When Protestant Christians in the United States think about Bible versions and study Bibles, we tend to think within a fairly set spectrum. Translations are more or less literal, and use texts supported by more or less of the evidence. But nearly all Bible translations we encounter have the same 66 books in the same order. Most of us know the Roman Catholic church recognizes ten or so additional books as a canonical Apocrypha.
Most of us, however, are far less familiar with the Scriptures recognized by the third major branch of Christianity, the Orthodox Church. In that light, Thomas Nelson and the scholars at St. Athanasius Academy have done the church a great service by preparing The Orthodox Study Bible. The Orthodox New Testament canon is identical to the Roman Catholic and Protestant New Testament canon; however, the Orthodox Old Testament has the books found in the Roman Catholic Apocrypha and several additional works (151st Psalm, 3 Maccabees, Epistle of Jeremiah, and a 1 and 2 Esdras with a separate Nehemiah). In The Orthodox Study Bible, these books are intermingled with the books Protestants accept as part of the canonical Old Testament.
Given my background, the textual basis of the work was of particular interest. Though several Protestant denominations still use the Traditional Text of the New Testament, unfortunately most Protestants and the Roman Catholic church use the Modern (Critical) Text.The Orthodox church is the only branch of Christianity that still advocates the Traditional Text. Since the scholars of the St. Athanasius Academy were working with Thomas Nelson, they had access to the New King James Version, the only major modern-day translation based on the Traditional Text, and they used its text in the New Testament, noting alternate Majority (Hodges-Farstad) and Nestle-Aland alternate readings in footnotes.
The Old Testament was based on the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek Old Testament, which is the standard Orthodox text. The New King James Version’s Old Testament was based on the Masoretic Hebrew Text. Where the LXX’s Greek reading was the same, the NKJV wording was used. A new translation was made where the LXX version was different. In the 200-year history of the Orthodox Church in North America, this is the first time it has issued an Old Testament based on the Septuagint.
The Bible’s primary audience is for the English-speaking Orthodox church. Its primary appeal outside of that audience is probably in its commentary. The notes draw from a rich heritage of church fathers; to an extent rarely found in Protestant circles, Orthodox view their church history as an unbroken series of links from the time of the early church fathers (who largely wrote in Greek) through today, and the views of the early church fathers are brought into the commentary where applicable. Even when no specific church father is cited, the notes draw from well over a thousand years of Orthodox tradition. These are frequently fascinating and sometimes provide insights missed by Protestants. (Reinventing the wheel can make us feel quite intelligent. But it is typically a monumental waste of time.)
Due to the different canon used in the Old Testament, most Protestant readers will not adopt this as their primary Bible. But the commentary is sufficient reason for pastors and serious Bible students to add this to their library—its sparkles with the freshness of a new viewpoint on the Scripture. Or at least as new as an 1800-year-old forgotten insight can be when upon rediscovery.
