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The Orthodox Study Bible: Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World

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For purposes of full disclosure, allow me to say, first off, that I'm a practicing Catholic Christian of the Latin Rite, whose previous experience as a teacher of the English Language Arts will hopefully provide a unique perspective regarding the offerings of this particular Bible. I've been in possession of the leather-bound edition since I received it two months after my original pre-order; it's taken me a couple years, but I've really come to love it. As I mentioned in the title of this treatise, this Orthodox Study Bible has recently dethroned my trusty, old-RSV New Oxford Annotated Bible as my study Bible of choice. I had little notion that this would happen. Understand that I have quite an extensive collection of Bibles of the most varying translations that I use for comparative study; but, probably like you, I also have a preferred Bible to go to by default for prayerful reading. Over the last two years, I just found myself picking up the OSB more and more and the NOAB less and less. Allow me to articulate exactly why:

The case for the Septuagint Old Testament:
The unique and most compelling reason to acquire the OSB: it is the only complete Bible in English to be published with the Greek OT right next to the NT. If you have one of those reference Bibles, I'm sure you've noticed that many of the OT quotes used in the NT mismatch when you actually look them up, sometimes to a great degree--this is because Jesus and the disciples quoted from the Septuagint Greek, as opposed to other Hebrew sources, a vast majority of the time. This is so, because Greek was the common language of antiquity in the region and the Septuagint translation (which includes the apocryphal/deuterocanonical "hidden books" of the "second canon") was completed more than a century before Christ's birth. By the time of Jesus' ministry, it was in widespread use by Jews throughout Palestine, particularly outside of Jerusalem by those who couldn't speak or read Hebrew. Bear in mind: the Hebrew OT that 99% of modern English Bibles are translated from rely on Masoretic Hebrew (Hebrew with fixed vowels) whose manuscripts didn't exist until the high middle ages, approximately the 9th century AD--almost a thousand years after Christ! By then, the philosophy behind Jewish biblical scholarship had transformed immensely and the original meaning of certain passages were irrevocably changed. Isaiah 7:14 is the classic casualty of this: Masoretic Hebrew renders "young woman" while Septuagint Greek renders "virgin"--a pretty significant paradigm shift. Ever wonder why the OT books of the Christian Bible are in their current order as opposed to the way the Hebrew Bible orders them? That's right, the Septuagint lists them in order of Law, Histories, Writings, and Prophecy; the NT books are similarly ordered by Gospel, Acts, Epistles, and Revelation. In the end, the Masoretic/Septuagint wars will rage on; but the latter is still the most ancient and reliable source of the OT, it's quoted extensively by the Fathers of the early Church, and it was the de facto scriptures of Jesus and His Disciples. If you don't already have a Septuagint, it's well worth picking one up, and the OSB version is preferable to the aging Brenton translation and even to the flawed-NRSV-based NETS (if you're a conservative practitioner of your faith, it's really hard to take the NRSV seriously with its intentionally literal-but-unorthodox renderings of scripture and its politically-motivated gender-sterilized language).

The case for the New King James Version New Testament:
Other reviewers have mentioned a distaste for the NKJV and, though I can empathize somewhat as a Catholic, I must humbly admit I'm rather fond of it. Perhaps it's because of my teaching background, but I have a respect beyond the average non-Protestant for the old KJV due to its indisputable impact on linguistic and literary spheres ever after (doctrinal ramifications notwithstanding). The result of this is that it has shaped our ear in the English-speaking world--its rhythms and cadences so familiar to us in certain passages that we take it for granted. The NKJV retains the phraseology and eloquence of its predecessor to an extent unmatched by any other contemporary translation, while updating the language and spelling to much needed modern standards. Because it adheres strictly to the formal equivalence methodology, it maintains a vocabulary and style in accordance with high English--this is not a "dumbed-down" translation like many other popular ones out there. The result is that the Bible still reads like sacred scripture--which it should. Now, some of you may be indignant of the fact that the NKJV relies on the Textus Receptus, a Reformation Era-variant of Byzantine text-type manuscripts compiled by Erasmus. Instead, you may prefer your NT to be translated from the substantially older but far less prevalent Alexandrian text-type manuscripts--the "Critical Text." Well fear not, my friends, for though the OSB maintains TR renderings in the body of scripture, all variations from the Majority Text as well as the Nestle-Aland/UBS editions are comprehensively footnoted--you still get the best of both worlds.

The case for the commentary:
If you're strictly an academic, you may find this to have a limiting appeal; but if you consider yourself a member of the faithful laity, you'll get quite a lot out of this. Even if you're a Christian of Reformation descent, you'll appreciate the uniqueness in character of the OSB commentary because it's the only modern one available that doesn't depend on the historical-critical method to explain passages. Instead, it's comprehensively Christological, even in the OT where it succeeds in pointing out both significant and obscure messianic prophecies. The result is an OT commentary that approaches scripture with the same Christ-centered worldview that is readily present in the NT. If you're an Eastern/Greek Orthodox Christian, my guess is that you're more likely to love it than not despite its simplistic nature when compared to the depth and breadth of the writings typical of Church Fathers. In my humble opinion, the OSB commentary's simplicity is its strength for ordinary study or prayerful reading. As someone who occasionally refers to the Haydock edition of the Douay-Rheims Bible for shedding light on certain difficult scripture passages, I find the OSB's concise, pointed commentary to be a refreshing change, in contrast to Haydock's sometimes excessive wordiness for normal use. Sure, for more in-depth study you'll certainly want an additional source, but the vast majority of the time, and for the vast majority of people out there, the OSB's solidly patristic commentary is a sight for sore eyes. If you're an Eastern Rite Catholic, this will fit you like a glove since it has the various apocryphal books not even included in the deuterocanon--it even has scripture notes referencing the Chrysostom Liturgy. If you're a Roman Rite Catholic, like me, trust me: there's no better modern, complete Bible out there that's made to bolster your faith like this one. The single-volume Navarre Bible is hopefully in the works and, as of this writing, the NT of the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible is available for pre-order with the OT probably years away. The potential benefits to such future volumes would be references to papal encyclicals, pertinent teachings from the Catechism, and explanations by intellectual giants like Dr. Scott Hahn, Curtis Mitch, or other faithful scripture scholars. The OSB commentary, along with the introductions to each book, purposely limits its scope to the wisdom of the Holy Fathers and the Ecumenical Councils of the first millennium. While this may sound like a detractor at first, it has one substantial benefit: these are the teachings that predate any Reformation, or subsequently needed Counter-Reformation, as well as the Great East-West Schism. Essentially, these are the teachings of Christ's Church when that Church was One: singular and united.

Formatting notes:
Again, as someone who reads significant amounts of literature, I have a real appreciation for the OSB's adherence to Modern Language formatting--it's something that goes largely unnoticed by most, but you'll appreciate it once you have it. Why is this important in the first place? Proper formatting allows for increased reading speed, comprehension, and overall pleasure. Now, the NKJV, itself, conforms to standard spelling, punctuation, and usage, as would be expected. However, this is the only Bible I've ever found that is paragraphed correctly. This is huge, and once you experience it, you'll loathe to go back to anything else, especially verse-by-verse Bibles. Sure, there are alternatives out there that paragraph the text according to content--even my old NOAB or the Cambridge Paragraph Bible does that. But not even these highly respectable editions provide line breaks during conversations where there's an extensive exchange in dialogue; John 8:12-40 provides a great example. Other alternatives don't paragraph for lengthy quotations either; take a look at Acts 2. Likewise, the full biblical text is set in a two-column format to aid reading speed as well as to assist in skimming, if needed; it's also graced with section headers within the chapters themselves for easier searching. The font is a nicely-readable 11-point for the text and about 8-point for the footnotes and commentary. Overall, the page layout is among the most practical and beautiful I've seen in any study Bible.

Other observations of note:
One major upshot to the beneficial formatting choices is the page thinness. In order to pack the wealth of information contained in this veritable library into a single volume, the pages evidently had to become nearly tissue-paper thin. Despite this, text ghosting from the other side is surprisingly minimal--I just worry about dropping this one day and forever creasing a couple hundred pages for its lack of resilience. Also, the tome measures about 7x10x2, so it's a bit larger than your average personal Bible. The bonded leather is elegant and sturdy but suffers some minor-but-still-somewhat-irritating curl after use. The pages are gold-edged and the Bible has that overall humble and reverent appearance and feel that Bibles should have for the sacred scripture they contain.
The OSB does suffer one logistical drawback shared, for example, by the Douay-Rheims Bible (the traditional Catholic Bible translated from the Clementine Vulgate): the verse numberings can sometimes be a little off standard (the industry standard being set by an OT in Hebrew and a NT in Greek). In the case of the Douay, this is a result of translating from scriptures in Latin. With regard to the OSB, the occasional verse discrepancy occurs only in the Greek-based OT. Outside the Septuagint Psalter, I've found such a phenomenon to be an extreme rarity, though. The Greek-based NT follows versification standards, as would be expected.
As someone who, himself, is more accustomed to Masoretic Hebrew renderings in the OT from my NOAB, making the adjustment to Septuagint Greek is an occasionally surprising endeavor, but always a fruitful one. Since the NKJV OT was the base translation for this particular version of the Septuagint, many beloved passages you're used to are nearly identical; Psalm 23 is a good example that remains virtually unchanged. Others, like Proverbs 3:5 are completely different, showing, instead, a much closer relationship to the deuterocanonical book of Wisdom, chapter 8. Such Easter eggs are prevalent throughout the text and make having the Septuagint well worth it, even just for comparative study.
The full-color, high quality, iconic illustrations are a blessing, and further aid the sense of actually being in church as you read.
For all that you're getting, the OSB's price point is just right for both bonded leather and hard-bound. The publisher has also more or less recently come out with a red, genuine leather edition that is significantly pricier, but it sports a beautiful and ornate gold cover design.

In the end, the Orthodox Study Bible is a God-send (quite literally in many senses). If you're less interested in getting to know the "historical Jesus" as portrayed by scholars in most study Bibles, and more interested in meeting with Our Lord and Savior as understood by saints, "Highly recommended" would be an understatement.

If you found this review to be helpful or if you learned something useful, please click Yes below.
Ad majorem Dei gloriam!

The "Orthodox Study Bible" is a much needed resource for Orthodox Christians, and anybody who wishes to read the Orthodox perspective on scriptural interpretation. It has the complete Orthodox canon of the Old Testament found in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Bible that was cited in the New Testament and served as the original Bible of the Christian Church. Each book is accompanied with an introduction explaining who wrote the book and why the book was written, along with its spiritual significance.

The notes accompanying the New King James translation of the text are unlike notes found in other Bibles that I've come across. They emphasize the spiritual context of the passages in question, and relate the Old Testament narratives, prophecies, and prayers into a Christ-centered context. Events and people in the Old Testament foreshadow and prefigure Christ. This allegorical interpretation is not found in contemporary secular and "ecumenical" study Bibles, which focus on the bare historical meaning of the passages, devoid of any spiritual meaning they possess.

I have a few criticisms of this book, and they are about the format of the book, not the contents. First, the font in this book is too small. If the font was a point or two larger, it would be much easier to read. Second, margins are non-existent, which makes it frustrating writing notes while reading and reviewing the text. Third, the text runs nearly into the spine of the book, another aspect of this Bible which makes reading it a headache. And fourth, the pages are too thin. Most Bibles, granted, are printed on very thin paper--but the "Orthodox Study Bible" seems like it is printed on paper thinner than air. I wanted to read the "Orthodox Study Bible" cover to cover but couldn't get too far into Genesis because of the annoying format.

So basically, I absolutely recommend this Bible for any Orthodox Christian who wants to learn more about the Bible without resorting to non-Orthodox sources. There are no other single-volume Bibles containing the complete Orthodox canon of the Old Testament in addition to the New Testament. Hopefully future editions of this Bible will be printed that are more user-friendly.

When Protestant Christians in the United States think about Bible versions and study Bibles, we tend to think within a fairly set spectrum. Translations are more or less literal, and use texts supported by more or less of the evidence. But nearly all Bible translations we encounter have the same 66 books in the same order. Most of us know the Roman Catholic church recognizes ten or so additional books as a canonical Apocrypha.

Most of us, however, are far less familiar with the Scriptures recognized by the third major branch of Christianity, the Orthodox Church. In that light, Thomas Nelson and the scholars at St. Athanasius Academy have done the church a great service by preparing The Orthodox Study Bible. The Orthodox New Testament canon is identical to the Roman Catholic and Protestant New Testament canon; however, the Orthodox Old Testament has the books found in the Roman Catholic Apocrypha and several additional works (151st Psalm, 3 Maccabees, Epistle of Jeremiah, and a 1 and 2 Esdras with a separate Nehemiah). In The Orthodox Study Bible, these books are intermingled with the books Protestants accept as part of the canonical Old Testament.

Given my background, the textual basis of the work was of particular interest. Though several Protestant denominations still use the Traditional Text of the New Testament, unfortunately most Protestants and the Roman Catholic church use the Modern (Critical) Text.The Orthodox church is the only branch of Christianity that still advocates the Traditional Text. Since the scholars of the St. Athanasius Academy were working with Thomas Nelson, they had access to the New King James Version, the only major modern-day translation based on the Traditional Text, and they used its text in the New Testament, noting alternate Majority (Hodges-Farstad) and Nestle-Aland alternate readings in footnotes.

The Old Testament was based on the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek Old Testament, which is the standard Orthodox text. The New King James Version's Old Testament was based on the Masoretic Hebrew Text. Where the LXX's Greek reading was the same, the NKJV wording was used. A new translation was made where the LXX version was different. In the 200-year history of the Orthodox Church in North America, this is the first time it has issued an Old Testament based on the Septuagint.

The Bible's primary audience is for the English-speaking Orthodox church. Its primary appeal outside of that audience is probably in its commentary. The notes draw from a rich heritage of church fathers; to an extent rarely found in Protestant circles, Orthodox view their church history as an unbroken series of links from the time of the early church fathers (who largely wrote in Greek) through today, and the views of the early church fathers are brought into the commentary where applicable. Even when no specific church father is cited, the notes draw from well over a thousand years of Orthodox tradition. These are frequently fascinating and sometimes provide insights missed by Protestants. (Reinventing the wheel can make us feel quite intelligent. But it is typically a monumental waste of time.)

Due to the different canon used in the Old Testament, most Protestant readers will not adopt this as their primary Bible. But the commentary is sufficient reason for pastors and serious Bible students to add this to their library--its sparkles with the freshness of a new viewpoint on the Scripture. Or at least as new as an 1800-year-old forgotten insight can be when upon rediscovery.

Without a preview, I splurged and got the leather edition of this Bible, having come from the hard-cover Orthodox Study Bible: New Testament & Psalms. The NT was chock-full of helpful notes and strictly Orthodox commentary, and words from the Church Fathers and Saints. The icons are beautiful; rich colors on nice paper. This Bible included many helpful articles on the Orthdox church, too.

However, this (Complete) Orthodox Study Bible doesn't have as many notes and I noticed that many of the notes from the NT version were missing. I expected lots of notes in the Old Testament but there aren't as many as I wished. In fact, even the tone of the notes is changed: while the notes in the NT & Psalms read very Orthodox, the notes in the complete edition have been sanitized to take out explicit Orthodox references. That's really a shame. Some of the extra articles that were in the NT are missing, too.

The icons in the Orthodox Study Bible feature some of the ones in the NT edition and some new ones just for this edition. The printing of these is not as nice; many are very dark and the colors are muddy. The icons chosen don't really represent the treasures that exist in Orthodox iconography.

While I appreciate the larger type size used throughout, the typesize is reduced in the articles, so the pages are printed almost edge to edge (especially in the extra articles), making for a very long reading line length with almost no white space, so pages are hard to read. The book is heavy and could have used a stiffer/thicker leather cover.

Of course, the real reason to get this edition is that the Old Testament is a Septuagint translation, which is easy and enjoyable to read, and preserves the original meaning of the OT books. The books in the OT are placed in the order favored by the Church Fathers; that is, the apocryphal books are interspersed among the other books. The article on the formation of this Bible is helpful in understanding the Orthodox view of Scripture.

I have found this Study Bible to be an interesting introduction to Eastern Orthodox Church theology and interpretation of Scriptures. It is easy to read and seems to be more of an introduction of Orthodoxy for Protestants than an in-depth study of doctrine. There are not as many notes as most other study Bibles I have used, but I found it to still be an interesting read.

With all the growing biblical scholarship out there, all the English translations out there, there STILL is not an ORTHODOX TRANSLATION of the Scripture. The Orthodox Study Bible was presented to me at Seminary by Fr. Gillquist, for which I'm very thankful. But, there's so much more that could have been done with this work. My biggest critique of this Bible is that it is NOT a translation of the LXX, rather, it is a warmed-over KJV with apocrypha and some blurbs from Orthodox thinkers on the topic. What the Orthodox Church in our country needs is a standard, Orthodox-translated Bible...a TRANSLATION of the LXX, a translation of the NT (Byzantine Lectionary), and then add notes and such from the Fathers. This is just my own humble opinion.

Aside from the footnotes and articles which provide an Orthodox Christian view of Scripture, this is a very important new work primarily because there are very few English translations of the Septuagint available. I have been using the Anglican Sir Lancelot Brenton version which I think was done in the 19th century. I understand Oxford Press is also currently working on a Septuagint translation. Unfortunately, many people do not even know what the Septuagint is. Briefly, following the Babylonian exile of the Jews, they began to lose their Hebrew language in everyday usage (in Jesus' time they spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew). In the 4th century before Christ Alexander the Great conquered pretty much everything in sight in the Mediterranean area and established Greek language and culture throughout the region. Greek became (much as English is today) an international language of art, philosophy, business, etc. Although, relatively few people could read in those days, if you did know how to read during this period, chances are you would find Greek very useful. Therefore, in the 2nd century before Christ, there were about seventy Jewish scholars who translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. This became known as the Septuagint (meaning "seventy"). So what? Well, this is the version of the Old Testament used by the first Christians. The New Testament was written in Greek and every quotation from the Old Testament comes from the Septuagint and not from the Hebrew text. In short, if it was good enough for the Apostles, it's good enough for us. The Septuagint has been the Old Testament used in the Orthodox Church ever since the time of the Apostles. The Septuagint was used exclusively for the first four centuries of the Christian Church until St. Jerome translated the Old Testament in Latin in the late 4th and early 5th centuries using the Hebrew text rather than the Septuagint. This was not without controversy. Personally, I have to weigh the matter by comparing seventy rabbis two centuries before Christ (i.e., it can't be claimed to be a Christian biased translation) vs. one man who went to Jerusalem and studied Hebrew for six years before doing his own translation from Hebrew into Latin. I think I'm going with the seventy rabbis.

There are some other things to note. First, from an archeological / historical viewpoint, the oldest extant manuscripts of the Old Testament are the Septuagint (going back to about the third century). The oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Masoretic text (which is what the Jews and, surpisingly the Protestants use) is only about a thousand years old and was edited centuries AFTER Christ. This raises the issue among many of whether the Masoretic text was edited to counter the Christian Septuagint. Perhaps the most famous contradiction is to be found in Isaiah 7:14 which says, "Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb, and will bring forth a Son, and you will call His Name Emmanuel." In the Greek, the word for virgin is parthenos, and it literally means a virgin. In the Masoretic Text, however, the word is almah which means a young girl. The usual Hebrew word for virgin, and the word in every case translated virgin in the Revised Version, is bethuwlah. This verse is quoted from Isaiah in the Christian Scriptures in Matthew 1:23. As before, since the seventy rabbis in the second century before Christ all translated "virgin" (and this is what is quoted in Matthew that Jesus is the fulfillment of that) and the rabbis after Christ translate "young girl" might lead someone to think that perhaps there might be some purposeful effort to contradict the Christian Septuagint. Plus, what kind of a "sign" (all of Christ's miracles in the NT are called "signs") is it that a "young girl" would give birth? That has happened literally billions of times. But a "virgin" giving birth? Now that's a sign and I know of only one time that happened!

Unfortunately, during the Protestant Reformation when all things Roman Catholic were eschewed, and they no longer wanted to use the Latin Vulgate, instead of turning to the Greek Septuagint, they decided that the Jews ought to know what was in the Old Testament and adopted the Jewish Masoretic text instead. They also eliminated the so-called deuterocanonical books (a.k.a. the Protestant Apocrypha) which was part and parcel of the Septuagint since before Jesus. Interestingly enough, the Jews has those "Apocryphal" books in their Scriptures, but in the Council of Jamnia in 90 A.D. - after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans - decided to eliminate those books from their Scriptures, one of the reasons being that they are from that period after Alexander the Great and were written in Greek which was used by those Christians and Romans. Paradoxically, while they eliminated the books, they still celebrate Hannakuh which is from the Book of Maccabees. Whatever! Also, while the Protestants adopted the Masoretic text, they still use by and large the Septuagint book titles (e.g, Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Psalms, etc., which are all Greek words and are not the titles in the Hebrew text. Again, I'm confused as to why. Plus, that leads to what I consider an embarrassing situation, where if you are reading your English NT and there is a quote from the OT, if you check out the footnotes (many times included as marginal verse references) to their OT roots they often don't match. That's because there is a difference between the Septuagint quotes in the NT and the Masoretic OT included in almost all English Bibles. Except for the Orthodox Study Bible.

Anyway, perhaps I've intrigued some of you to look at the Septuagint in a new light and perhaps read this not because you care about Orthodox footnotes and commentary (hey, I've been wading through Protestant footnotes in English Bible texts all my life without ruining my faith), but because you want to read the Old Testament in the form used in the Gospels and by Christians originally and continuously for two thousand years.

This is a bible well suited for ALL Christians, not only those in the Orthodox Church. I am so grateful to have a bible whose Old Testament is not based upon the Masoretic Texts. It has been explained to me by scholars more knowledgeable than myself that while the Masoretes were well known as scribes who paid close attention to detail regarding lettering, etc. they also had a bias against the Messiah. If one compares any of the other translations of the Old Testament (i.e anything from the original KJV on) there are many differences in that the references to the Messiah were removed. One who is far wiser than myself asked the question, "Why would we want to embrace something written by people who hated Jesus?" For those who may not know, the Septuagint was written about 250 years before the Incarnation. It was not manipulated, rearranged or chopped up as were the Masoretic Texts. This is the first complete English translation of the Septuagint right out of the original Greek. The Masoretic Texts were written over several hundred years beginning with the 400s. I am not a member of the Orthodox Church, so I have no denominational axe to grind here. I am just a recovering sinner (a Protestant) who continues to pursue intimacy with God. To be reading the same Old Testament that Jesus and His Apostles used is a true blessing. That is where the Church began....a long time before all the schisms that have occurred over the last 2,000 years. For those who are of the same thoughts, this bible is for you. Glory be to God in all things!!

Contrary to what the advertising says, the OT is *not* the Septuagint (LXX). Allow me to explain: It is an attempt to revise the NKJV OT to conform to the LXX. They had shoddy production standards, however, and did not complete the task. Fairly frequently throughout, the NKJV remains where it deviates fromt he LXX. Sadly, the editorial committe should have caught these.

Here are a few examples:

In Genesis 3:15, the OSB says "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall be on guard for His heel." This verse can exemplify how shoddy the production standards were. "He shall bruise your head" comes straight from the NKJV. The LXX has "He shall guard against your head", while the second half of the prophecy is from the LXX. Why is the text mixed? What kind of oversight is it to modify half a sentance when the same variation occurs in both halves? This is very telling.

In the LXX, in the next chapter, Cain says to his brother, "Let us go out to the field" (the NRSV inserted this from the LXX, and I am using it). The NKJV lacks this verse, and consequently, it is omitted from the translation.

Habbakuk opens with God commanding Habbakuk to name his children "Not Pitied" and "Not My People". The LXX translates these, and thus, any translation of the LXX would do so as well. The NKJV transliterates the Hebrew. So does the OSB.

I selected these pretty much at random, and I stuck to the openings of books, because it is easier and sufficient for my purposes. I can't say these things happened on purpose. It occurred because the OSB was not held to professional standards. That does not bode well even where they did translate it.

The poor standards are rather easily seen throughout the book. The binding is poor, and because of the small margins, the words often run off into the gutter. They say they cite the fathers of the first millennium, but they include St. Seraphim of Sarov (a nintenth century saint) and Theodore of Mopsuestia (a heretic, not a father). I cannot find, however, where either were cited, if they were. The paper is thin, but to its credit, there isn't much bleed through.

Further, in the translation, they took no pains at all to make it conform to the same numbering scheme as standard English Bibles. Consequently, if someone cites chapter and verse for something from *any* other Bible, the reader cannot follow. This means that a group studying the OT from the Orthodox Study Bible is stuck either having all its members buy the OSB, not using it, or suffering from terrible confusion. A little more elbow grease would solve the problem: NETS did it, Brenton did it, and so on. There really is no excuse for it.

The notes are useful in places, and while the binding is terrible and not worth the price put on it (Zondervan has to recoup its cost for this overly expensive albatross somehow), one can live with it. The real problem is the translation, since it is not truly an LXX. The haphazard way that they followed their translation standard means this Bible will cause more harm than good.

So, English-speaking Orthodox Christians are stuck either using a Roman Catholic Bible or carrying two volumes to get close to a complete Bible (I carry NETS and the EOB NT). It's sad, but people really should stay away from the OSB until they release a new edition that meets a decent level of production standards.

If you want only one Study Bible to aid and inform your reading of the Bible, or want to have a real alternate to your currently favorite Study Bible, "The Orthodox Study Bible" is the one you need to buy -- not "want", you "need" it. Period. In my thirty years of preaching and teaching the Christian Bible, this is without condition the best, most useful and enlightening Study Bible I have ever used.

I say this with such enthusiasm even though I am a life-long Lutheran, and at the same time because I am a committed Confessional, orthodox Lutheran. "The Orthodox Study Bible," though aimed at a target audience in the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the most thoroughly ecumenical Study Bible I know of. The reason for that is in the very nature of Eastern Orthodox theology and biblical interpretation.

The Orthodox -- unlike Western Protestantism -- have not jettisoned from theology the wisdom and authority of the Fathers of the ancient church and the liturgical tradition of early Christianity, but rather turn to and look to them as the foundation of all Christian dogma and doctrine, and thus the foundation of the one source of dogma and doctrine, the Bible. In many ways the Orthodox Church is more biblical in its teaching and life than any Western Protestants, and a large part of the reason for this is that the Orthodox Church has an unbroken tradition of reading the Bible together with, in living dialogue with, those closest to its origins: the ancient Fathers of the Church and the ancient worship of the Church.

THAT IS WHAT FORMS THE FOUNDATION AND METHOD OF "THE ORTHODOX STUDY BIBLE," and thus makes it THE MOST "BIBLICAL" Study Bible in terms of its notes, commentaries, and invaluable longer articles on points of doctrine.

What you will NOT encounter is the prejudice of "modern" Western "historical-critical method" exegesis, with its rules of implicit skepticism and methodological doubt regarding the text of the Bible, which in two centuries have reduced Western biblical exegesis to a tangle of subjective and politically-correct "readings" of the Bible with no unity to them and no authority to support them except the opinion of the individual authors and their pet agendas.

"THE ORTHODOX STUDY BIBLE" OFFERS FREEDOM FROM THE DEAD-END OF HISTORICAL-CRITICAL EXEGESIS, and restores how the Church in its first millennium unanimously interpreted and applied the Bible.

The "OSB" is not a flat or rote reitteration of the Church Fathers, however. It is how Orthodox exegetes and theologians read the Bible in dialogue with the Fathers as the living voice of the Church throughout the ages, in conversation with the living voice of Scripture. The result cuts right to what the Bible means, how the Bible interprets itself as divine revelation, and the unity of Old Testament and New Testament as the one revelation of salvation in Jesus Christ. This brings with it striking parallels, allusions, typology and allegory -- the meat of Patristic exegesis -- that is far more fruitful for preaching and teaching the Bible than the obsession with socio-historical theories and minutiae that fill most Protestant Study Bibles.

The proof is in the using of the OSB with an open mind to a whole new way of reading the Bible than Western Protestants have been trained (brainwashed?) to practice. If you have a long-time favorite Study Bible like the NIV Study Bible, the New Oxford Annotated Study Bible, or any of the many others on the market, certainly keep it and use it if it aids and helps you. But do not use it alone anymore; get The Orthodox Study Bible to compare with your favorite, and so expand deeper and further your reading and meditating on the Bible. The OSB is a "must have" not only for Eastern Orthodox Christians, but for all Christians.

One oddity for Western readers that may require some adjustment is the text of the Old Testament used. The Eastern Orthodox Church has always used that version of the Old Testament called the "Septuagint" (abbreviated by the Roman numeral LXX). This is the ancient, pre-Christian (ca 200 BC) translation of the Jewish Scriptures from Hebrew into Greek, during the process of which a number of books written originally in Greek were judged to be inspired Scripture in unity with the witness of the Hewbrew/Israelite books. This is the version of the OT used in the OSB, as it is the official text of the OT in the Orthodox Church. Thus, it is translated from the Greek text of the LXX, not directly from the Hebrew texts, and contains sevral writings not found in Protestant versions of the OT. LXX names and order are retained in the canon as well. So there are the 4 Books of Kingdoms (= 1 & 2 Samuel/1 & 2 Kings); a book of 2nd Ezra (or Esdras); the books of Tobit, Judith, 1st, 2nd & 3rd Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach, the book of Baruch, and the Epistle of Jeremiah. There are 151 Psalms; and the books of Esther and Daniel are considerably longer than in modern Protestant Bibles. These are books of the OT and integrated into the canon of the OT. For a Protestant, that takes some getting used to. ON THE PLUS SIDE: all the writers of the NT read, used and quoted from the Septuagint (LXX), the OT version in the OSB, so it in fact provides an English translation of the "Scriptures" presupposed throughout the NT.

"The Orthodox Study Bible" is written for interested laity, not specialized clergy; it is clear, easily understood, and full of helps.

A final commendation: LUTHERANS IN PARTICULAR should get and used this as their main Study Bible -- laity and clergy alike. Classical Lutheran theology -- from Luther and Melanchthon to Chmenitz and Gerhard -- is founded on "Scripture Alone," but Scripture in living dialogue with the Fathers of the Church (whom the Lutheran writers often quote at great length to prove the point of their biblical exegesis). "The Orthodox Study Bible" -- as the so-called "Finnish School" of Luther research is increasingly demonstrating -- is equally as much the best "Lutheran Study Bible."