Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Bible Study Tools

  • The 24/7 One Year Chronological Bible

    The greatest difficulty I have in reviewing this Bible edition is distinguishing between what interests me and what might be helpful for people who are wanting to put more spark in their Bible study.

    24/7: A One Year Chronological Bible from Tyndale House is directed at a particular purpose, and it fulfills that purpose quite well.  I tend to emphasize the translation in discussing Bibles, but individual readers tend to look for a particular edition, often buying a Bible not for the translation, the Biblical text it uses, but for the features of that edition.  What most people look for in a Bible edition is a single volume that will generally be “their” Bible for study, for reading, for use in church–pretty much everything.

    If you look at this Bible from that point of view, it’s not going to make it.  It doesn’t have any study notes (no surprise), and it would be very difficult to find verses as needed.

    My point is not to criticize this edition for not doing what it does not intend to do, but rather to emphasize that it’s good for a particular purpose.  It provides a new approach to reading the Bible through and becoming acquainted with its story.

    There are a number of ways to think of the Bible story.  One is to think of the books are they are collected and put together, the story of the formation of the Bible. This is important, and relates to the process of canonization and thus to the history of the church, our community of faith.  Another way is to look for theological themes.  This Bible provides a way to address the story line, the record of how God has acted.

    In addition, it’s designed for the spiritual discipline of Bible reading.  Biblical materials are arranged chronologically, so that you will hear Psalms in the editors best guess as to where they belong, and you will read the messages of the prophets at the time when they were written.

    There are some obvious difficulties with this approach, one being that not everyone will agree on where things belong.  Psalm 104 is placed with a large group of Psalms, some other wisdom literature, and portions of (1st) Isaiah just after the fall of the northern kingdom.  I know of people who would argue both substantially earlier and substantially later.  Obviously they have to put it somewhere, and that’s not a bad choice.

    Several books whose dating might be controversial are placed in traditional positions.  The book of Jonah is placed right after the narration of the reign of Jeroboam II with a note that Jonah’s ministry occurred during this period, which assumes that the book is not pseudonymous, and many scholars believe.  All of second and third Isaiah is placed inside the reign of Hezekiah, and Daniel is placed in the late 7th/early 6th century.

    These aren’t bad choices, as the reasoning for other dating would have to be explained to the average Bible reader, and there is also an argument for hearing the books in one sense as they were intended to hear.  Whether pseudonymous or not, Jonah bears the name of a prophet from the reign of Jeroboam II, Isaiah internally claims to be written in a period spanning the reign of Hezekiah, and Daniel provides a 7th-6th century chronology for itself.  Nonetheless, I think it’s worth noting.

    Now let me get more to the purpose of the book.  It’s intended to provide a year long reading program, allowing the reading to experience the Bible story in a new way, one that would be very hard to do normally.  I think that’s a laudable goal, and the editors are completely successful.  This shouldn’t be your first reading Bible, but if you’ve read the Bible through at least once, it will be a good way to experience it again.

    One of the great errors of many deep Bible students is to get so focused on the trees (such as the details I discussed above) that they don’t get a picture of the story.  This Bible will help fulfill that need.

    Positives:

    1. Single column text aids reading
    2. Good arrangement with readings identified in the text.  There’s a guide in the back, but you won’t have to use it.
    3. Use of the NLT text.  The NLT is extremely well suited for a Bible of this type
    4. Approximate timeline
    5. It isn’t your “carry to church” Bible and it nowhere pretends that it is.

    Neutral:

    1. There is a Christian symbol chosen and featured each month of reading.  This doesn’t do anything for me, but I’m guessing it will for others.
    2. Scripture index, necessary for looking up particular texts, but not needed for the main purpose of the book.

    Negative:

    1. Size and print size. This could also be positive, but it strikes me as negative based on the purpose.  It’s a bit small.  That makes it portable, which could be useful, but at the same time a bit harder to read and to use.
    2. Binding.  I don’t know about this, but my wife believes the binding will not be durable enough if one is reading through it in the year.

    Since I cited my wife, I should mention her other comments.  She didn’t like the print and binding that much, but she very much liked the idea of having a Bible arranged chronologically.  She thinks more devotionally than I do, so that’s worth mentioning.

    Despite the comments on binding and print, in general this is a wonderful addition to the available tools for students of the Bible.

    Now we just need to start using them.  We are richer in Bible study tools right now in the English language, yet our Biblical knowledge continues to deteriorate.  That indicates a lack of desire or will, I think, as there is certainly no excuse for someone who reads English and wants to know the Bible not to do so.

  • Review – Life Application Bible Studies: Acts

    I’ve had this booklet for some time and have been intending to review it.  Procrastination works, however, so it hasn’t risen to the top of the pile of things to write about until now.  That’s not because it isn’t interesting or useful–not at all!

    In fact, this book falls right into the center of my work–getting the folks in the pews to study the Bible more.  My short summary:  This is a valuable addition to the arsenal, and I hope the remainder of the Life Application Bible Studies are done in much the same mold.

    I always approach books with certain expectations.  It may be the person who recommended them, the author, the publisher, the series, or some other hint along the way.  In this case, I had high expectations because the study is based on the New Living Translation (NLT), and the Life Application Study Bible.  Now that combination is not exactly five star material for my personal study, as it is too direct in application, and too light on the detailed exegesis and theology for my personal taste.  But to judge it in that fashion would be wrong, as it does what it intends to do rather well, both in the translation and in the notes.

    The study guide includes all of the relevant material for the book of Acts.  While I like this material, I suspect this may actually be the least useful part of the study guide.  How can I say that after what I’ve just said?  Well, in my experience most class members have their own Bibles and they generally tend to want to use them.  This can be a bad thing, when the study group gets too scattered because of different notes used, or a very good thing as people get exposed to different ideas.  How valuable the included translation and notes are will depend on your particular group.

    The actual lessons and notes, however, are simply outstanding for a fairly average church group.  They tend to start simple and factual, and grow to more thoughtful and direct questions.  For example, in Acts 4 we go from asking what opposition the people of the early church experienced, to opposition that people you know have experienced, to the much more personal question 11 (p. 97) “When were you afraid to speak up for Christ?”  In the “MORE” section we get down to church unity with questions like how unified your church is, and what you can do.

    Because many of the questions can overwhelm the small group leader and the time for a small group, you will need to go through them and decide what you will emphasize.  There are suggestions for this in the introduction.

    Speaking as a person who has written Bible study guides, even though mine are aimed at a more theologically oriented study, I could easily see myself choosing this as a guide for a group that I would teach.  I recommend it highly.

  • The Orthodox Study Bible: Wrap-Up (For the Moment)

    I received the Orthodox Study Bible free from Thomas Nelson in their blogger book review program, and as I have been using it in my personal devotions and study for my lectionary notes, (which notes have languished during a very busy period), I have already written about it substantially.

    But just what does it mean to “read” a study Bible.  Should it mean to read through it from cover to cover, to use it as you normally read a study Bible, or perhaps to read certain relevant portions?  I don’t know how Thomas Nelson will interpret this, and I have no intention to argue with them should they interpret it differently than I do–after all, they sent me a free book!–but I have chosen to take it in the second way.

    Now in using it in that fashion it would probably be another year or so before I would have read all of the book introductions and notes, at which point I would simply note that I have previously read the entire NKJV text of the Bible, which covers the New Testament, and I would have seen most of the Old Testament.  But such a long wait hardly serves the purpose of a review program either.

    Thus, having gone through a number of weeks worth of lectionary readings, sampled the translation in quite a number of areas and compared it to the text of Rahlf’s LXX (from which it is said to be translated in the case of the Old Testament), checked out the book introductions, and read the major articles, I’m going to write a review, and one which will be substantially longer than 200 words.  I’ll extract 200 words or so to post on Amazon.com, and then let the folks at Thomas Nelson know so they can respond as they will.

    Had this book lived up to my hopes, I would likely have been willing to read it through from cover to cover, just like an ordinary book, though presumably spending much longer.  My hopes were that there would be substantial quotations from the eastern church fathers and from Orthodox theologians, and that the translation of the Old Testament (I already was aware that the New Testament was NKJV) would also prove enlightening regarding the use and usefulness of the LXX in the life of the church.

    Unfortunately, I was disappointed, so that my use of the volume has become a duty rather than a joy.  I will link to my previous blogging about using this book at the end of my post, and will simply summarize here.  I’m going to start with the negative points, continue with the ordinary (though acceptable) ones, and end with the points I approved.

    Negatives:

    1. The translation.  I dislike the NKJV in the first place, but was trying to overcome that in light of the fact that the eastern church uses the Byzantine text.  Unfortunately, that proved to be more difficult than I thought.  In the New Testament, the NKJV is what it is, which is a fairly accurate, but not very engaging or readable translation.  I recall once when reading through Daniel in the NKJV (yes, I know I switched to OT, but it illustrates my point) that I actually consulted the Aramaic to discover just what was meant by an English phrase.  In the Old Testament, the translation itself does not improve, even though there was work to bring it into agreement with the LXX.  The quality is variable and wooden.  It reads approximately like an exercise by 2nd year students of Biblical Greek.  I’m sure there were many much more highly skilled persons involved, but somehow the translation style doesn’t reflect it.  It’s not that they were inaccurate in undestanding the Greek.  Rather, they appear afraid to actually write down the result in English.
    2. The verse-by-verse notes.  These are not entirely bad, but rather so variable, that one does not know what to expect.  One might find an enlightening note from a church father, or an extremely inane summary of the text in question.  I provide examples in one of my prior blog posts, all linked below.

    Ordinary things:

    1. The book introductions.  These are not bad, but are not precisely exciting.  I think they are mostly adequate given the space constraints.  At the same time, I am very glad that this is not my only study Bible, because there is simply too much missed.  I would note that while I personally want access to modern critical study, I am not criticizing this volume for a lack of that material.  I can get that elsewhere.  It’s in developing theological themes that I think these introductions could be improved.
    2. The general layout.  This is pretty good, but could well be improved in order to better use space and to make notes more easily related to the content.  I did appreciate the liturgical material in the inset notes.

    Positive:

    1. The christological focus.  Some might quibble that this could occur in a much better volume, and so it could.  But the western churches, especially protestant churches, often tend to see Christ in the Old Testament primarily as a chain of fulfilled prophecies.  I really appreciate the distinctively Christological understanding of scripture, even where I actually disagree with it.  This emphasis is quite clear in the essay “HOW TO READ THE BIBLE”, which starts on page 1757 and particularly in the section subheaded “Christ, the Heart of the Bible” that starts on page 1763.  This also shows in the notes from time to time.
    2. The liturgical references in articles and notes.  Where these are present, they are very helpful to me.
    3. The organization of the books.  It’s hard to get a picture of the Bible of the eastern church from western study Bibles that include the apocrypha, such as the New Oxford Annotated Bible, because the material is scattered.  The book order does have an impact on how the Bible is read.  The organization here is a genuine product of church history and the eastern communion.

    I think I have made enough specific points, and if you want particular examples, you will find them in my linked posts below.  There is much promise in the idea behind this Bible, and part of my negative reaction is due to excessively high expectations which were not met.  At the same time, I cannot honestly recommend this Bible, unless one looks at the negatives and decides that those are worth enduring for the positives.

    Here are my previous posts regarding the Orthodox Study Bible, one of which is on a different blog:

  • A New Kind of Publishing

    When I was persuading by my wife and daughter to get a 21st century cell phone, my now indispensable Palm Centro, my friends were amused but not surprised that I soon had Bible software on it.

    I must confess that the one time I used that Bible in church I got some really suspicious looks.  “That guy’s using his cell phone during the church service!”  No, but I was checking out a passage the preacher was using in the ESV, which is the version I have on the phone.  (No, the ESV is not my favorite, but it’s quite usable for me.)

    At the same time, I’m dealing with the fact that in my own publishing work I’m finding that many more people want content that is accessible online, and you simply don’t get to talk to them if you don’t make things available now, and don’t make them interactive.

    David Ker relates these new realities to Bible publishing, and notes some of the potential problems as well.  I have found the same problem he has with devotional time.  I can often work Bible reading and study time into my electronically herded day, but prayer, meditation, and listening to the Holy Spirit are substantially more difficult.  For those I have to cut myself off from the world.

    There is a problem, as I noted tangentially in my post about church yesterday, with equating the technology we use to solve problems with the problems and/or the solutions themselves.  For example, the problem of keeping in touch with one another during the week so that we can spur one another to good works is not solved by employing technology as such; rather, technology can help us do what needs to be done.  It’s also excessively easy to equate social trends with the technology on which they feed; I’m certainly guilty of that.  But all these things do interact.

    I think the basic question will remain whether our tools control us, or we will control our tools.  The new interactivity can provide many new opportunities.  One element of the method of Bible study I teach is sharing.  By sharing I mean hearing from others as well as speaking to others, and testing what you think you heard from God against what others think and hear.  Technology, and particularly the number of voices we can hear will either help or hinder that process, depending on how we use them.  We can now interact with many more people, from many more points of view, but will we interact with them effectively and seriously, or will it be superficial contact?

    The potential is tremendous.  I congratulate David for getting us all thinking about this.  How do we use both social trends and the technology that accompanies or feeds them to improve our Bible study and our spiritual lives?

  • Inane Comments in the Orthodox Study Bible

    I’ve complained previously about the translation used in the Orthodox Study Bible, but I reserved discussion of the notes for later.

    Before I complain, however, I want to note that I have found quite a number of comments that I regard as helpful. My study has been enriched by using this Bible.  At the same time, I am frustrated by the number of cases in which it could be so much more enriching than it is.

    So herewith a small and perhaps nitpicky complaint–notes that actually add nothing to the text.

    I was reading 2 Samuel 7:1-11 for my lectionary study, and checked the notes.  The passage is the story of how David finds himself living in a house of cedar, but God’s house is a tent, so he wants to build a temple.

    The note on verses 1-3 reads:

    David has united the tribes under his kingship, established Jerusalem as his capital, and lives in a house paneled with cedar.  The ark, though now brought up to the city, remains in the taernacle he pitched for it, a tent.  He seeks advice from Nathan the prophet, who instructs him to build a temple for the ark.

    Umm, wasn’t that approximately what the text just said?  The only thing added is where the capital is.  The next note begins:

    In a dream, God informs Nathan . . .

    And you guessed it, we get the next several verses summarized.

    There is much that this Bible does, but so much more that would be possible.  The notes are quite variable, ranging from profound, especially when they bring the eastern church fathers into the mix, all the way to completely inane such as these two.

  • Isaiah 64 in the Orthodox Study Bible

    I’ve begun using the Orthodox Study Bible in my lectionary reading, which brought me to Isaiah 64 a couple of days ago.  It’s been that kind of a week, so I haven’t had time to comment on it until now.

    First, let me note that having a study Bible with an overtly Christological interpretation of the Old Testament makes for a nice bit of variety in my reading.  I do have a couple of others, but this one is quite unapologetic about it.  I’m a little less satisfied with the quantity of the notes available.  For example, the New Interpreter’s Study Bible, which I also read regularly, has about 380 words of notes on the page with the major portion of Isaiah 64, while the Orthodox Study Bible has about 160.  In addition, one of the notes, on Isaiah 64:4 does nothing more than restate the message of the verse in other words and so doesn’t advance us that much.

    I wrote recently about how easy it is to trash translations, but I hope I can be allowed just a little bit of complaining here.  I knew that the New Testament of the Orthodox Study Bible was from the NKJV.  This makes sense because that is a translation of the majority text, more or less, though there are a number of devations in favor of the text behind the KJV.  The NKJV is not one of the most readable translations around, and I already knew what to expect there.

    But for the Old Testament, we have a new translation of the LXX.  The introduction (p. xi) gives us three key points about this translation, in my view:

    1. It is based on Alfred Rahlf’s edition of the LXX.  Since I have this text, I am reading the Greek alongside the translation as I review the book.  I’m going to assume until I’ve had time to research this more fully that this was a good textual choice for the purposes of this Bible, i.e. that Rahlf’s is close enough to the text used in Orthodox liturgy.
    2. It uses NKJV renderings where the Masoretic text of the Hebrew is the same as the LXX text.  This seems a less useful goal, due to the somewhat stilted nature of the NKJV English.
    3. The introduction states that “[t]he Old Testament text presented in this volume does not claim to be a new or superior translation.  The goal was to produce a text to meet the Bible-reading needs of English-speaking Orthodox Christians.”

    My problem is with the last one.  But first let me simply note that few Christians outside of the Orthodox tradition will realize just how many differences there are in the LXX text and the Hebrew.  It is fortunate that the introductory materials provide a chart of the differences in chapters and verses, and I hope English speaking readers who are accustomed to our western Bibles will read those materials.

    But the real problem here is with English.  I’m not arguing here that the Greek was not correctly understood by the translators.  I’m also not asking for a functional equivalence translation where a formal equivalence translation has been presented.  But even formal equivalence translations can make good, meaningful word choices.

    These remarks are preliminary.  I’m basing this on comparison of just two passages, Isaiah 64 and Psalm 80, and all examples are from the former.  But it is not encouraging to find this many examples in just the Psalms and OT reading from this week’s lectionary.

    As examples, consider Isaiah 64:8[9]:

    Do not be exceedingly angry with us, and do not remember our sins in an opportune time. [emphasis mine]

    What does it mean for God to remember sins in an opportune time?  If one did not imagine that the translators know Greek well, one might guess that they had opened a lexicon and simply chosen the first possibility that jumped out at them.  Surely “kairos” here must have some more relevant meaning.  BDAG includes things like a “time of crisis,” though I actually don’t think that is the intended nuance here.

    Then in verse 9 we have:

    Zion is like a desert, and Jerusalem is for a curse.

    Again, in English, what does “Jerusalem is for a curse” mean?  It would seem like a few minutes checking with ordinary speakers of English would suggest some alternative was of phrasing this.  And bluntly, this looks a bit much like a class exercise style of translation for “eis kataran.”

    Finally, in verse 10, we find:

    . . . and all our glorious things have become extinct.

    Were they animal species or something?  Again, I don’t get this.  The Greek word here is “sumpipto/sunepesen” and I don’t see how one would get such an inappropriate English word to use in this context.

    The bottom line is a bit like I expected, knowing the translation used as the foundation, and assuming that a similar process was followed in this translation.  I’m frankly enjoying the introductory articles and the excurses in the text.  The translation, on the other hand, is frequently jarring and sometimes puzzling.

    I will continue to write notes as I read.

  • Received: The Orthodox Study Bible

    . . . and it’s even more interesting than I anticipated.  This is obviously not the intended review, but I do find the idea of a Bible with a strong flavor of the Orthodox doctrine quite interesting, and the Bible looks fascinating.  The New Testament is NKJV, but the Old Testament uses the St. Athanasius Academy Septuagint, with which I am not too familiar.  I’ll probably have my Septuagint beside me as I study!

    I did write up a few descriptive notes on my Energion.com Book site.  They are just a description, not an evaluation.

    I expect I will be referencing this Bible quite a bit as I work my way through it.

  • Thomas Nelson Book Review Program

    I saw this on the evangelical outpost, and went to check it out.  When I saw they had the new Orthodox Study Bible, I was hooked.

    I’ve requested it for my first book and will plan to review it here when I receive it.

    You can find out more about the program at brb.thomasnelson.com.

  • More Study Bible Comparisons – Introduction to Romans

    I haven’t written on this for a bit, and I wanted to note some differences between three of the major study Bibles I use in terms of introductions to books.  I’m studying Romans right now, so I thought I’d compare there.

    In comparing words, I get myself a quick approximation of the average line length in words, and then multiply by the number of lines in a particular section.  That is not very precise, but it is good enough for comparison.  As with those pesky political polls, consider close numbers to be more or less equal.

    I’m going to briefly compare three study Bibles that I personally reference in my studies.  My primary use for these is to get a quick overview of certain representative points of view, and I include a number of others as well.  This particular use may influence how I see each one.

    Oxford Study Bible

    The first is the Oxford Study Bible.  Based on the REB and including the Apocrypha, this Bible has proven to be extremely useful to me over the years and my copy is well-worn.  Overall, however, its comments tend to be brief and to deal more with technical and critical issues than with theology.  Its Romans introduction is around 190 words, and gives us a fairly standard protestant view of the theme of Romans.  It does not date it very precisely, giving a range of 48-58 CE, and indicating it was probably written after Galatians.  The notes on the first chapter give new meaning to the word “concise” but do cover the most important issues.  They take up around 240 words.

    NLT Study Bible

    The NLT Study Bible has become a regular companion for me to help me keep track of the scholarly evangelical position in outline form.  It proves its usefulness with over 2100 words of instroductory material on Romans.  I’m not entirely surprised by this huge difference, as Romans is a pretty critical book in the evangelical community.  The introduction is divided into:

    • Setting
    • Summary (with the standard inset outline and timeline)
    • Date, Place, and Occasion of Writing (around AD 57)
    • Paul’s Purpose in Writing
    • Interpretation

    This is then followed up by over 1200 words in the notes on the first chapter.  The notes are, unsurprisingly, very evangelical, as would be expected.  I believe they would be very useful to a pastor preparing a sermon, or a Sunday School teacher preparing a lesson.  The pastor in particular would be added by the list of additional reading.

    New Interpreter’s Study Bible

    The New Interpreter’s Study Bible falls between these two.  Its introduction runs a bit over 1,000 words plus a more detailed outline than that provided by the NLT Study Bible.  It also dates the book to 57 CE, and provides a fairly standard protestant discussion of the themes of the book.  It also has just over 1,000 words in the notes to chapter 1 plus an excursus, The Righteousness of God, running a bit over 100 more.

    In general I find all three of these Bibles useful.  The Oxford Study Bible and New Interpreter’s Study Bible include the Apocrypha, which I like, but which also makes them a bit more tight on the space.  There is also some difference as to what is included in introductory material, and what is including in general articles.  One of the great features of the Oxford Study Bible, for example, is around 190 pages of general articles written by some quite well-known scholars.

    There are obviously many things that go into choosing a study Bible.  I hope that these few notes will help those especially who are buying on the internet and can’t spend hours looking through an actual copy.

  • Etymology but no Fallacy

    I’m glad to see Bill Mounce discuss valid use of etymology.  I’ve long thought that we have fallen into an “every etymology is a fallacy” trap, but it’s good to see an acknowledged expert say that.  Note that the vast majority of etymologies I hear are indeed false etymologies, but there are valid uses.