The Orthodox Study Bible

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Brian Michael,

I understand, of course, your antagonism to the Orthodox Study Bible (O.S.B.) on the basis of its opposition to papal claims, but I do not agree that therefore the O.S.B. is something to avoid. So many “study Bibles”, even those by Catholic scholars (real or self-appointed), tend so overwhelmingly to be the products of modernists who oppose, by the claims in their noxious annotations to the study Bibles, whole stretches of Catholic doctrine (soteriology, Christology, authority, etc.).

The O.S.B. is a monument to theological rectitude and patristic depth. So, it opposes our Roman and Eastern Catholic papalism? That’s a tiny flaw compared to the thorough-going modernism and Protestant taint of so many other study Bibles, Catholic or other!

Pax, Jerry Parker
 
Jerry,

Thanks for your charitable response. My post was basically a rant (when I didn’t intend it to be!) -

O.S.B. is SURPRISINGLY a very good study bible [esp. its discourse on Confession] considering that Thomas Nelson, whom I don’t trust, is only doing it for the money

{really, ThomNels., do you need to put out a new Bible every 6 months??}

Oh my gosh this is turning into another rant (when I didn’t intend it to be!), so I heartfully retract my earlier post…

…but I still mistrust ThomasNelson and Zondervion,
 
Brian Michael,

You wrote: * Thanks for your charitable response. My post was basically a rant (when I didn’t intend it to be!) -

The O.S.B. is SURPRISINGLY a very good study bible (especially its discourse on Confession), considering that Thomas Nelson [Bible publisher], whom I don’t trust, is only doing it for the money

{really, ThomNelson, do you need to put out a new Bible every 6 months??}

Oh my gosh this is turning into another rant (when I didn’t intend it to be!), so I heartfully retract my earlier post…

…but I still mistrust Thomas Nelson and Zondervon.*​

Yes, Thomas Nelson is only “out-filthy-lucred” by Zondervan, the ignoble firm that sponsored and introduced the contemptible New International Version (ugh!). Maybe the Bible Societies are even worse, though, for such atrocities as the T.E.V. (“Good News”) Bible and its dreadful foreign language equivalents (some of which, e.g. the hideous German Das Gute Nachtricht, are appalling bad to a degree that beggars description and supasses in crime-against-God’s-Word even the T.E.V.!). Then there are all those Bible outfits that pour out other paraphrases even worse than the T.E.V.! (The most abominable version, from these subhumans, of that ilk is Petersen’s The Message, so heavily paraphrased that it is hard even to recognise what one is reading.)

Anyway, Nelson can put out very classy products, despite promoting some real dredge, and the Orthodox Study Bible is one of them, so noteworthy for both the new translation of the Old Testament (including, of course, the deuteroanonical writings) as well as the notes for both Testaments. I love this Bible and have been using it daily now since it came out.

Yeah, when does this deluge of study Bibles, most of them rather poor or downright tawdry, ever cease, or, rather, slow down to make room only for truly excellent and useful study Bibles? The one that I bought mose recently, and which really is quite good on its own (Protestant) terms, is the Lutheran Study Bible (the L.C.M.S. rather conservatively sponsored one of the title, allied to the very excellent English Revised Version, short of that version’s “Apocrypha”, rather than the useless one of the same title from the E.L.C.A. modernist-drenched Lutheran denomination, which affixes its apostate notes to the not-so-bad N.R.S.V. translation, again without that version’s deuterocanonical writings). That L.S.B. from Concordia Publishers is a worthy item to acquire, but most of the new study (or annotated) Bibles are pointless for users however profitable for the publishers’ profit ledgers.

Gosh, I got my own rant in, too, about all those heinously bad Bible versions!

Pax, Jerry Parker
 
Ignatius Press uses Thomas Nelson to publish their Ignatius Bible (RSV-2CE).
 
brianmichael said:
O.S.B. is SURPRISINGLY a very good study bible [esp. its discourse on Confession] considering that Thomas Nelson, whom I don’t trust, is only doing it for the money
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Well, actually, the OSB was published by Conciliar Press, and distributed by Thomas Nelson. (And I’m not so sure it was primarily done for money – Michael Hyatt, the Thomas Nelson CEO, is a member of an Orthodox church – he is not Protestant.)

Thomas Nelson also publishes several Catholic books, including several Catholic Bibles (NAB, NRSV-CE, DHH) – see this list.

The charge that Thomas Nelson only is “doing it for the money” confuses me: more than a few Catholic publishers are for-profit enterprises. Do you propose that we shun for-profit Catholic publishers?
 
Brian Michael and Cal,

Brian Michael and Cal wrote: Originally Posted by CalCatholic:
Ignatius Press uses Thomas Nelson to publish their Ignatius Bible (RSV-2CE).​

Well, I conceded, for my part, that Nelson publishes some very fine Bibles, whether text, reference, or study/annotated editions, even if they do publish some that are of questionable worth. My first Bible of any kind was a pocket-sized, leather-bound Authorised “King James” Version (A.V.) N.T. published by Holman, my first non-A.V. Bible was a Nelson-published R.S.V., and I have the large print, leather-bound R.S.V. Bible that Nelson published which I gave to my paternal grandparents and which their estate remitted to me on their discease, one after the other within a year’s time. So, Nelson has been there for me over my already long life (67 years).

In a way, it is surprising (and admirable, too) that such a sectarian/Protestant publisher has ventured into Catholic and Orthodox Bible publishing at all. I guess that their motives could be various or mixed, such as: “Why not tap into all the markets?”, “We have a responsability to all Christians, Anglicans, Catholics, and Orthodox included, as well as those Baptists”, or “Go for the gusto and the big bucks, whatever it takes, guys!”. At least the physical quality of Nelson’s Bibles, whether under their own imprint or as they they print them for other firms, is admirable.

The Second Catholic Edition of the R.S.V. is, indeed, as surely you know, Cal, an extraordinary production. No Catholic should hesitate to acquire it, even if he already has the R.S.V. First Catholic Edition (which first came out from, you guessed it, Nelson, and which Ignatius Press reprinted). The style of the R.S.V.-C.E.2 is better as well as the text superior due to correcting reliance on some “iffy” readings from the manuscript evidence (though I wish that there had been even more).

Pax, Jerry Parker
 
Bible Reader,

You wrote: *The charge that Thomas Nelson only is “doing it for the money” confuses me: more than a few Catholic publishers are for-profit enterprises. Do you propose that we shun for-profit Catholic publishers? *​

Of course, you are right. It is perfectly respectable to publish the Bible, any good version, with the hope, among other motivations, to make a profit, The sheer quality of Nelson’s products is indicative of concern not to exploit readers on the matter of durability and other such factors, though all the pandering of Bible publishers, whoever they are, to publish embarassments such teeny-bopper oriented study-entertainment Bibles and others of pretty exclusively trendy sort and that kind of thing can be demeaning to the Sacred Scriptures. Also, I guess that Nelson is not so oriented, at least in recent years, to the Baptists and neo-evangelicals as I had thought, from what you said about the C.E.O.! Yeah, leave that kind of staffing to Zondervan et alia!

Pax, Jerry Parker
 
Epistemes said:
I’m going to be dead honest: I don’t know too much about Eastern Orthodoxy and where Eastern Orthodoxy departs on theological, Christological, and ecclesiological grounds from the Catholic and Protestant Churches. Regardless, I am interested in purchasing the (hopefully) soon-to-be released Orthodox Study Bible:

lxx.org/

I would love to own this Bible for personal reasons, but also for ecumenical reasons, as well, as I continue to learn about the faith traditions within Christianity.

Here’s the thing: Most descriptions of this Bible state that it will include “Orthodox commentary.” Excuse me for sounding so deft, but what would that exactly consist of? What would Orthodox commentary possibly suggest that a Catholic commentary wouldn’t?
Click to expand...
Have it, love it. The commentary is excellent and very Catholic with the exception of the primacy of the Pope. It is and excellent study bible.
 
Epistemes and Ignatius,

**You wrote: Epistemes: ** *I’m going to be dead honest: I don’t know too much about Eastern Orthodoxy and where Eastern Orthodoxy departs on theological, Christological, and ecclesiological grounds from the Catholic and Protestant Churches. Regardless, I am interested in purchasing the (hopefully) soon-to-be released Orthodox Study Bible:

lxx.org/

I would love to own this Bible for personal reasons, but also for ecumenical reasons, as well, as I continue to learn about the faith traditions within Christianity.

Here’s the thing: Most descriptions of this Bible state that it will include “Orthodox commentary.” Excuse me for sounding so deft, but what would that exactly consist of? What would Orthodox commentary possibly suggest that a Catholic commentary wouldn’t?

Ignatius: Have it, love it. The commentary is excellent and very Catholic with the exception of the primacy of the Pope. It is and excellent study bible. *​

Ignatius, I love that hearty and brief endorsement that you give of the Orthodox Study Bible (O.S.B.)! Now, I’ll just add a wee bit to answer a bit some of what Epistemes queries. There are no major differences between Orthodox and Catholic Christology and theology, apart, notably, the matter of the “Filioque” phrase in the Nicene Creed. There are differences of emphasis and of nuance, but nothing, otherwise, of sufficiently important substance to divide us (although I and others are uncomfortable with the syncretistic emphasis in Orthodoxy that so counters Roman Catholic soteriological teaching, especially in the writings of St. Augustine, whom so many Orthodox abhor, to varying degrees). As to ecclesiology, there is the matter, of course, of Orthodoxy’s denial of Papal infallibility and, among some of them, even of Petrine Primacy, as well as a stress on autocephaly within the one, united Church, but both systems are episcopal and alike in the other important matters, in theory and in reality, about those which constitute “the signs of a true Church”.

What makes the O.S.B. so distinctly Orthodox are its constant references back to the Fathers of the Church (i.e. to the writings of the Patristic era), especially those of the East. Other study Bibles and commentaries do rather little of a similar kind. Roman and Eastern Catholics share the Patristic heritage, Latin, Greek, and Syriac, of the Church, so the O.S.B. provides a marvellous tool for trans-Catholic Bible study. There are comments by the editors of the O.S.B. in their own words and of their own ideas, but, apart from the matter of Papal claims, there is little of what these editors write that would “rock the faith” of a Catholic (certainly a whole lot less than the unbelieving modernist crud, touching on and compromising the very basics of Christian faith, that one finds in the notes of all too many putatively Catholic editions, especially for “study”, of the Bible and in such faith-destroying atrocities as the various editions of the Jerome Biblical Commentary, which our bishops have made all too little effort to censor).

So, Epistemes, go for it, dude! 👍

Pax, Jerry Parker
 
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