April 15, 2008

The ESV Study Bible -- Mostly Good News...and Some Bad News

As many of you may know, the much touted ESV Study Bible will be launched this year (October 15). It will be a superb study bible indeed looking over the list of the contributors.

I am very pleased to see that they chose Colin Nicholl to write the 1 and 2 Thessalonians' study notes. I look forward to reading them. Dr. Nicholl has a new approach to the traditional outline of Thessalonians. Having studied under him, I was persuaded that he is correct. As far as I know, his view of the outline will be reflected in the notes.

I was disappointed though that they chose a non-futurist to write the Revelation notes, amillennialist Dennis Johnson. I think it it safe to say that most of the ESV's readership have a futurist approach to Revelation and not amillennial, so choosing an amillennialist is an enigma to me. Indeed, other contributors have some input in all the books, but don't expect to find distinctive futurist interpretations since they will be overshadowed mostly by the Amill hermeneutic. I could be wrong, but we will find out with its release.

If you use the ESV I would recommend purchasing the study bible, but understand that study notes should not be a replacement for doing in-depth studies yourself as well as reading and referencing actual commentaries on individual books of the Bible.