Five years has gone by since I last reviewed a Bible. During that time a new Bible publisher, Humble Lamb, has entered the premium Bible marketplace. Their stuff is different than what we’ve come to expect from the likes of the big three premium Bible publishers, Allan, Schuyler and Cambridge. You can’t mistake a Humble Lamb Bible for a Bible coming from, really, any other publisher. There also seems to have been a lot of progress in the Bible rebind marketplace. Rebinders have mastered the craft of replicating the designs of the big premium Bible publishers. Yet no rebind exists that successfully clones the Humble Lamb design. It is one of a kind. A unique offering set apart from the rest.
Take a look at the recently released “refreshed” NKJV Shepherd Bible from Humble Lamb. This is one of five hundred copies, a special edition collaboration between Tim Wildsmith and Humble Lamb. Tim was offered an opportunity to design his own unique Humble Lamb Bible. He chose the Shepherd “refresh” for the project. He took an existing color scheme that you can purchase right now at Humble Lamb that has “Sahara Blue” (a dark navy) for the cover and a tan goatskin liner. He reversed it, placing the tan as the cover, and the dark blue as the inside liner. The book has some other unique aspects that you will see in the pictures below. Please know that this limited edition book is sold out. But you can still order a copy of the Shepherd Bible right now at Humble Lamb.
The spine features raised hubs, and the text “The Word of God” in gold lettering.
Most premium Bible publisher use art gilt page edges. Some sort of color (red, blue, green) with gold or silver foil added to the page edges. When the Bible is open you see the color red, when closed, you see the gold. Humble Lamb is famous for their custom artwork on the page edges. When the book is open you see our good Shepherd Jesus rescuing the little lamb from the advances of the hungry wolf.
When the book is closed, you kind of see the depiction, but the gold is more obvious.
Inside of the Bible, there are 66 illustrations from Gustave Doré. Here are five of them as examples:
This book features a goatskin cover. But what makes it unique is that it also features a goatskin liner. Schuyler and Allan primarily use calfskin liners, and many of the Cambridge liners are synthetic materials.
A closer look at the goatskin liner with natural sunlight letting the dark navy blue shine through:
This limited edition has a custom lamb themed stamp on the back liner.
In this photo you can see the Schuyler calfskin liner and the Humble Lamb goatskin liner. Both are wonderful.
The text block features a single column paragraph layout with words of Christ in blue. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Bible’s that use blue in lieu of red for the word’s of Christ. But I don’t recall seeing blue in any of the editions put out by Allan, Schuyler or Cambridge. It truly is easier on the eyes, and the printing of the blue text is consistent throughout. Sadly, that isn’t always the case with the red letter editions that come out of the Netherlands. On some pages the red letters are heavily faded while on others they are dark and clear. I wish they would fix that, as it’s become one of the first things I look for when I get a Schuyler Bible.
The box is well designed, probably the nicest box I’ve ever received a Bible in.
This special edition has a blind stamp of a shepherd staff on the back cover.
Now let’s look at some of the bells and whistles that Humble Lamb shares with other premium Bibles. Amenities that are expected from a $200+ price-point. This edition has a full yapp goatskin cover with perimeter stiching, a gold perimeter line, three 3/8″ satin ribbons in navy blue, 14 color bible maps, a concordance, line matching, and of course a Smyth-sewn binding.
There are cross references and they reside in the outer margins.
Did I mention, full yapp?
The book is edge lined, it does not lay flat in Genesis because of this.
There are a few issues with my copy worth mentioning:
It may be difficult for you to see, but there are some small glue marks on the spine, look above “D” in God.
The paper is wavy at the bottom. I’ve had this issue with Bible paper in past. From what I understand it is related to how the paper is cut.
The copy I received has issues with the first pages being wrinkled. This is a limited edition, how do I exchange it even if this option was possible? A limited edition should showcase a publishers best work. Let’s be honest, the premium Bible community is very picky about wrinkled pages. This book would be met with negative feedback if sold on Ebay without pictures and explanations notifying the buyer of the flaws.
Thankfully by the time you get to Genesis the issue goes away.
I also noticed a review for the Humble Lamb Shepherd “refresh” that claims there is a misprint in Numbers 34:14, and that the publisher knew about it BEFORE they published this project. I am curious to know Humble Lamb’s response. Multiple reviewers claim they alerted Humble Lamb of the printing issue in past printings of the Shepherd. If that is true, they cannot claim ignorance. And if they knew about it why didn’t they fix it with this recent “refreshed” printing? Especially if they knew the book would be featured on a popular Bible reviewers channel with ten’s of thousands of views?
Sure enough, it is there on page 235. Can you spot the issue?
Clue:gadaccordingtothehouseoftheirfathers, havereceivedtheirinheristance are not actual words and they do not make it past spell check.
What does all of this mean?
The answer to this question is simple. There is room for progress. To Humble Lambs credit they have already made a ton of progress. Each release seems to feature improvements over earlier iterations. Personally I cannot wait to get my hands on the forthcoming NLT Sunrise edition coming later this month. And in fairness, one could easily receive a copy of an Allan, Schuyler or Cambridge premium book that has glue on the cover, defects to the art gilt page edges, wrinkled pages, issues with the ribbons, faded red letter text, etc. That’s the reality of the hand made premium Bible market. There really aren’t any perfect examples out there. Take a book that appears to be a perfect example, show it to a room full of premium Bible collectors, someone will spot a flaw.
I don’t really fault Humble Lamb for the issues raised above. Yet, I cannot say I have seen any other reviewers mentioning them. I’ll let you chew on that. The current status of reviewing Bibles has come a long way from the day’s of Mark Bertrand and Randy Brown. Reviewers have nothing but great things to say. And reviewers are even in business with the publishers themselves. At least we still have RL. Allan. They’re sitting in their London office forwarding emails from Bible YouTube reviewers to their “spam”folder. God bless them.
I cannot recommend the Humble Lamb Shepherd enough. It is awesome and if you can afford it, and need a NKJV in your collection, it is worth the purchase.
Some more photos for your enjoyment:
The Religious Nerd 