Before there was Bible software, there were study Bibles—printed Bibles with brief commentary in the form of marginal notes. In this series of posts, we're looking at the history of study Bibles and the reasons for their ongoing popularity. In part 1 of this series, we looked at The Geneva Bible, which was almost certainly the first printed study Bible in English. Its explanatory marginal notes offered guidance in how to interpret the Bible at a time when many people were first beginning to read the Bible for themselves, and it became a powerful means of disseminating the Reformed/Calvinistic viewpoint. As we saw, the Geneva Bible eventually became a victim of its own success. Objections to its sectarian nature led the King James Bible to be published without explanatory notes, and the study Bible format was not revived for several centuries.

Interestingly, the historical circumstances which led to the resurrection of the study Bible format were strikingly similar to those in which the Geneva Bible appeared. At the beginning of the twentieth century, theological liberalism was gaining influence in many large denominations and their flagship seminaries, challenging long-standing understandings of the Bible and sparking a conservative backlash. Many pastors and laypeople felt inadequate to respond to those challenges and were looking for some help. They found it in the Scofield Reference Bible, a study Bible by American minister C. I. Scofield which articulated a fundamentalist, inerrantist, and dispensationalist understanding of the Bible. The Scofield Reference Bible quickly became popular among theological conservatives.

Another study Bible published in the early twentieth century was the Thompson Chain Reference Bible. Where the Geneva Bible and Scofield Reference Bible offered brief commentary from a particular doctrinal perspective, the Thompson Chain's marginal notes listed topics or themes articulated by a given verse, along with a cross-reference to the next verse that speaks to each theme. By following each "link" in these topical "chains," the reader could see the development of these themes throughout the Bible.

The success of these study Bibles, both of which have been repeatedly revised and remain popular more than a century after their initial publication, clearly demonstrated the effectiveness of the study Bible format. But the real heyday of the study Bible didn't come until the latter decades of the twentieth century, which saw a proliferation of study Bibles in a variety of formats and emphases. We'll look at some of those in my next post.

Before there was Bible software, there were study Bibles—printed Bibles with brief commentary in the form of marginal notes. Before Bible software put a whole library of material at your fingertips, study Bibles were the most convenient way to get concise help in reading the Bible. Yet even with the advent of Bible software, study Bibles remain hugely popular. Study Bibles are consistently some of the top-selling Accordance modules, and we just added a new one: The Reformation Study Bible. It's clear that the study Bible is here to stay, so I want to spend the next few posts looking at the history of the study Bible, surveying the different kinds of study Bibles available, and examining why they're so popular.

Let's start with a little history. The first English study Bible was probably the Geneva Bible of 1560, a Protestant translation with notes written from a Reformed/Calvinistic perspective.

Now, marginal notes were hardly a groundbreaking innovation. Readers and copyists had been scribbling notes in the margins of hand-written manuscripts for centuries. But the Geneva Bible offered a relatively comprehensive set of notes on the entire Protestant canon, and those notes met the deeply felt needs of people at a pivotal moment in history.

Prior to the invention of the printing press, books were incredibly expensive to produce, so only the wealthiest of individuals—or entire communities—could afford to own them. Consequently, personal reading of the Bible was rare. Most people heard the Bible read in liturgical settings, where it was also immediately interpreted for them. With the advent of the printing press, individuals (or families) could suddenly afford to own a copy of the Bible and to read it for themselves. That, of course, meant that all sorts of people were now able to interpret the Bible for themselves.

Imagine yourself as a literate merchant able to bring home your first Bible. Churches are dividing and wars are being fought over differing interpretations of the Bible, and those differing interpretations are swirling around inside your head. You determine to read the Bible for yourself and try to sort out which interpretation is right. But you're not a trained theologian, and even though you now have a translation you can read, much of what you're reading still seems hard to understand. Where can you turn for help?

Now imagine yourself as a church leader trying to win the hearts and minds of the people in a community still wrestling with its own religious identity. Many of them don't understand the sometimes subtle differences among the various churches, and their own personal reading of the Bible often only adds to their confusion. You want to guide them in their reading of the Bible, but you only have so much influence from the pulpit. What can you do to help them read the Bible "correctly"?

When the Geneva Bible was published, it offered an interpretive guide to individuals trying to read the Bible for themselves, and it offered Protestant leaders a powerful vehicle for disseminating their views. This first English study Bible therefore became very popular, so much so that even the crown-backed King James Bible took quite a while to supplant it.

The Geneva Bible's sectarian marginal notes earned it both ardent admirers and passionate detractors. The King James' lack of such notes eventually helped make it the universal choice among English-speaking Protestants, and few, if any, study Bibles were published over the next several centuries. It was not until the early twentieth century that the study Bible really came into its own. We'll look at that stage in the history of the study Bible in my next post.

The other day I showed how you can hide any highlighting you've done to avoid being distracted by it. Today I want to show you how to find any highlighted verses—even when you've chosen to hide the highlighting.

To search for highlights, select Style from the Enter Command submenu of the Search command. Replace the selected question mark inside the Style command with the name of the highlight style you want to find. In my first post in this series, I defined a highlight style to tag verses with the label "Joy," so I'll simply type "joy" to replace the question mark. (Actually, since none of my other highlight styles start with the letter "j", simply typing a "j" would be sufficient. Accordance only needs enough of a style name to distinguish it from all other style names.)

When I hit Return to perform this search, all of my "joy" verses will appear. Even though I had Hide verse highlighting checked in the text display settings, Accordance automatically unchecks that setting for the purpose of displaying the results of a Style search.

You can even use other commands and search criteria in combination with the Style command. For example, let's say I want to search all my "Joy" verses for the phrase "in the Lord." I'll simply add an AND command (by choosing it from the Enter Command submenu of the Search menu or using the keyboard shortcut shift-command-A) followed by the phrase "in the Lord" (the quotes are unnecessary). Here is the result:

As you can see, using your highlight styles as the basis for a search can make it easy to search only your "tagged" verses.

I'm pleased to announce the release of three new Bible Dictionaries from InterVarsity Press: the Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters, Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, and Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books. Each of these ground-breaking dictionaries weighs in at around 1000 pages in print, so carrying all three around would be an exercise in body-building! Loading the Accordance editions on your laptop or iPhone won't do nearly as much for your biceps, but you'll be much more likely to have them available when you need them!

The Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters introduces you to the principal players in the history of Biblical interpretation, their historical and intellectual contexts, their primary works, their interpretive principles and their broader historical significance. Many of the differences between religious traditions, academic schools of thought, and leading theologians are rooted in the assumptions and interpretive methods these people bring to the Bible. This helpful dictionary enables you to appreciate where these major interpreters were coming from so that you can better understand their conclusions.

The two volumes of the Dictionary of the Old Testament follow the same award-winning formula as IVP’s highly regarded New Testament dictionaries (which have long been available in our IVP Essential Reference Collection). They present you with an accessible summary of current scholarship in the “Pentateuch” (the first five books of the Bible) and the “Historical Books” (Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah). If you've already used IVP's New Testament dictionaries, you already know how useful these Old Testament volumes will prove to be. The wealth of New Testament commentaries and dictionaries make it relatively easy for us to interact with the current state of New Testament scholarship, but when we're studying or preaching through books of the Hebrew Bible it can be much more difficult to find information which is not already out of date. This series of dictionaries fills a much-needed void.

For example, I recently read Psalm 110, a Messianic psalm which mentions the priesthood of Melchizedek, an enigmatic figure mentioned in Genesis 14. Psalm 110's mention of Melchizedek later gets used by the author of Hebrews to argue that the priesthood of Christ is greater than that of the levitical priesthood. Since many New Testament dictionaries and commentaries seem to read the Genesis passage through the lens of these later passages, I was curious to see how a dictionary specifically focused on the Pentateuch would approach the subject of Melchizedek. The article on Melchizedek in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch discusses each aspect of the Genesis description of Melchizedek, then examines how that passage had come to be associated with messianic expectations. It concludes by setting those later interpretations aside to consider the meaning of this passage in its original context of the narratives about Abraham. From there, I decided to see if this dictionary had an article on "Messiah" which specifically focused on messianic expectations in the Pentateuch. I was not disappointed.

Now through May 24, you can get all three of these dictionaries for a special bundle price of just $99.99. Once you've purchased them, they can be downloaded immediately through Easy Install.

Have you ever highlighted extensively in a print Bible, then tried to re-read a passage you previously highlighted? I always found that once I had highlighted a passage, it became hard to see anything new in that passage. It was as though the highlighting permanently defined how I read that passage, and I began to find it distracting.

If you highlight a print Bible and later find the highlights distracting, your only option is to buy another Bible. But if you highlight in Accordance, you always have the choice of whether to show or hide the highlighting.

Last week, I showed how you can use Accordance's Highlighting feature to set up a system for "tagging" verses with specific categories, topics, etc. In my second post in the series, I showed how to apply highlight styles to entire verses or selected words in a translation. Highlight just a few verses in this way, and you'll soon wind up with passages that look something like this:

Again, all that highlighting is great when you want it, but it's a distraction when you don't. To hide it, simply choose Set Text Pane Display from the Display menu (or use the keyboard shortcut Command-T).

In the dialog that opens, simply check Hide verse highlighting. If you've done any Word Highlighting, you can check Hide word highlighting as well. When you click OK to close the dialog, the highlighting will no longer appear.

Of course, the highlighting is still there; it's just hidden. You can show it again by using Command-T and unchecking the Hide highlighting checkboxes. You can even search for your highlights while they're hidden—something I'll show you how to do in my next post.

In yesterday's post, I began to show how you can use verse highlighting to "tag" verses with specific categories, topics, etc. In that post, I showed how to create a new Highlight File and define the styles which represent your "tags." Today, I want to show how to apply those styles to specific verses.

Once you've created a highlight style, applying it to a verse or a selection of words is easy: simply select the text you want to highlight, then click the desired style on the Highlight palette. To apply a highlight style to an entire verse, simply select some of the verse reference, then click the desired style. This is called verse highlighting, and it will appear in every Bible text you display which contains that verse.

If you select text in a portion of a verse and apply a style to it, that is called word highlighting. That highlighting will only show up in that particular Bible text, since other Bible texts may not have the exact same wording. In the screenshot below, you can see that I've applied one style to Psalm 146:1–2, and those verses appear highlighted in both the HCSBS and the KJVS. I've also applied a different style to the words "Do not trust in nobles" in Psalm 146:3 of the HCSB. Yet because this is word highlighting which is specific to that translation, this highlighting does not appear in the KJV.

If you select text across multiple verses and apply a highlight style, Accordance assumes you want to highlight all of the selected verses. In this way, you can very quickly "tag" large blocks of verses.

To clear a highlight style, simply select the highlighted verses or words, then click the Clear button on the Highlight palette.

We've now seen how to use highlight styles to "tag" verses with specific categories such as "Joy," "Encouragement," and "Worship." In my next post, I'll show how to hide all that highlighting when you don't care to see it, and how to find all the verses you've tagged with a certain style.

We got an interesting suggestion today on our User Forums. Someone asked for a way to "tag" verses with information. For example, he wrote, "I may want to add the tag 'Joy' to a verse that speaks 'joy' to me, but doesn't have that word actually in the verse."

While Accordance does not currently offer "tags" per se, one way to accomplish this right now is to use verse highlighting as a kind of tagging system.

To use Accordance's highlighting feature, the first thing you'll need to do is open the Highlight palette. You do this by selecting Highlight palette from the Window menu.

In most Accordance installations, the Highlight palette will open with one predefined set of Highlights (My Highlights) containing one predefined style (a yellow style named Important). You can then add more styles to that highlight set, or you can create a new set of highlights for a specific purpose. In this case, let's create a new set of highlights named Tags that we'll use for tagging verses.

To do that, choose New Highlight File… from the pop-up menu at the top of the Highlight palette. In the dialog box that appears, enter the name "Tags" and click OK. The Define Highlight Styles dialog box will then open automatically so you can define the various styles it will contain. Once again, the default style is a yellow highlight named Important, but we'll rename this first style Encouragement, change its Color to Cyan, and change its Shape from a thick bar to an underline.

As you can see, by changing the various pop-ups, you can create boxes, dashed lines, strikethroughs, etc. Once you have this first style set the way you want it, click the New button to add a second style. I'll call this second style Joy, select Magenta as the Color, and leave all the other pop-ups the same. Next I'll create a third style, call it Worship, and give it the color Purple. When I click OK to close the dialog box, my Highlight palette will now look like this:

I now have three "tags" that I can apply to the verses I read. In my next post, I'll show you how to apply those tag styles to individual verses.

In yesterday's post, I examined the HCSB's translation of Matthew 6:9. Instead of "Hallowed be thy name," the HCSB has "Your name be honored as holy." In that post, I looked at the underlying Greek and discussed how the traditional rendering, while good in its day, is now a bit misleading to modern readers. I also discussed how our familiarity with the traditional rendering of well-known passages presents a challenge for translators. A few translations dare to improve the rendering of these favorite passages, but many just retain the traditional rendering because readers tend to balk when the wording of these passages is changed.

So which translations have been daring enough to change the traditional rendering of Matthew 6:9, and which have retained it? To find out, I'm going to use Accordance's Search All feature, but before I do, I want to create a custom group containing all of my English Bibles.

To create a custom group of modules, simply select the modules you want in the Library window, then choose [New Group] from the Add to User Group submenu of the Gear menu. A new folder containing all your selected modules will be added to the My Groups section of the Library window, and you can name it whatever you want. I named mine "English Bibles."

Now that I've created this group, I can search all the modules in that group at one time. In this case, I want to search these English Bibles not for a specific word, but for the verse Matthew 6:9. So I'll simply right-click the verse reference for Matthew 6:9 in my main Bible tab and choose the English Bibles group from the Search All submenu of the contextual menu.

This will open a Search All window and find Matthew 6:9 in all my English Bibles. By selecting all those Bibles in the browser pane of the Search All window, I can see how each one renders that verse by scrolling through the results pane.

Of all the English Bibles I have in Accordance, a great many of them use "hallowed be your name," departing from the King James translation only by replacing "thy" with "your." Given the fact that the word "hallowed" has largely fallen out of use, this is somewhat surprising, and it shows how loath most translators are to change an expression which is often recited from memory. It is interesting to note that of the NIV family of translations, only the New International Reader's Version (NIRV) makes a change here; the NIV, TNIV, and NIV11 all stick with "hallowed be your name."

Most of the other renderings of this verse try to bring out the fact that the verb indicates a petition (rather than a merely descriptive statement) by using some helping verb like "let" or "may." Many also try to make the idea of holiness explicit. These include "Your name be honored as holy" (HCSB), "uphold the holiness of your name" (CEB), "may your name be kept holy" (NLT second edition, WEB, CJB, BBE), "let your name be kept holy" (God's Word), "May your holy name be honored" (TEV), "May your name be hallowed" (REB), and "May your name be held holy" (NJB). The idea of God's holiness is probably also behind The Message's much more paraphrastic rendering: "Reveal who you are." A handful of other translations focus more on the idea of reverence and honor than on holiness per se: "may your name be revered" (Mounce), "may your name be honored" (NIRV, NLT first edition, NET), and "help us to honor your name" (CEV).

Right-clicking a verse reference to find it in all your English Bibles is a quick and easy way to make these kinds of comparisons, and doing so can help you better understand different aspects of the verse. Why does Jesus' model prayer include the petition, "Let your name be holy"? If God is holy, then his name is holy, so there is no need to ask for it to become holy. However, not everyone regards it as holy, so the force of the petition is to ask that God's name become universally honored as holy. This understanding accounts for why some translations focus on the concept of holiness while others focus on the need for honor. Skimming these translations reminds us to pay attention to both ideas in our own exegesis of the text.

As I've mentioned numerous times on this blog, I use the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) as my primary translation. It is a good "mediating translation" (watch Dr. J's podcast on Choosing a Translation for an explanation of that term) which I find offers good English readability without getting too far from the wording of the original text. One of the things about this translation which I both like and dislike is its willingness to break from traditional renderings of well-known passages.

You see, one challenge translators face is that certain Bible phrases have become so ingrained in the consciousness of English speakers that we don't want translators to mess with their wording—even when the traditional translation might be improved upon. We expect Psalm 23 to end with, "I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever." We expect John 3:16 to begin, "For God so loved the world." And we expect the Lord's Prayer to begin, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." Many translations will update and improve the renderings of other passages, while mostly leaving these well-known phrases alone.

The HCSB is more willing than most translations to break with traditional renderings of well-known texts. Part of me loves this, because the HCSB usually ends up expressing the meaning of these passages more clearly than the traditional rendering. Yet part of me also dislikes this, because I too have an emotional attachment to the traditional rendering. Even if I know a new rendering is "better," the traditional rendering just "sounds right" to me. The result is that when I read the HCSB, I sometimes find a new rendering of a cherished text a little jarring, but when I examine it more closely, I usually agree that it is an improvement.

Such was the case today when I read the HCSB's rendering of Matthew 6:9. Instead of the familiar "Hallowed be thy name," the HCSB reads, "Your name be honored as holy."

To see what's going on here, I opened a parallel pane with the tagged Greek New Testament, and found that the word translated by the King James as "Hallowed be" is a third person imperative. In other words, the Greek expression means "Let your name be holy." It expresses the wish on the part of the person praying that others would recognize and honor the holiness of God's name.

Knowing this, we can see how the traditional rendering, "Hallowed be thy name," originally did express the idea of this third-person imperative. In Elizabethan English, "Hallowed be" is another way of saying "Let it be hallowed." But for those of us unfamiliar with Elizabethan English, we are likely to translate "hallowed be" into "holy is." Yet "Holy is your name" is merely an affirmation of what the one praying believes about God, not a petition that all people would come to regard God's name as holy. Thus, the traditional rendering—while excellent in its day—is misleading to modern readers because we tend to misunderstand the grammar of an archaic English construction.

From this we can see the value of translations which dare to deviate from traditional renderings. The HCSB's unusual translation of this verse prompted me to examine the original Greek, which is always a good thing.

Now that I've examined the underlying Greek of this passage, I'm naturally curious to see how other English translations have rendered it. In my next post, I'll show you the easiest way to look this verse up in every English Bible you own, and we'll separate the daring translations from those which bowed to the weight of tradition. I think some of the results will surprise you.