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 ...

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 the ...

Bible that qualified as a "study Bible" was the '' Geneva Bible''; 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'', 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 The Scofield Reference Bible is a widely circulated study Bible edited and annotated by the American Bible student Cyrus I. Scofield, which popularized dispensationalism at the beginning of the 20th century. Published by Oxford University Press ...

'', first printed by

Cyrus Scofield Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (August 19, 1843 – July 24, 1921) was an American theologian, minister, and writer whose best-selling annotated Bible popularized futurism and dispensationalism among fundamentalist Christians. Biography Childh ...

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 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, 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. Dispensationali ...

among

fundamentalist Christians Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and ...

. A new version, the

Recovery Version The Recovery Version is a modern English translation of the Bible from the original languages, published by Living Stream Ministry. It is the commonly used translation of the local churches. The New Testament was published in 1985 with stu ...

, 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 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 ...

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 deuterocanonica ...

'' is a widely respected study Bible originally made by French

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 French edition of 1961 became the basis of versions of this study Bible in several other languages, including English, revised as the '' New Jerusalem Bible''; 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 Publ ...

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, a ...

'' has six million in distribution and that it is the world's best selling study Bible. The ''

ESV Study Bible The ''ESV Study Bible'' (abbreviated as ESVSB) is a study Bible published by Crossway. It features the text of the English Standard Version, along with study notes from a perspective of "classic evangelical orthodoxy, in the historic stream of ...

'' 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 ''The Green Bible'' is an English version of the New Revised Standard Version Bible with a focus on environmental issues and teachings. It was originally published by Harper Bibles on October 7, 2008. It is a study Bible featuring a foreword by ...

'', an English version of the ''New Revised Standard Version Bible'' (originally published by

Harper Bibles HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News C ...

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 the ...

and

doctrine Doctrine (from la, doctrina, meaning "teaching, instruction") is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a belief syste ...

* 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 A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...

and charts that illustrate the Holy Land 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 t ...

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 ...

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 the ...

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, ...

, and

Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...

, 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 fo ...

in a modern textual eclectic translation, or marking those passages present which are missing in the Alexandrian text-type 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 engines to enable users to find Bible passages by keyword and by theme.

References

{{Reflist

History

Features

Study Bible software

References

Further reading