Study Bibles

Thanks Evert that make me feel better. I guess I am trying to do it the easy way. But I am too old to learn Greek and Hebrew like some have suggested. Besides I have had Logos ever since it existed and did everything on it in the way of studding Gods Word and it’s been a blessing to me. But I also like books that I can hole in my hands.

that study Bibles can be very helpful.

One reason I like study Bibles - they give enough information to be able to understand the text and they keep you reading the Bible text rather than reading about it.

I still think a study bible is a helpful tool, though certainly less important than it once was. I really love the NET Bible notes for a quick overview of textual critical issues, and the NIV Zondervan Study Bible or Faithlife Study Bible for their reliable but concise notes.

Neither of them will replace more in depth works, but they're handy to have as a quick reference, I think. I just think it's nice to have less material to wade through in some situations, when all you're after is a simple response. If I'm using my phone to quickly look up a verse, I'm often more likely to read the ZNIVSB notes than a lengthier commentary - it works better with the phones form factor, I think. Obviously your mileage may vary.

Hi, Rich:  You like the ''NIV Study Bible.''  Can you go into its positives.  Thank you.

The NIV Study Bible is not available in Logos. Though published by Zondervan, it is not the same as the Zondervan NIV Study Bible.

What I like about the NIV Study Bible are the great maps and timelines, the introductions to each book of the Bible, the extensive notes on the Psalms. The balanced and inclusive approach to to many controversial or divisive topics (women in ministry, believers/infant baptism, etc.). Charts of different sorts (e.g., qualifications for elders and deacons in Timothy and Titus). Besides general notations on the text, it has other types of notes indicated by different icons: a trowel, which indicates a note containing archaeological information; a plant (AKA "seedling"), indicating a note containing something for personal application; and a person; indicating a note with a brief character summary.

I used the NIV Study Bible in my NIV84 for almost 20 years. I now also have the NIV Study Bible for the NIV2011, which has even more notes, and color pictures of many places and objects, nicer maps (and more of them). The only downside is that it's about 2 inches thick!

I don't always agree with it, but then again the only person I always agree with is me. [;)]

I would love to have this in Logos!

I love my Study Bibles and made a collection of those and all my one volume Bible commentaries to supplement them. I've done quite a few lessons using those without the help of the big guns (i.e. Full Bible commentaries, lexicons and what not).  Get a few SB's you don't have to buy them all. FL Study Bible is free  as mentioned previously

DAL

He may have meant that Fortress is fairly progressive (liberal bent some would say)... ECBa is fairly conservative bent and may have meant that. FSB is perhaps more balanced than the others, I have heard enough on both sides complain it is too liberal or too conservative.

-Dan

Sam - May I suggest that you get

"Are they a good theological tool?" To which I answer "No."

Rick been working hard for several months trying to learn what thy call digging deeper, trying  to learn to let the text speak to me, to ask good questions of the text, marking the text which makes no sense to me to have  all this to come up with a good exegesis of the text but still the text to me looks the same.

Theology depends on exegesis, but it isn't exegesis. Exegesis understands a text, where theology tries to understand what the bigger message of Scripture is. For example, we might study baptism and look at all the texts that say something about it and still not be able to decide what the central purpose of it was in Scripture, who is allowed to be baptized, and whether or not it is a NT fulfillment of OT circumcision (for example). To dig deeper, we'd have to look at the meaning, function and purpose of circumcision in the OT (and possibly compare it with circumcision practices by other surrounding peoples - the Egyptians, for example). We might study what is meant by a household, when the prison guard and his whole household are baptized.  We might also want to look at other washing practices in Judea at the time of Christ (including the purpose of the mikvas around the temple), understanding that the writers and first readers of the New Testament had a common experience of these things. Having looked at all of that, we might begin to ask questions about the purpose of baptism as it's talked about in the New Testament. Sometimes it seems to be an initiation rite, other times a cleansing rite. Is it both? Something else? Does one seem to have priority. You may want to look at how Baptists and Reformed theologians themselves deal with these texts (but not by reading what their opponents say that they say - if you know what I mean).

To do that honestly means setting aside for a while what we've always been told and look at the whole of Scripture to see if there's more to this than what we've been told. Sometimes we get stuck just because we don't realize that we even have assumptions that color our reading of Scripture. That's why it's helpful to read what others have also seen as they read Scripture.

Obviously, I'm using one example that is in many camps a highly controversial one. Some on this forum may even object to some of these possible understandings of baptism I suggested. You might object. But in doing theology you have to suspend your assumptions and consider and study other possibilities. You can't do theology without asking questions, and without questioning your assumptions. We live in world very, very different from the one the Bible was written in. We can expect to get it wrong, or at least not quite right, once in a while.

If you want another challenge, you could take on the the cessationist vs continuationist debate (regarding spiritual gifts like tongues and prophecy, healing, etc.). You could look at how grace and moral law intersect and diverge, and how they relate to each other. I've spent quite a bit of time reflecting on the nature of faith in the New Testament and have come to the conclusion that we shouldn't think of faith as primarily an intellectual thing, but as a whole life kind of thing. I wonder what you would find as you studied how that word is used.

I'm giving a kind of long response, but I hope you understand that I'm trying to stimulate you to think more theologically and not just exegetically. As I said, you need careful exegesis to do theology, but theology is what happens when you've finished exegeting and start asking how the truths you've discovered fit with the rest of the Truth of Scripture.

I hope I'm making sense to you.