wrong with it. It's, it's got tab indexes and everything. There's nothing wrong with it, per se. I guess they just had, they bought a bunch of these, and we're just trying to get rid of them. So I got this super cheap. The retail price, I think, on Amazon, is around $100 for this, because this is a super soft calf skin leather, and it is edge-lined. I'll go over everything in a second here, but that is why I got this. Now, this is not going to be a review of how to use the Thompson. Truth be told, I'm still getting used to using this, so I am definitely not the expert. I highly recommend guys like Randy Brown from Bible Buying Guide. That guy's pretty much the go-to expert when it comes to using this. He's even written a... a help or a journal on how to use this also what inspired me to do this review was from my good buddy over at the Bible stack he did a review and he started doing training kind of lessons how to use the Thompson, which I thought was fantastic, and I learned a lot by watching that as well. But this didn't come with a box. So I don't have the particulars from it. I do have the ISBN. Obviously, the ISBN is on the back here inside, so that's the ISBN. So like you can see, like the ISBN on this thing isn't even printed on the outside. It's on the inside. So this is not a premier collection, but... Man, I'm telling you, even, like, even here it says calf skin leather on the in the inside, in the inside cover as well. Like, this is just a really nice piece of leather, brown. It's got the raised spine hubs on it. You can see there, Thompson Chain reference, KJV and by Zondervin, but, you know, perimeter stitched. uh you've got brand that i guess that maybe that's not a huge deal breaker i mean i maybe that's why it was so discounted it it kind of separated uh from the the the headband here not a huge deal maybe for aesthetics purposes people might not like it but it comes with the two brown and gold, really nice ribbon markers. Like, these are, this is the same type of ribbon, double satin ribbons, excuse me, that would come in a premier collection. So, this is not a premier collection, but the price I paid for this, guys, I literally paid $30 for this. I mean, 30 bucks for an edged line Thompson chain reference. I'll go over the particulars like I showed you guys here. This is the ISBN, so if you want to pause it and have a look, you can check out the ISBN right there. I did not have a box, so I went searching. I went searching for what this is, and I found my cheat sheet here. I'll go over the particulars. I found this on Amazon, so it is the complete text, the King James version. Easy to understand chain reference system with over 100,000 references. alphabetical and numerical indexes, highlight the study materials for over 8,000 topics, each with its own topic number for exhaustive topical study, which is what makes the Thompson chain so... valuable. An extensive study resource section includes biographical sketches, illustrated studies of the Bible, concordance, Bible harmonies, and many other helpful study tools. It's got a two-color page design. You'll see that when I open it up. 66 book introductions to each book of the Bible. 16 full-color maps with a map indexed. It's line-matched. It's got the double columns, but then the references on the inside outside, so it's technically a four column. Words of Jesus are in red in this one. It's got the presentation page, like I said, the raised spine hubs, the double satin ribbon markers, each 3 eighths inch wide, genuine leather cover. which this is, again, really, really nice. And the comfort print from Thomas Nelson, aka Donnervin, and then the print size is a 10.5. So that's all the information I got on this. Again, I'm not going to go over how to use this thing, because I'm still learning how to use this. But just to give you guys kind of an overview of this. KJV Thompson chain reference. So like really nice brown caskin leather, nice grain on it. It's, it is thin, it's not a thick piece of leather, but it's very soft, flexible, and like I said, it is edgeline. So it is edgelined, out of the box, even though. I don't have a box. So open it up, we got the presentation page, the title page there, Thompson Chain reference, and it's got a nice little, you know, Psalm 119105 there to let you know you're about the dive into the word. I always appreciate that. Publishers title page here, it is the revised and updated from... the original compiled and edited by Frank Charles Thompson. And this is here, it says, the original and complete system of Bible study. It is, this is, this is a legendary Bible. And I've been talking to a few friends of mine, and you can see that, like, it lays flat, like, right there. You push it down a little bit, even lay a little bit flatter. But, um... Yeah, I've been talking to a lot of friends of mine that are familiar with this, and they absolutely love it. They say it's the greatest study system you can dive into. The best thing about this is that it's pretty much unbiased. any denomination, any Christian denomination can go into this, and they're not going to find things that they agree with in district. Well, I'm, you know, I'm sure there might be people, but generally, this is not a study Bible with people's opinions on it. It's just, it's a really, really unbiased way of looking at scripture, which I really appreciate. Anyways, I forgot to mention, this is red under gold. This is red under gold for 30 bucks. And it's even got... um the indexes this has got the index tabs too so forgot to mention that uh while we're diving in the crinkle pages it's there nothing huge uh but here we get into the particulars this is printed in china copyright a whole bunch of different copyrights i don't know when this one for well 2022 is that is that how you would read that someone in the comments can let me know i i don't know how to read that but it's it's not brand new that's for sure Here is, we get into the contents page. Now, the paper, you can definitely tell that it's not premium paper. It's good. There is a bit of show-through, excuse me, here with the camera and the lighting and stuff, but generally, when you're reading this, it's not bad at all. But this is definitely not premium Bible paper. I won't even guess the GSM, but it's finish. but still really good, really, it's quality, it's not top quality, but you'll, you could, you could tell by, uh, you know, feeling this one and then feeling... you know, a premier collection from Thomas Nelson is definitely a different paper. But you have the contents here, introduction to the Thompson chain reference, which is great. Definitely read this if you're going to get this Bible, revise, an updated edition, kind of go over that as well. Understanding the margins, the indexes, and the other Bible helps, abbreviations, the special markings, how to use the Thompson, Thompson. Thompson chain reference Bible. This, once you get the hang of it, apparently, it's really easy. I'm still learning, so again, I caution you, I'm not going to go into exactly how to use it, because I'll probably mess that up. I just wanted to go over what's inside with this brown goat skin, not even goat skin, calf skin leather edition here. More than a century of Bible, rich biblical tradition, kind of going over the history of... the Bible as well. So you have the Old Testament, you have this kind of in between the Testaments, then the New Testament, and then all of the Bible helps, which we'll go over briefly with a bunch of them. So you get into all of the Bible helps that will happen at the end of the Bible here, and at the end, you'll see that it's got the helps tab. So right at the end there, this is, that is how much you get, Bible helps. Like, so. Really, really cool. All of the topics are in here. All of the chain reference pilot numbers, as Randy Brown calls them. And that's about the extent of how expert I'm going to sound doing this video, guys. So, but it's sizable. It's definitely sizable. So the Thompson Chain explanation on how to use it. 8,000 topical listings, 100,000 marginal references. Crazy, crazy amount of stuff here. Yeah, it's revised and updated edition kind of going over, I guess, why they went from one publisher to Zondervin and what's been done to this version. Understanding the margins, the indexes, and the other Bible helps. Special abbreviations. This is a nice little article, two-page article, to kind of give you a good overview of what to expect. Page is really easy to turn, too. How to Use It, this is a nice little article as well. required reading, and then the history of the Thompson Chain reference. Old Testament is here, and then each book, like it said, it had book introductions. Each book has detailed, detailed book introductions. So you have the author, the date written, the purpose, main theme, key verses, keywords, and then a synopsis, excuse me, of the entire book, which is really, really nice to get a good... Now again, like I said, while this is unbiased, you will have some, okay, that's kind of contradicting myself, isn't it? It's not unbiased, but there is biases. Generally, this is pretty accepted as book introductions. There will be some stuff I'm sure some people will find that they don't agree with, and you've got to expect that with any type of study Bible. But this is not, it doesn't have... scholars and theologians writing their comments on it. This is self-guided study, which is amazing. So far, what I've done. the limited amount that I've done with it. So here you go, here's the layout. You can see the first book of Moses called Genesis, and you can see it's got the two column verse by verse, but it's got all of the pilot numbers and references in the margins on the outside. So the layout is very similar to the TBS, and everyone's raving about the TBS right now, or the, excuse me, the Westminster TBS. same type of layout with the four columns, so two columns of text and margins and references on the outside. So I'll show you here just going in. There's the two colors, like they mentioned, you got this nice dark red, as well as, so that will give you all of the numbers, the pilot numbers inside of the margins here that will help you start the chain studies, and then the text is black. The verse numbers are still in black, too. It would have been nice to see those. in red, but what they did is they kind of put new paragraphs in red, which is cool. Usually it's bolded in some of them. So, like I said, there's a lot of premium features in this, but it's not a premium Bible. So we will skip ahead here to some poetry so you guys can see. It is a single column, or single column, sorry, it's double column, no poetic settings. Very simple layout, very classic KJV layout. Again, I love, I've mentioned this before. My favorite layout in a Bible is center column reference, but I do really appreciate this and in the TBS West Minister, just the ease of where everything is laid out. So while the center column to me is my favorite, because it's just, it's really easy, it's, it's intuitive. This is just like that for me. Very simple. Everything here. Boom, follow along. Here, here. So it's, everything is up there. Everything is here. Easy to find your references and your pilot numbers. Now, again, I'm not going to go over how to use this because I will mess this up and I will lead you down the wrong path and I don't want to do this. Definitely check out Randy Brown Bible buying guide for his overview of how to use this. And there's also the Bible stacked at a great little tutorial on how to use this as well. Loads of people. a lot smarter than me when it comes to this. Definitely go check out their videos if you're interested in learning how to use this. Again, what I've learned in my limited time using this, like actually using this for study, it's been fantastic. Just because you can follow the chain references from Genesis to Revelation on any topic, there's 8,000 topics. Like, I was looking at doing a study on fatherhood this weekend, because I just, I wanted to, you know, be a better father for my kids and be a better husband for my wife. And the study that I did here, it was self-guided. There was no one, you know, looking over my shoulder. It was me and the Holy Spirit just into it, and it was great. I absolutely loved it. So, well, again, like I said, this is not super quality paper, but it's great for $30. You can turn it really easy. There's no show through. And here's the red letter so you guys can have a look at the red letter. So all of the verse numbers are in black, but then new paragraphs are in red. So it kind of goes, it keeps it, what was doing in the Old Testament there in the new. Red is good, very standard throughout. No, no light and dark reds throughout, as far as I can see. Again, I've owned this for a while, but this weekend in the past couple of weeks, have been really the time I've been using this the most, and it's just been, it's been really, really rewarding. So I'll just get to the end of Revelation here to show you guys that it is red letter throughout, all the way to the end of Revelation. We have our red letter. So you look at that, page 1,500. There's, I think, 2,000-something pages. What is it, 3,000 something? Let me see. There is 2,000 pages in this, and 1,500 of it was for the Bible, so that's 500 pages of comprehensive Bible helps, principles of Bible study, methods of study, alphabetical index of topics. Here is what the Thompson is so famous for, the numerical index of topics, fantastic stuff, condensed outline of the Bible. Bible character studies, Bible harmonies, illustrated studies, Hebrew time, seasons, and festivals. You do have a concordance. I'll show that here in a second. And then huge. Not only did get the color maps, there's a map index with this as well. Just great. Fantastic stuff. So lots of, lots of stuff. And again, you're going to find stuff, I'm sure, if you really, really dig, that you don't agree with. And that's kind of, you know. When it comes to these type of Bibles, these type of study Bibles, you're going to get that. But this is, this is pretty much as unbiased as they can get. So here's your alphabetical index and then your numerical index. Again, read the articles. I'm not even going to attempt to show you guys how to do this, because I'll mess it up. But tons of information, 8,000 topics, 100 ,000 references, just... jam-packed with stuff. And then you get to the back here, and you've got Bible Character Studies, you got all of these different journeys, maps with the journeys, journeys of Gideon, Journeys of Samuel, Jesus in His Hours Upon the Cross, Paul's journeys, timelines, I mean, it's just jam-packed. But here I wanted to show you guys. Oh, you get a couple of, sorry, I forgot to mention, you get a couple of notes, too, pages of notes. I think it's about 10 or so. It's on that same Bible paper, nothing too extravagant, but it's there if you need it. Yeah, it's about 10, 10 double-sided pages, so that's nice. And then you have your maps. With the map index is a little bit ahead here. Sorry. This is the map index here. You have the map index, very detailed map index. Oh, sorry, I forgot to show the concordance, just in case. Three column concordance. It's got the red highlight on top. Very nice, very, very, very, very, a really good concordance to really add to all of the study helps you get in this. And then you get the 16 full-color maps. It's on this glossy, glossy, glossy paper. So thick cardstock at the end. And then that's it. There's nothing really, just the edge line here at the end, and then you get your vinyl cover, the back, and then that's it. So just amazing, really, really nice vibe. I'll give you guys some measurements here, just so you can kind of get an idea of what we're working with. We're looking at 6 and 3 quarters by... 9 and 3 quarters, and then the thickness, about an inch and a quarter. So it's thick, but it's not any thicker than some of those personal size premier collections that I've been reviewing over the past couple of months. Just, you know, it's, it's a large Bible for sure, but it's not, it's not overwhelming at all. Not much of a little bit of a yet, but anyways, fantastic stuff. Again, what I paid for it was 30 bucks. I think these things retail for like 100 bucks on Amazon, maybe a little bit more. But the fact that this is edge-lined, it's got the red under gold, thumb-indexed, just a really, really nice Bible. And I'm looking forward to this year, diving into the Thompson, learning more about it, and getting deeper into God's Word, which is always the goal. I'm of all these videos and everything I do with my time with scripture, is just to get to know God and his character, and all glory to him for sure. Thank you guys for watching. Again, if you're looking for how to use the Thompson Chain reference, I highly recommend checking out a Bible buying guide, as well as the Bible stack, and I'll put some links in the description for you guys to go check out their channels too. Thanks for watching.