A study Bible is an edition of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts o ...

prepared for use by a serious student of the Bible. It provides scholarly information designed to help the reader gain a better understanding of and context for the text.

History

Perhaps the first edition of an

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to t ...

Bible that qualified as a "study Bible" was the ''

Geneva Bible The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into English, preceding the King James Version by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of 16th-century English Protestantism and was used by William Shakespea ...

''; it contained extensive cross-references, synopses, and doctrinal points. The text of the ''Geneva Bible'' was usually not printed without the commentary, though the Cambridge edition was printed without commentary. The

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

disputed some of the statements made in the Geneva Bible annotations. This led to the creation of the ''

King James Bible The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of K ...

'', which was typically printed with a much less extensive apparatus or none at all. Several commentators have supplied annotated ''King James Bibles'' containing their own points of view, but unlike the ''Geneva Bible'', these commentaries are not as thoroughly integrated into the text. Another historically significant study Bible was the '' Scofield Reference Bible'', first printed by Cyrus Scofield in 1909. This study Bible became widely popular in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, where it spread the interpretation system known as

dispensationalism Dispensationalism is a system that was formalized in its entirety by John Nelson Darby. Dispensationalism maintains that history is divided into multiple ages or "dispensations" in which God acts with humanity in different ways. Dispensational ...

among fundamentalist Christians. A new version, the Recovery Version, was published in 1985. It holds a similar interpretation, and this study Bible has a very large number of cross-references and explanatory and interpretative footnotes. Nearly all

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

Bibles have explanatory and interpretative footnotes. For example, the ''

Jerusalem Bible ''The Jerusalem Bible'' (JB or TJB) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd. As a Catholic Bible, it includes 73 books: the 39 books shared with the Hebrew Bible, along with the seven deuterocanonical ...

'' is a widely respected study Bible originally made by

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

s in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

, under the auspices of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. The original

edition of 1961 became the basis of versions of this study Bible in several other languages, including English, revised as the ''

New Jerusalem Bible ''The New Jerusalem Bible'' (NJB) is an English-language translation of the Bible published in 1985 by Darton, Longman and Todd and Les Editions du Cerf, edited by Benedictine biblical scholar Henry Wansbrough, and approved for use in study and ...

''; some versions have more extensive notes than others. Logos International published the '' Logos International Study Bible'' in 1972. Based on the 1901 '' American Standard Bible'', it is essentially an updated version of ''The Cross-Reference Bible'', published before 1929 and edited by Harold E. Monser. It includes an unusually large number of cross-references, in-text articles, and treatment of variant readings.

Zondervan Zondervan is an international Christian media and publishing company located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Zondervan is a founding member of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA). They are a part of HarperCollins Christian Pu ...

claims that its ''

NIV Study Bible The NIV Study Bible is a study Bible originally published by Zondervan in 1985 that uses the New International Version (NIV). Revisions include one in 1995, a full revision in 2002, an update in October 2008 for the 30th anniversary of the NIV, an ...

'' has six million in distribution and that it is the world's best selling study Bible. The '' ESV Study Bible'' is a recent addition which sold well in its pre-release phase, in the fall of 2008. In recent times, study Bibles focusing on specific aspects of the Biblical message, have appeared, such as '' The Green Bible'', an English version of the ''New Revised Standard Version Bible'' (originally published by Harper Bibles on October 7, 2008), which focuses on environmental issues and teachings.

Features

A study Bible usually contains such features as: * Annotations explaining difficult passages or points of

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing th ...

and

doctrine Doctrine (from la, Wikt:doctrina, doctrina, meaning "teaching, instruction") is a codification (law), codification of beliefs or a body of teacher, teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given ...

* Articles and short biographies or character studies of Biblical people, places, and topics * A concordance, a word index that indicates where various keywords are used in the Bible * Contextual setting, including discussion of culture, customs, history, and timelines that relate Bible history to world history * Harmonies of the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

s, pointing out parallel incidents in the life of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

* Illustrations of locations and artifacts * Introductions and historical notes for each book of the Bible * Life/practical application * Maps and charts that illustrate the

Holy Land The Holy Land; Arabic: or is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. The term "Ho ...

during Biblical times and may show the same areas today * References or cross-references, to indicate where one passage of the text relates to others * Variant readings or interpretations of certain debatable passages, or possible conjectural emendations (i.e., alterations based on a

philological Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as ...

expert's "educated guess" of the likely form of the original Hebrew or Greek, when the translators feel this is not sufficiently clear, possible translations from other ancient versions such as the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

Targumim A targum ( arc, תרגום 'interpretation, translation, version') was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ''Tanakh'') that a professional translator ( ''mǝturgǝmān'') would give in the common language of th ...

Peshitta The Peshitta ( syc, ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ ''or'' ') is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, including the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the ...

, and

Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus&nbs ...

, readings from other manuscript families, such as marking those passages missing which are present in the

Byzantine text-type In the textual criticism of the New Testament, the Byzantine text-type (also called Majority Text, Traditional Text, Ecclesiastical Text, Constantinopolitan Text, Antiocheian Text, or Syrian Text) is one of the main text types. It is the form f ...

in a modern textual eclectic translation, or marking those passages present which are missing in the

Alexandrian text-type In textual criticism of the New Testament, the Alexandrian text-type is one of the main text types. It is the text type favored by the majority of modern textual critics and it is the basis for most modern (after 1900) Bible translations. Over ...

and the modern critical text in a translation from the

Textus Receptus ''Textus Receptus'' (Latin: "received text") refers to all printed editions of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus's '' Novum Instrumentum omne'' (1516) to the 1633 Elzevir edition. It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant deno ...

or Byzantine text-type, etc.) * Word definitions to explain difficult or complex words and ideas

Study Bible software

Study Bible software is also available which can aid readers in the study of the Bible. This software normally includes several

Bible translations The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. all of the Bible has been translated into 724 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,617 languages, a ...

, commentaries, Bible Dictionaries, maps and other content. They also include

search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

s to enable users to find Bible passages by keyword and by theme.

References

{{Reflist

History

Features

Study Bible software

References

Further reading