Tuesday, August 31, 2010

I heard something rather disturbing on family radio last night. I know, right?

I was driving back from, well, that bit doesn't matter and tuned in to the Open Forum. In response to a previous question, a caller asked about the supposed dangers of the King James Study Bible. It seems that Camping had taken a stand against study Bibles with notes at the bottom of the page because a reader could mistakenly recall someone's opinion about the text as "something read in the Bible."

He's got nothing against commentaries, as some Bible readers might, so long as the notes are contained in a distinct book and not on the sacred page. Cross-references - linking God's word to God's word - are alright, despite the fact that any such connections are the result of someone's insight.

Usually, editors take effort to distinguish the biblical text from study helps with headings, text boxes, font size and boundary lines. Getting familiar and comfortable with the layout of a study Bible's page doesn't take much.

2 comments:

Matt said...

It strikes me that this may be how we got the "marginal gloss". :-)

Moonshadow said...

Yes, yes, that's right. I forgot to mention that historical tidbit but then, I do believe these glosses have been cleaned up from modern translations and isn't really an issue/danger any more.

Thanks for your comment!