Commentary notes, or annotations, serve as the defining characteristic of study Bibles. The OSB is no different except that its comments originate not from the interpretation of modern Bible scholars, but rather from over 50 early church sources. These notes not only draw upon the biblical and theological understandings of individuals such as Athanasius, Irenaeus, and Chrysostom, they also gear themselves toward the life and practice of Orthodox Christians. We are pleased to announce the release of the Orthodox Study Bible Notes for the Accordance Library! This unique study Bible, offering insights and commentary from the early centuries of Christianity, will be of interest not only to Eastern Orthodox Christians but also to anyone interested in church history. There were some things I didn't like about it. For instance, the fact that it used the New King James Version for the New Testament, rather than a more accurate translation. Hast thou not sinned if thou hast brought it rightly, but not rightly divided it? Be still, to thee shall be his submission, and thou shalt rule over him.

G. S. Paine, The Men Behind the King James Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1959) p. 182f. Hershal Shanks, 4QSama - The Difficult Life of a Dead Sea Scroll, Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol 33 No 3, May/June 2007, pp66-70. Accordance users have always enjoyed the freedom to pair any translation or original language text of the Bible with any set of study Bible notes, and this remains true with the OSB. However, since the Old Testament of the OSB follows the Septuagint (LXX) and not the Hebrew Bible, included with every copy of the OSB is the St. Athanasius Academy Septuagint, a new English version of the LXX created specifically to accompany the Old Testament annotations of the OSB. The SAAS began with the New King James Version as its base, but changes were made at any point where the LXX differed from the Hebrew text. Moreover, brand new translations were created for the additional books (often referred to as Apocrypha or Deuterocanon) not found in the NKJV. The translation of these additional Old Testament books use the NKJV style and vocabulary as a template to maintain a consistent look and feel throughout the OSB. Insightful commentary drawn from the Christian writers and teachers of the first ten centuries after ChristThe HEXAPLA Institute. Its purpose is to publish a new critical edition of the fragments of Origen's Hexapla, focusing on the later development of Septuagint tradition.

For example, Luther inserted the word “alone” into his translation of Romans 2:28, to make it support his doctrine of justification by faith alone. When asked for justification for his inserting words that did not exist in the original text, Luther simply responded “It is so because Dr. Martin Luther says it is so!” See Frank Schaeffer, Dancing Alone(Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1994) p. 77, and: Jaroslav Pelikan, Reformation of Church and Dogma(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985) p. 252.

The Septuagint has been translated a few times into English, the first one (though excluding the Apocrypha) being The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Covenant of Charles Thomson in 1808; his translation was later revised and enlarged by C. A. Muses in 1954 under the title The Septuagint Bible. The Thomson's Translation of the Old Covenant is a direct translation of the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament into English, rare for its time. The work took 19 years to complete and was originally published in 1808. Aristeas’ account of the origin of the Septuagint is almost certainly a later pious fable, but the significance of The Letter, be it true or false, is that it is a powerful early witness (150-100 B.C.) to the existence of an independent textual tradition of the Old Testament earlier than, or at the very least contemporary with, that represented by today’s text of the Hebrew Bible. The oldest extant witnesses to the Septuagint include 2nd century BC fragments of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (Rahlfs nos. 801, 819, and 957), and 1st century BC fragments of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and the Minor Prophets (Rahlfs nos. 802, 803, 805, 848, 942, and 943). Relatively complete manuscripts of the Septuagint include the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus both of the 4th century AD and the Codex Alexandrinus of the 5th century. These are the oldest surviving nearly-complete manuscripts of the Old Testament in any language. The oldest extant complete Hebrew texts are much later, from around 1000 AD. The Septuagint and Hebrew Bibles compared

The Old and New Testaments edition, subtitled "Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World" came out in February of 2008. It includes a new translation of the Psalms by Dr. Donald Sheehan of Dartmouth College.

Contents

Separate from the article on the “Seventy” (from Luke 10:1-17) included in the bulleted list earlier, another section lists all 70 “sent ones” according to Orthodox tradition, the date on the church calendar in which each is commemorated, and references in the New Testament which refer to these early missionary-apostles. The Holy Fathers teach that the Father made heaven and earth through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Holy Trinity made heaven and earth, and the Church sings, “We glorify the Father, we exalt the Son, and we worship the Holy Spirit—the indivisible Trinity who exists as One—the Light and Lights, the Life and Lives, who grants light and life to the ends of the world” (CanonAnd).

The KJV Septuagint - translated from the Septuagint edition published by the Orthodox Church of Greece's Apostoliki Diakonia, using the King James Version as a template. Scheduled to be published by St. Innocent Press in 2013, this will be the only English translation to date using an approved ecclesiastical text of the Septuagint. The Septuagint was produced in the Helleno-Roman cultural world, that is the period roughly from Alexander the Great’s conquests (c325 B.C.) to the establishment of the Roman Empire. The lingua franca of that world was the κοινη διαλεκτος, (common) Greek. Then as now many more Jews lived outside the Holy Land than lived within it, and the great majority of them did not speak Hebrew. There arose, therefore, a need for a version of the Hebrew Bible in Greek. The Septuagint was that version. It was written by Greek-speaking Jews of the Judaeo-Greek Diaspora, employing, not, as has sometimes been said, a separate Semiticform ofGreek, but the common κοινη with a specialised vocabulary, including idioms, and a style that reflected its own distinctive interests. For an apt comparison one might perhaps think of the legal or journalistic English of our own day. What is the Septuagint? Orthodox Christianity is the face of ancient Christianity to the modern world and embraces the second largest body of Christians in the world. In this first-of-its-kind study Bible, the Bible is presented with commentary from the ancient Christian perspective that speaks to those Christians who seek a deeper experience of the roots of their faith.The Orthodox Study Bible was released in early 2008 with a new translation of the Septuagint based on the Greek text of Alfred Rahlfs Septuaginta, and with reference to the Brenton translation. Thomas Nelson Publishers granted use of the New King James Version text in the places where the translation of the LXX would match that of the Hebrew Masoretic text. This edition includes the New Testament as well, which also uses the New King James Version. It also includes extensive commentary from an Eastern Orthodox perspective. [1] The Eastern / Greek Orthodox Bible (EOB) is an extensive revision and correction of Brenton’s translation. Its language and syntax have been modernized and simplified. It also includes extensive introductory material and footnotes featuring significant inter-LXX and LXX/MT variants.