R. L. Allan's Oxford Brevier Blackface Reference Edition
It's appeared several photos. I've mentioned it a time or two. But until now, I've never posted my thoughts on the Oxford Brevier Blackface Reference Edition from R. L. Allan. This is quite an omission, considering the Brevier Blackface was the first Bible I ever purchased from R. L. Allan, the beginning of the affair, so to speak. So why the long silence? It's one of those love/hate situations. If you think of this edition as the child of Allan's and Oxford, I love what Allan's contributed to the gene pool and feel pretty ambivalent about the Oxford chromosome. It all comes down to one little word: blackface. Whether you love or hate this edition depends entirely on how dark you like your text. If you don't like cream in your coffee or moon in your night, the Brevier Blackface might be the ticket. For everyone else, I recommend the Longprimer.First, let me explain why I chose Oxford over Cambridge. R. L. Allan offers its own editions from both publishers, and there are actually more options to choose from on the Cambridge side of the equation. The Oxford settings of the KJV tend to look a bit antiquated, as well, both because of the font and the self-pronouncing feature, which might be nice when reading aloud, but doesn't do the intelligibility of the page any favors. Still, I chose an Oxford edition for variety's sake. By the time I discovered Allan's, I already had a shelf full of Cambridge KJVs!