The Orthodox Study Bible, Hardcover: Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World

the bible is constructed fantastically, it comes with a boat load of information from the fist few pages, giving an overview of the books, the church and the fundamental principles of christianity. the paper is great, its thin but thick enough to write upon/see without other text seeping through from the next page; the font is clear and easy to read. it provides the reader with context on each book, while constantly immersing them with the numerous icons scattered throughout, full of colour and clarity. the bible does include maps and footnotes - as of which are my favourite in all of my bibles, they are easy to read but provide a lot of information and context which some readers may not have picked up when casually reading or studying. overall, great bible; would absolutely recommend.

Very pleased with this. Included: A nice colour first page to inscribe names on. All the Apocryphal books are included, in their right order. Lots of great easy to understand foot notes. Lovely full colour plates throughout. A glossary, article indepth on how to read the bible. A lectionary. Full colour maps. An index linking words to bible verses. So Index to both annotations and study articles. The bible Gods revelation to man notes. Morning and evening prayers. The seventy disciples of Christ. And their biblical references. Table of contents and order. Introduction to the Orthodox bible. A list of books it has, compared to both the Catholic and Protestant versions of the bible. The Orthodox having the most, the Catholic the next and the Protestant the least.... An over view of the bible old and newer scriptures. An introduction to the Eastern Orthodox Church and why it is including the great schism. This has it ALL in! As well as the actual bible scriptures! Worth every single penny. Pages are thing, but clear. And of a decent size. I can read them without my readying glasses, just my normal ones. You will not be sorry to own this.

Beautiful bible, easy to use. By far the favourite of a lot of Orthodox Christian and those new to the faith, it's not hard to see why. Good quality. Of course it's quite a book book so not always handy to travel with, but you can always get a smaller bible such as a KJV for when you travel. Highly recommended, excellent value. Was delivered quickly with the minimum packaging and waste therefore. Easy read.

I love it, as English being my second language I needed help with understanding the meaning behind the scriptures and passages. I enjoy reading this book and it has helped and keep helping.

I've been interested in Religious Studies and Theology for a while and have been looking forward to adding the Orthodox Study Bible to my collection. As you can see in the images, the product looks fantastic! I have only seen a tiny crease on a few pages; thankfully, it does not affect the book's quality in any way. The word printing is nice and clear and the hardback cover feels great. While I haven't given it a good read yet, from the bits I've skimmed, the wording is clear and easy to follow. I highly recommend this book!

The Bible itself has the classic look and feel of many Protestant/Evangelical study Bibles. It has a very attractive dust jacket, but the hardback cover itself is also very nice looking, with a burgundy "church pew" look. I do not feel that it is quite up to the standard of other study Bibles in its class in terms of quality of the materials used to produce it. So I feel that it loses 1 star for its quality (when compared to other study Bible I have. I enjoyed the introduction to the Orthodox Church at the front, but I found (perhaps necessarily so) that it was very short, and over simplified the issues at stake. A good book on the subject would be Timothy Ware's The Orthodox Church I enjoyed the various study articles, which expounded a little more on the beliefs of the Orthodox church. My main interest in this Bible is its inclusion of the Septuagint version of the OT, which is the version most quoted by Jesus and His Apostles, and also its inclusion of the Apocrypha (Deuterocanon), which was quoted and read by the Apostles and the Early Church. The notes are somewhat interesting in giving another perspective from the normal evangelical one. The many quotes from the Early Church Writers including the Ante-Nicene Writers was a very nice touch, though not very clear or in depth. Many of the notes (At least in the Torah) are very repetetive. In Genesis for example, everytime The Lord speaks or appears, the notes make a point of saying something like "This is the Word of God, the second person of the Trinity. This Word is the Son of God". Or if the Angel appears, it says something very similar. It got broing real quick and put me off the notes. I didn't even want to read them after a while, as I found them more distracting than anything else. I wanted something more meaty. Considering the lack of resources on the Early Church, this is a good buy overall. It should be an introduction into a very complex, yet satisfying issue (Church history), but you couldn't stop there. Update 2013: I've decided to read through the Bible in 4 months. A big task, especially since I've chosen to read the Orthdoox Study Bible, which has 76 books as compared to the Protestant 66. 4 chapters 3 times per day for a total of 12. It's difficult to always find the time. And I find myself speed reading through much of the Torah, with it's long genealogies and who did what and how for each of the 12 tribes. Anyway, all that to say that I have been finding a few printing errors. I wil post as I find but here are two so far that I have found: Leviticus 13:55, Numbers 9:21

Good commentary

Fantastic

This is a great Bible with exposition from Saints in the Orthodox tradition. A Bible to read with understanding the correct meaning of each passage, and with daily readings and morning and evening prayers.

If you want only one Study Bible to aid and inform your reading of the Bible, or want to have a real alternate to your currently favorite Study Bible, "The Orthodox Study Bible" is the one you need to buy -- not "want", you "need" it. Period. In my thirty years of preaching and teaching the Christian Bible, this is without condition the best, most useful and enlightening Study Bible I have ever used. I say this with such enthusiasm even though I am a life-long Lutheran, and at the same time because I am a committed Confessional, orthodox Lutheran. "The Orthodox Study Bible," though aimed at a target audience in the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the most thoroughly ecumenical Study Bible I know of. The reason for that is in the very nature of Eastern Orthodox theology and biblical interpretation. The Orthodox -- unlike Western Protestantism -- have not jettisoned from theology the wisdom and authority of the Fathers of the ancient church and the liturgical tradition of early Christianity, but rather turn to and look to them as the foundation of all Christian dogma and doctrine, and thus the foundation of the one source of dogma and doctrine, the Bible. In many ways the Orthodox Church is more biblical in its teaching and life than any Western Protestants, and a large part of the reason for this is that the Orthodox Church has an unbroken tradition of reading the Bible together with, in living dialogue with, those closest to its origins: the ancient Fathers of the Church and the ancient worship of the Church. THAT IS WHAT FORMS THE FOUNDATION AND METHOD OF "THE ORTHODOX STUDY BIBLE," and thus makes it THE MOST "BIBLICAL" Study Bible in terms of its notes, commentaries, and invaluable longer articles on points of doctrine. What you will NOT encounter is the prejudice of "modern" Western "historical-critical method" exegesis, with its rules of implicit skepticism and methodological doubt regarding the text of the Bible, which in two centuries have reduced Western biblical exegesis to a tangle of subjective and politically-correct "readings" of the Bible with no unity to them and no authority to support them except the opinion of the individual authors and their pet agendas. "THE ORTHODOX STUDY BIBLE" OFFERS FREEDOM FROM THE DEAD-END OF HISTORICAL-CRITICAL EXEGESIS, and restores how the Church in its first millennium unanimously interpreted and applied the Bible. The "OSB" is not a flat or rote reitteration of the Church Fathers, however. It is how Orthodox exegetes and theologians read the Bible in dialogue with the Fathers as the living voice of the Church throughout the ages, in conversation with the living voice of Scripture. The result cuts right to what the Bible means, how the Bible interprets itself as divine revelation, and the unity of Old Testament and New Testament as the one revelation of salvation in Jesus Christ. This brings with it striking parallels, allusions, typology and allegory -- the meat of Patristic exegesis -- that is far more fruitful for preaching and teaching the Bible than the obsession with socio-historical theories and minutiae that fill most Protestant Study Bibles. The proof is in the using of the OSB with an open mind to a whole new way of reading the Bible than Western Protestants have been trained (brainwashed?) to practice. If you have a long-time favorite Study Bible like the NIV Study Bible, the New Oxford Annotated Study Bible, or any of the many others on the market, certainly keep it and use it if it aids and helps you. But do not use it alone anymore; get The Orthodox Study Bible to compare with your favorite, and so expand deeper and further your reading and meditating on the Bible. The OSB is a "must have" not only for Eastern Orthodox Christians, but for all Christians. One oddity for Western readers that may require some adjustment is the text of the Old Testament used. The Eastern Orthodox Church has always used that version of the Old Testament called the "Septuagint" (abbreviated by the Roman numeral LXX). This is the ancient, pre-Christian (ca 200 BC) translation of the Jewish Scriptures from Hebrew into Greek, during the process of which a number of books written originally in Greek were judged to be inspired Scripture in unity with the witness of the Hewbrew/Israelite books. This is the version of the OT used in the OSB, as it is the official text of the OT in the Orthodox Church. Thus, it is translated from the Greek text of the LXX, not directly from the Hebrew texts, and contains sevral writings not found in Protestant versions of the OT. LXX names and order are retained in the canon as well. So there are the 4 Books of Kingdoms (= 1 & 2 Samuel/1 & 2 Kings); a book of 2nd Ezra (or Esdras); the books of Tobit, Judith, 1st, 2nd & 3rd Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach, the book of Baruch, and the Epistle of Jeremiah. There are 151 Psalms; and the books of Esther and Daniel are considerably longer than in modern Protestant Bibles. These are books of the OT and integrated into the canon of the OT. For a Protestant, that takes some getting used to. ON THE PLUS SIDE: all the writers of the NT read, used and quoted from the Septuagint (LXX), the OT version in the OSB, so it in fact provides an English translation of the "Scriptures" presupposed throughout the NT. "The Orthodox Study Bible" is written for interested laity, not specialized clergy; it is clear, easily understood, and full of helps. A final commendation: LUTHERANS IN PARTICULAR should get and used this as their main Study Bible -- laity and clergy alike. Classical Lutheran theology -- from Luther and Melanchthon to Chmenitz and Gerhard -- is founded on "Scripture Alone," but Scripture in living dialogue with the Fathers of the Church (whom the Lutheran writers often quote at great length to prove the point of their biblical exegesis). "The Orthodox Study Bible" -- as the so-called "Finnish School" of Luther research is increasingly demonstrating -- is equally as much the best "Lutheran Study Bible."

I am so happy with my purchase this bible has everything you need in it like icons maps etc 90000% reccomend if you are orthodox

I am not Orthodox, but I like collecting Bibles to be able to compare differences. This is already a favorite, even though I just received it. I cannot speak about the dust jacket because I bought a previously owned version with the dust jacket missing. I am very slightly disappointed about not having such a beautiful dust jacket, but that in no way detracts from the Bible itself. The words are printed in a very readable larger font. New Testament is NKJV, Old Testament is St. Athanasius Academy Septuagint (SAAS). Fascinating. The whole physical book easily lies flat when opened, which is a huge plus. Each biblical book includes an introduction that gives background information about who wrote it, when, why, and the theme of the book. Most pages include (sometimes lengthy) commentary that helps clarify/explain difficult passages. "Hidden" in the book are several beautiful illustrations. Also, different study articles that help to explain/clarify things from an orthodox point of view. For instance, The Holy Trinity, The Eucharist, John the Baptist, Apocalyptic Literature, and more. If you don't find them while reading or want to read them later, all articles are listed in an index at the back, just before the maps. The maps are color. A bit simplified and not as "pretty" as some biblical maps, but the information is quite presentable and easy to understand. The morning and evening prayers are quite a bit more simple than I expected. I don't know if this represents authentic Orthodox practice or if this is just in case the reader has misplaced their separate prayer book (or doesn't have one). There are NO RIBBON BOOKMARKS. This is extremely inconvenient for a study Bible. Of course, I can use my own paper bookmarks, but I'm used to a study Bible having at least one ribbon, if not two or three. Not a big enough issue for me to deduct a star, but I am still disappointed. Overall, I am quite pleased with this purchase. I would absolutely buy it again, if the need ever arose.

As a Roman Catholic this is a lovely Bible. So firstly I have to say there is an obvious bias towards Catholicism in the Introduction. But the general information on the early Church, Introduction to the books of the Bible and Additional notes is really good. Seeing that we were one Church pre-schism, I can honestly say that this Bible benefits any Christian.