Scripture Notes

Bibles come in a variety of versions. I’m not just talking about various translations or formats like hardcover, paperback, or leather-bound. I’m referring to special-featured editions like devotional bibles, bibles for men and bibles for women, and ones for teens and kids and so on. My “marriage devotional bible,” for example, has features such as daily and weekend devotions, marriage quizzes, and 30 profiles showing both good and bad examples of married couples in the Bible.

Any of these editions are fine if you simply want to read the Scriptures and the features may be inspiring or help you apply lessons from the Bible to your daily life. And if that’s all you’re looking for, then read no further. But if you really want to understand Scripture, there are some basic features that a bible should have to help you towards that goal.

Footnotes

Footnotes come in many forms. Translators’ notes offer alternate readings of an ambiguous text or different readings from other manuscript sources. These kind of notes can generally be found in all bible editions, even in those that are not intended as study bibles.

Explanatory notes or annotations comment on the biblical text, either on a passage or a specific verse. Also called study notes, these annotations come from the editor of that bible and generally not the translators. Annotations may not appear in all editions and may even be frowned upon in some circles because they tell you what someone else thinks about the Bible. Study notes written by a fundamentalist, for example, will not be welcomed by a mainline Protestant and vice versa.

But, in my opinion, trying to read the Bible without some guidance is like embarking on a cross-country road trip with no maps. Sure, you can follow the road signs, but it wouldn’t take much to veer off-course and wander aimlessly.

No, my bible doesn't look like this. At most I have a few little scribbles in pencil. (Bible journaling by Shar Martinez at https://gypsymamanc.wordpress.com/)

Cross-references operate under the principle that the Bible is its own best interpreter. Cross-references help you locate other verses in the Bible that may be helpful for understanding a particular passage. If, for example, you are studying the story of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist in the Gospel of Luke, it may be instructive to compare with the parallel baptism passages in the other gospels. A cross-reference will also help you locate the verse in Hab 2:4 that Paul quotes in Rom 1:17 so you can read it in its original context.

Introductions and Topical Articles

Most bibles will include some brief introduction to each individual book in the Bible. A good introduction should explain what we know about the author and when the book may have been written. It should also describe the themes of the book and outline the major sections. This may be carried out further in the text itself in the form of unit and section headings. These help you quickly identify the contents on the page much in the same way headings and subheadings do in a contemporary textbook.

For example, my previous articles have covered the unit of Genesis chapters 1-11 known as the “primeval history,” set before the time of Abraham. This unit can then be subdivided into sections on The Creation Week (Gen 1:1-2:3), Adam and Eve (2:4-3:24), Cain and Abel (Gen 4), and so on. Sometimes these unit and section headings are embedded in the text itself, but other times these headings are only mentioned in the footnotes. I prefer the latter approach because deciding where a section begins and ends is a judgment call. Not having an editor’s decision forced upon you through the formatting of the text allows you to make your own decision.

A bible may also have general introductions to both the Old and the New Testaments as well as their major parts: the historical, wisdom, and prophetic books in the OT, and the gospels and letters in the NT.

General or topical articles would help you understand the Bible in general. These may include articles about history during the time period covered by the Bible, how the Bible came to be written, the theology of the Bible, or how to understand Hebrew poetry. These vary widely in content and quality from bible to bible. It is nice to have them conveniently available to you in your bible, but you can easily purchase an introduction to the OT or NT that would cover such topics in more depth.

Maps and Charts

The Bible takes place a long time ago in lands very far away. Although the lands are the same, the place names and political boundaries have certainly changed. Therefore, a set of maps will help you visualize the route of the Exodus, the extent of David’s kingdom, and the journeys of Paul. Ideally, the bible should also include an index to the maps to help you identify a particular location.

In addition to a good set of maps, a proper study bible may also include various charts for helping convert ancient weights and measures to their modern equivalents, for example. Or it may include a chronological table listing events from the Bible with contemporaneous events happening in other parts of the world.

Even with these helps, you will only be able to go so far without additional reference works. In the next article, we’ll discuss how to take your bible study to the next level.