Book Reviews

HCSB Study Bible

I’m grateful to Broadman & Holman for sending me a gratis copy of the new HCSB Study Bible. If you haven’t taken a look at the HCSB Study Bible, now would be a good time to check it out. The English translation is the Holman Christian Standard Version, and it is set within 2,270 pages of commentary, notes, essays, maps, and much more. Contributors to this volume include Tremper Longman, Walt Kaiser, Andreas Köstenberger, Stanley Porter, David Dockery, Ray Van Neste, Murray Harris, Robert Yarbrough, George Guthrie, Robert Stein, Mark Dever, Craig Evans, Craig Blaising, Bruce Ware, Danny Akin, Daniel Wallace, Mary Kassian, Paige Patterson, Craig Blomberg and many, many more. It’s all laid out handsomely with full-color maps, photos and illustrations throughout. If you are thinking about giving the Bible as a gift this holiday season, you’ll want to take a look at this one.

7 Comments

  • George van Popta

    I am a little surprised to read that the HCSB attempts to transliterate the Tetragrammaton rather than use “the LORD” considering that neither the LXX nor the NT attempted a transliteration of God’s personal name.

  • Mark

    I’m surprised that this translation hasn’t gotten the spotlight like the ESV or NIV has. It is a pretty good translation walking between the ESV and NIV. Some may consider it too “conservative baptist” but I don’t detect it too much.

  • John

    I am deciding between getting either the HCSB or ESV Study Bible and was wondering which would be better. I find the HCSB translation much easier to read but have read that the ESV might be better for study because it’s more literal. Any thoughts?

  • Matt Svoboda

    John,

    Im a guy that loves both translations, but I would recommend the ESV Study Bible over any Bible or translation I have ever laid my hands on…

    IMHO, the ESVSB is the best translation/studynote combo that exists. I love both translations, but the notes in the ESVSB are far above any I have read- including MacArthurs, Reformation Study Bible, and several others.

  • Paul Mikos

    Thanks for the shout out, Denny.

    If any of you are on the fence, check out the HCSB Study Bible in it’s entirety, along with some other hefty resources (Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Holman NT Commentaries on the gospels, Strong’s Dictionary, and more), all free online at MyStudyBible.com.

    Also, if you are an iPad or iPhone user, you’ve got to check out our iOS app for the HCSB Study Bible. http://bit.ly/b2j82s

  • John

    Matt,

    Thanks for the info. I looked over both the ESVSB and HSCBSB this eeekend and have to agree that the ESVSB is the hands down winner for both notes and all the other reference material. Two things I really like about the ESV are the facts that they come in non red letter versions and they do not capitalize pronouns (seems like over translating to me in some places where the pronoun may or may not refer to God). But I feel that overall the HCSB translation is a better “english” translation since it uses modern words (‘unless’ versus ‘lest’) that mean the same thing and reflect modern speech. I’ll probably get the ESVSB for study and a regular HCSB for reading. Thanks again for the input.

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