Customer Reviews

The Scofieldï¿1/2 Study Bible III, NASB: New American Standard Bible

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At the outset, recognize that different readers want different Bibles. E.g., a reader may want a coffee-table Bible, a devotional Bible, or a study Bible. The reader may want a Bible that gives the interpretation of a passage (regardless of the passage's literal language); or, the reader may want the Bible to translate the language from Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic accurately, and to make up his or her own mind about the passage's meaning. One reader may be distressed if language favors the male gender; another reader may be distressed if the publisher changes the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic canon text to make language more gender-neutral.

This review assumes the reader wants an Updated NASB Bible. The Updated NASB Bible: (i) translates the language from Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic literally; and (ii) follows the canon text with respect to gender. If the reader wants a Bible that gives a passage's interpretation, rather than the passage's literal translation, that reader may be happier with a Message Bible (or similar Bible), which gives a modern paraphrase of the literal translation. If the reader wants gender-neutral language, the reader may be happier with a New Revised Standard Version, which uses inclusive pronouns.

First, the pluses of the Scofield Updated NASB Study Bible.

This Bible is beautiful. The leather is of excellent quality. The gold leaf is flawless. The pages are neatly-arranged, and the arrangement renders the Bible very user-friendly. The print is somewhat larger than the print of competing study Bibles, making the Scofield Bible more convenient for those with poor eyesight.

Second, the minuses.

Where New Testament language quotes a passage from the Old Testament, the NASB translation emphasizes the reference by using a different typeface: small capitalized letters. This is an excellent feature. However, inexplicably, Scofield rarely identifies the Old Testament passage that is being quoted. The reader is left frustrated, knowing that the small-caps language quotes an Old Testament passage, but with no convenient way to locate the passage being quoted (forcing the reader to do what I am doing: have both a Scofield Study Bible and a Zondervan Study Bible in front of him or her, and read the two together-a time-consuming, bulky, and expensive method that calls into question the rationale for buying the Scofield Bible in the first place).

Also, the quality of Scofield's footnotes varies wildly. I bought the Scofield Bible because I compared its notes on one particular topic with the notes of competing Bibles, and found Scofield's notes to be more helpful than the others. I assumed that Scofield's superiority on that one topic would carry through the rest of the Scofield Bible.

That assumption was incorrect.

Some text that desperately needs extensive footnoting has little or none (which is probably how Scofield could produce a study Bible about the same size as a comparable Zondervan Study Bible but with larger print). As one example, Scofield has four notes in Mark explaining the Olivet Discourse; Zondervan has 29.

Some notes are poorly-written. As one example, the note describing Judas Iscariot in connection with Matthew 26:14 says Judas was "One of the twelve disciples of Jesus who betrayed Him." The note implies that there were more than 12 disciples, 12 disciples betrayed Jesus, and Judas was one of the 12 who betrayed Him. The note should read (simply to be grammatically correct, and without regard to the additional information the note would need in order to be more nearly accurate and complete), "One of the 12 disciples of Jesus; the disciple who betrayed Him."

Some footnotes contain interpretations that are simply incorrect. As one example, recall the Parable of the Landowner. In that parable, a landowner walls off his property, installs a grape press, and leases the property to vine-growers. The landowner sends a slave to collect the rents; the vine-growers beat him and send him on his way, empty-handed. The same scene is repeated multiple times; the vine-growers beat some of the slaves, and kill others. Finally, the landowner sends his son. The vine-growers kill the son. Plainly, the landowner in the parable is God. The slaves are the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptist. The landowner's son is Jesus. The vine-growers are the Pharisees (and presumably the Sadducees and Herodians). But, the note to Mark 12:1 maintains that "the vine-growers . . . are the O.T. prophets and John the Baptist." I.e., according to the note, the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptist-not the Pharisees (and Sadducees and Herodians)-persecuted Jesus and caused him to be crucified.

Scofield's sloppiness and errors, such as those described in the examples above, render its notes on less-clear parables, discourses, and other material highly suspect.

In short, while the Scofield Updated NASB Study Bible may have some usefulness in one's library, and is certainly beautiful, the serious student would be better off buying a Bible with better references, more notes, and better note scholarship.
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