Customer Reviews

The Orthodox Study Bible: New Testament & Psalms

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This study Bible will serve as a useful introduction to the Orthodox interpretation of the scriptures, and many households will benefit from a copy. It is easily approachable, and the footnotes are helpful to those who are relatively unfamiliar with Orthodox theology.

Yet the critiques of others --that the OSB fails to make use of scriptural study that is prevalent within the Orthodox community, that it fails to be Patristic enough in its notes and comments-- are well grounded. Much more could have been added on the interpretation of passages by the Fathers, and it is a shame that this was not done. The book introductions are quite simplistic and often fail to consider the critical study of even Orthodox scholars on such issues as authorship, dating, audience, etc.

Still, most non-academics will find this a helpful and enjoyable volume. Its lexicon at the end, and guide to Bible reading by Bp. +KALLISTOS, are both excellent.

For those, especially, who are looking for a friendly insight into Orthodoxy through New Testament examination, it is a book worth having.

Many Orthodox scholars such as Fr. Jack Sparks, Bishop KALLISTOS Ware, & Fr. Constantine Nasr. It was overviewed by such Orthodox authorities as Fr. Thomas Hopko, Fr. Stanley Harakas, and bishops representing virtually every Orthodox diocese in North America. I find this Study Bible very useful in introducing people to Orthodoxy through the Holy Scriptures as well as a wonderful companion for every Orthodox Christian. I believe that any Orthodox family could benefit from having this Study Bible in their home.

There are wonderful notes on nearly all the verses of the New Testament, giving the interpretation of the Orthodox Church on the Holy Scriptures. It also includes a lectionary, chapters on "How to Read the Bible," and "Introducing the Orthodox Church," and wonderful articles are interspersed throughout the Bible on such topics as "Confession," "The Four 'Orders' in Church Government," and "The Transfiguration." The pages are also graced by the presence of beautiful icons.

I do have a few minor problems with this Bible. Some is left to be desired in the Book of Psalms, largely because the Septuagint, the Old Testament of the Orthodox Church, was not used. (Of course, this is about to be resolved because the same group of people is currently working on the Old Testament Orthodox Study Bible using the entire Septuagint text.) It was also disappointing to see that in the Morning and Evening prayers in the back, there is no mention of the Virgin Mary. However, the notes and articles throughout the Study Bible clearly explain the emphasis which is put on the Virgin Mary in the Orthodox Church.

I would highly recommend owning this Study Bible, and I don't feel that it deserves a lot of the harsh criticism it has gotten. They did an excellent job!

There are several ways to read the Bible - the two most common are devotional and academic. A devotional reader reads the Bible as if it were a love-letter from their Beloved - reading not critically, not looking for flaws or loopholes, or evidence, but rather looking for what the Beloved wishes to communicate. The academic reader reads as if reading a scientific textbook, searching for flaws, evidence, arguments, and proof.

There is a place for both types of reading. Devotional for the Spiritual life, and Academic for the person who needs more evidence to come to Faith regarding a particular teaching, or who writes for those in such a position, or a person who simply has an academic interest in Religious matters. Many times a person might alternate between the two types of reading based on their needs at a given time.

If you are a person who wishes to read the Bible devotionally, with an understanding of the Orthodox Church's teachings on the passages, this is a perfect choice. If you are new to Orthodoxy, or cradle Orthodox, or if you know nothing of Orthodoxy, and want to understand the Church's teachings about every New Testament passage, this is an ideal place to start.

If you are an academic reader, I would still strongly encourage this edition, only with the caveat that you shouldn't expect it to what it is not. It gives a wonderful first level overview of any given passage, and a good place to start for further reasearch. It is not an apologetic work, but neither was it intended to be.

I have read this edition from cover-to-cover - every word, every footnote, every article (except perhaps the index and the copyright page ; ) - I cannot recommend it more highly. Inside the cover there is an impressive list of endorsements by many well-known Orthodox Bishops.

The Amazon.com entry for this book says that the Orthodox Study Bible is out of print. Actually, it is only the paperback edition which is out of print. The OSB is available in both a hardcover edition and a genuine leather edition. Both these editions include several full color icons, plus some other features which were not included in the paperback edition. Try searching for one of those two editions.

I am very dissapointed with Amazon for not providing any description for this study Bible.

This happens to be the first English study Bible that offers study aids written from the Orthodox perspective. This Orthodox Study Bible is published by Thomas Nelson, it uses the New King James Version (NKJV and KJV are the versions most often found and approved by the Orthodox churches in the US) and it includes the New Testament 27 books along with the Psalms.

Side Note: the Psalms are numbered according to the Masoretic text but after Psalm 9 (which is where the numerical divergence begins between the Septuagint-LXX and the Masoretic text) a footnote shows the Septuagint number for each subsequent psalm.

This study Bible project is the brainchild of Fr. Peter E. Gillquist, famous former Campus-Crusade-for-Christ leader and convert to Orthodoxy,(and author or "Becoming Orthodox: A Journey to the Ancient Christian Faith," "Coming Home: Why Protestant Clergy Are Becoming Orthodox,") and is also edited and backed-up by various Orthodox Th.D.'s, Ph.D.'s, Priests, Bishops, and Metropolitans.

This is the most uniquely structured (and most treasured) study-Bible in my collection. As a Christian-unity minded Protestant I appreciate all the special features of this study-Bible that makes it so Orthodox.

The study Bible starts with a section on The Bible and the Orthodox Church: The Church Fathers Speak, The Bible and Orthodox Tradition, The Creed and, Some Orthodox Beliefs and Their Biblical Foundation (which deals with topics such as Communion, honoring Mary, place of tradition vs Scripture, icons, saints, and liturgy). The second section of the introduction is basically A Guide to the Spiritual Life: Beginning the Journey to the Kingdom, How to Remain in Communion With God, Spritual Helps in the Examination of Your Conscience, Where to turn in the Psalms, and Where to turn in the New Testament (general subject indexes). There is also a short introduction on How to Use The Orthodox Study Bible and notes on the style and text of the NKJV.

Each New Testament book is preceded by study notes on the Author, Date, Major Theme, Background Information, and an Outline. Gospel passages and sub-titles are shown with their equivalent texts in the other Gospels. Each text has carefully prepared study notes with easy to follow highlighted words. Keeping in line with Orthodox Christian living, this study Bible has a chart of Scripture reading to offer guidance for daily devotions, a guide for morning and evening prayers, and readings for feast days. Keeping in line with NKJV tradition, this study Bible has the words of Christ in red, and also center-columns cross references and translation notes. The end of this study Bible has lots of extras: a glossary of Orthodox Christian terminology, an index to annotations, a treatise on Interpreting the Scriptures, a harmony of the Gospels chart, Monies-Weighs-and-Mesures table, a Concordance, and Color Maps. A final addition that makes this study Bible distinctively eastern-Orthodox is the presence of various iconic images placed throughtout the text and related to a specific passage.

I would recommend this study-Bible to any cradle-Orthodox who has never read the Holy Scriptures and who wants to live more like Jesus Christ and follow the example of the Christians of the Early Church.

This study-Bible is also useful to anyone else (like Protestants, Catholics) who wants to learn more about the Eastern Orthodox Church and Christian traditions in this branch of Christianity.

As an evangelical Protestant, I am using this guide as a more comprehensive view of textual hermeneutics and ecclesiology, a correct view of Christology, and a deeper spritual devotional.

There are several problems with this edition of the New Testament. First, it uses the NKJV text, which is not a translation that the Orthodox Church has recognized as being without fault. I understand the use of it from one perspective, since many of the people who convert to our faith are from a Protestant background, and the King James is familiar.

More troubling, though, is the astounding lack of patristic commentary. We have 18 centuries of Church Fathers (and Mothers, too!) to draw on for proper understanding of the Scriptures, and there is hardly a lone footnote to be found that references St. John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria or (in the case of Revelation) St. Andrew of Caesarea. Why?

This lack of patristic emphasis is especially evident in the page-long commentaries on the sacraments. These commentaries seem to be less geared toward proper Orthodox understanding and more aimed at defending our doctrine against evangelical claims. Again, hardly surprising, since many of the editors of this edition are from the evangelical background.

The icons are nice, though, as are the liturgical lectionary notes. The inclusion of the morning and evening prayers in the back is always nice. For a really good edition of the Orthodox New Testament, though, skip this one. Get the two-volume edition put out by Dormition Skete at Holy Apostles Convent. The translation is good, and the commentary is 100% patristic.

The Orthodox Study Bible, New Testament and Psalms, New King James Version, is a Godsend!

Having learned that the Orthodox Church actually created the Christian Bible, I am excited to have in my possession an English translation of the NT and Psalms that faithfully adheres to the original Greek text, and which is full of articles that wonderfully explain Orthodox Christianity.

Upon receiving my copy, I read all the articles, Glossary entries, charts, and most of the footnotes first. The icons are beautiful, but too few in number. I would like each book prefaced by an icon.

I eagerly await the Orthodox Church's much-anticipated complete Orthodox Study Bible (with Old Testament translated from the Septuagint/Greek OT), which I understand is expected to be out for Pascha (Easter) 2007.

For anyone who wants to understand the origin of the Christian Bible and learn about the Church that created it, I highly recommend the Orthodox Study Bible, New Testament and Psalms.

The Orthodox Study Bible (OSB) is an excellent study bible. I do not think it deserves some of the harsher criticism in some other reviews. There are several admirable features to this bible:
1) excellent study notes from an Eastern Orthodox perspective
2) excellent articles about reading the bible and the orthodox church, including by authors such as Kallistos Ware.
3) in the hard copy and leather editions, beautiful icons intersersed in a few places. I have found it very helpful after reading the prayers and the readings to gaze upon the icons and meditate on them.
4) Brief Morning and Evening Orthodox prayers.
5) The Byzantine Lectionary is included.
6) Center column cross-references
7) a concordance

the only possibly disappointing feature is, the NKJV text. I realized it was used because for an Orthodox bible, the editors wanted a translation based on the Byzantine text. But I frankly would have preferred the Revised Standard Version.

I heartily recommend the OSB. The commentary has a lot of citations from church fathers, although apparently not enough for some reviewers. I would think that the Orthodox Study Bible would be a treasure for many Christians, whether they are Orthodox or not.

I am very eagerly awaiting the complete Bible in 2007, which revises the NKJV text to conform to the Septuagint, the official Bible of the Eastern Church, and which will include the Duetero-canonical books placed in their proper order in the Old testament, instead of in a separate section.

This study bible , on the cover states, 'discovering orthodox christianity in the pages of the New Testament'. The articles and aids to understanding the church and to studying the Bible were very helpful. But these were basic. They provide a good introduction. But much of what is in the articles could also be gotten from 'free' literature from the church.

I expected this study Bible to have a larger number of quotes from the early Church fathers. But I was disappointed to find that the quotes given are very few and brief.

As for the New Testament text used in the study bible, this also was a disappointment. The Orthodox Church accepts the Received Text of the New Testament, but the text used (the NKJV) in this study bible does not always adhere to the Received Text. Use of the older KJV or of a translation made by the Orthodox Church itself would have been a better selection. The Orthodox Church is presently working on translating the Old Testament into English. Hopefully the church will also translate the New Testament as well and include much commentary by the early church fathers.

Up until this century it was taboo to put commentary into a Bible for fear that folk would take the notes and interpretations as if they were part of the Bible itself. Well, they were right! However, now everyone and his brother puts footnotes and explanations in their texts of the Scriptures, so now the Orthodox do as well. This is not THE Orthodox Study Bible (as reviewer Matt asserts above - and, yes Matt, you are nit-picking!), nor does it pretend to be. The articles and notes are intended to help elucidate the Scriptures and provide some introductory articles on Orthodox topics, but this is not a full-blown Bible commentary, nor a course in New Testament theology. The complaints of the critics tend to be essentially that it isn't enough. Well, then they need to write a multi-volume commentary to suit their needs. However, for the average layperson who's lucky to crack open the Bible occasionally, this fits the bill just fine. Remember, there is no "official" Orthodox translation of the Bible except for the original Greek. Thus, the NKJV is one of the better texts and the footnotes are there to make occasional comments as to translation problems and errors. No, they don't cover all the issues, but as I said before, to do that you would need a multi-volume Orthodox commentary that takes up half your bookshelf. Hopefully, at some future date, such a work will be undertaken. For now, this is a modest and well-needed starting point. +Fr. William Christ