From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Today we answer one of our readers' and listeners' most frequently-asked questions.

Study Bibles by the Truckload

One prominent online religious bookseller offers over 900 different study Bibles. Just a single copy of each one would fill up a large truck. Confronted with such a plethora of choices, Christians need to be discerning about study Bibles - and keep them in their proper place.

You can imagine that among such a range of offerings some are far more worthy than others. It helps to put study Bibles into some basic classifications, understand a bit of Bible publishing history, and remind ourselves of the nature of Word of God versus the word of man.

Many Categories

Some study Bibles promote a particular theological system or viewpoint. Perhaps the best known is the Scofield Reference Bible, which sets forth the Dispensationalist system. Four editions of the Scofield, each with significant theological differences in its notes, have been published thus far (1909, 1917, 1967, and 2007). The New Geneva Study Bible first appeared in the late 1980s, and was written from a Covenant Theology position. In 1998 the name was changed to the Reformation Study Bible. There are also charismatic study Bibles, and volumes produced by cults such as the Seventh Day Adventists.

Another category of study Bible promotes a particular man's (or woman's) ministry and theological viewpoint. The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible categorizes Scripture into 30 "life principles" formulated by the author of the notes, a popular radio and television preacher. John MacArthur's MacArthur Study Bible has a large following. T. D. Jakes (whose anti-Trinitarian theology of God is heretical) has produced something called the Holy Bible, Woman Thou Art Loosed Edition, which is designed to address "women's emotional and spiritual issues." Charismatic prosperity preacher Joyce Meyer has produced the Everyday Life Study Bible.

Other study Bibles target a particular age group or gender - for kids, tweens, teens, young adults, thirty-somethings, forty-somethings, men, women, and seniors.

Several archaeological study Bibles contain notes that relate the text of Scripture to data about the geography, religions, cultures, and customs of Bible times. Some are based on the archaeological work of believing scholars, some are by skeptics (some who are atheists), and others mix the work of the two in a confusing manner.

Apologetics study Bibles form another popular category. The late Dr. Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research produced The Defender's Study Bible. Another called The Apologetics Study Bible features, according to its advertising, "valuable contributions from a who's-who of modern apologists such as Chuck Colson, Norm Geisler, Hank Hanegraaff, Josh McDowell, Albert Mohler, Ravi Zacharias, J. P. Moreland, and Phil Johnson." Given the divergent views of that group of men on the nature of the Bible itself and on many Bible doctrines (in Colson's case at least, on the way of salvation itself), one wonders how such a volume could be anything but confusing.

A Thumbnail History of Study Bibles

Some point to the Geneva Bible, the first English Bible of the Reformation, as establishing the study Bible "tradition." The 1560 Geneva Bible included extensive marginal notes compiled and edited by Laurence Tomson, who was the personal secretary of Queen Elizabeth I's secretary of state. The 1599 Geneva Bible (still in print) added notes on Revelation by the Huguenot scholar Franciscus Junius.

However, the translators of the King James Bible (1604-1611) decided not to include such notes. For the next three centuries, some Bible editions included marginal cross-references to related passages of Scripture. But the general practice was to keep man's word and God's Word separate, and commentaries on Scripture were therefore mainly confined to separate books.

It was not until the early 1900s that what came to be known as reference Bibles or study Bibles, in which the text of Scripture is embedded in and surrounded by the text of commentators, began to appear in significant numbers. Two of the earliest Bibles of this type were Dispensationalist in viewpoint: C. I. Scofield's in 1909 and E. W. Bullinger's Companion Bible, published in six parts between 1909 and 1922. By the early 21st century, what began as a trickle of study Bibles a hundred years ago had become a flood. Today, study Bibles are big business, nearly a billion dollars a year.

Whose Word is Preeminent?

What I am about to say will win me no friends in the Bible publishing industry. But I believe I must be frank. I am opposed to the basic notion of a "study Bible". Let me explain why.

The Bible is the Bible. By definition, the Bible alone is the Word of God. Commentaries on the Bible, good or bad, are the word of man. A volume that mixes the two - where typically 50 to 80 percent of the words on the page are the words of man - is no longer "the Bible."

That may sound rigid, but we are not talking about just any book. We are talking about the only supernatural Book. We are talking about the only Book about which we can say with authority and confidence, "This is all truth. There is no mixture of truth and error here." But when 50 to 80 percent of the words on the page are the words of fallible man - often set off in colorful sidebars and type styles that naturally draw the reader's attention to them first - whose word has the preeminence? How can you avoid always reading the Word of God through the lens of the word of man - or even ignoring the Word of God because your time and attention are so consumed by man's notes?

I believe the study Bible phenomenon is a subtle and insidious return to the very thing the Protestant Reformation opposed - giving the word of man preeminence over the Word of God. We have far too much of that in the visible church today. God's faithful remnant must take a contrary position.

Recommendations

For these reasons, I believe that every Christian's primary Bible, the one you use for daily reading and study, should be the text of Scripture alone, as uncluttered by human additions as possible. Do not let the word of man get in the way of the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit, and pray for that illumination every time you read His Word.

In our day, some human additions are almost unavoidable because very few Bibles in print contain only the pure Word of God. Most current Bibles have center-column cross references. The New King James Bible, among many others, unfortunately includes man-made subject headings within the copyrighted text in most editions. But for English-language readers I strongly recommend using the King James or New King James Bible, both of which are based on the most reliable original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. Thomas Nelson publishes a parallel KJV-NKJV Bible, which can be very helpful to readers who have difficulty with the old English words used in some parts of the KJV.

Among the array of study Bibles available today (ones that effectively embed the text of Scripture in the words of man), there are none that I can unreservedly recommend - and the vast majority I unreservedly do not recommend, even as reference works.

But if you must have a study Bible, choose carefully. Know who has written the notes, and where those people are theologically. Avoid, obviously, the charismatics, prosperity preachers, and other heretics. Make any study Bible your (very distant) second, or third, or fourth Bible, not your primary reading Bible. Recognize that its notes and comments are the words of sinful man, not the holy God, and they will reflect an agenda. Treat such study Bibles as reference works, like any other Bible commentary. Better yet, simply use separate commentaries on the Bible.

There is one Bible - and it is a reference Bible, as distinguished from a study Bible - that I can recommend: the Thompson Chain Reference Bible. No reference or study Bible is perfect, because man is not perfect. But I commend this one to you because it is among the most sound theologically, and it includes helpful material without getting in the way of the text of God's Word.

Except for brief descriptive comments at the beginning of each book and chapter, and cross-references and subject chain references in the margins, there is nothing else on the page but God's Word. All other material - including an alphabetical index, principles of Bible study, outline studies, Bible harmonies, maps, an archaeological supplement, and probably the most extensive chain-reference system available - is confined to sections after the book of Revelation. The Thompson Chain Reference Bible is most useful to Christians in showing us that all of God's Word is intimately interconnected, speaks with one Voice, and is without paradox or contradiction - that it is, indeed, the only supernatural Book.

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