The Orthodox Study Bible

What The Orthodox Study Bible is

The Orthodox Study Bible is a single-volume study Bible published by Thomas Nelson with the St. Athanasius Academy of Orthodox Theology, completed in its full Old-and-New-Testament form in 2008. Its Old Testament is translated and adapted from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures that the Eastern Orthodox Church receives as its Old Testament, and it follows the broader Orthodox canon, which includes books beyond the Protestant sixty-six. The New Testament uses the New King James Version. The biblical text carries running study notes, with additional articles, charts, and reference material throughout.

Beyond the running notes, the volume includes essays on Orthodox doctrine and worship, an introduction to the Orthodox faith, a lectionary for following the Church's cycle of readings, a glossary of terms, and full-color iconographic material. The commentary leans heavily on the Church Fathers — figures like John Chrysostom, Athanasius, and Basil the Great — so that the notes read less like a modern critical apparatus and more like a guided hearing of the text within the Orthodox tradition. The complete edition is available in print, in several bindings, and as a Kindle ebook.

Why Orthodox readers reach for The Orthodox Study Bible

The most-cited reason is simple: it is the only complete English study Bible built from inside the Eastern Orthodox tradition. An Orthodox reader who picks up a typical evangelical study Bible meets a Hebrew-based Old Testament, the sixty-six-book Protestant canon, and notes written from a Protestant frame; a typical Catholic study Bible reflects Catholic emphases. The Orthodox Study Bible is the one volume that matches the text, the canon, and the interpretive tradition an Orthodox Christian already lives inside — the Septuagint Old Testament read aloud in the liturgy, the full canon the Church carries, and commentary that quotes the same Fathers the Church reads on their feast days.

The other reason is the patristic frame. Rather than surveying modern scholarly options, the notes consistently route the reader back to how the Church's teachers historically read a passage. A note on a Psalm might point to how Athanasius or Chrysostom understood it; an article might connect a text to the Church's worship and sacramental life. For a catechumen learning the faith, or a lifelong Orthodox reader who wants their personal study to sound like their parish, that continuity is the whole appeal. It is the thoughtful Orthodox reader's desk Bible, and for that reader nothing else on the shelf does the same job.

The Septuagint Old Testament: the Greek text of the early Church, in English

The defining feature of this edition is its Old Testament, which is translated and adapted from the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew Masoretic Text that most English Bibles use. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures made before the time of Christ; it is the version the New Testament writers most often quoted and the text the Eastern Orthodox Church has always received as its Old Testament. The St. Athanasius Academy worked from the Septuagint and used the New King James Version as a stylistic reference point, producing an English Old Testament that reads in the same register as the NKJV New Testament that follows it.

In practice this means the wording, the numbering of some Psalms, and even which books and passages appear will sometimes differ from what a reader finds in an NIV, ESV, or KJV. The broader Orthodox canon is present in full rather than tucked into an appendix. For an Orthodox reader, this is exactly the point — the Bible finally matches the text proclaimed in the liturgy. For a reader from another tradition, it is the single most important thing to understand before buying: this is the Greek Old Testament tradition rendered in English, not the Hebrew-based text behind most English Bibles, and the two will not always line up verse for verse.

Patristic commentary: hearing scripture through the Church Fathers

The study notes are built around the Church Fathers. Where an evangelical study Bible tends to survey modern scholarly views and a Catholic one weaves in magisterial teaching, The Orthodox Study Bible routes the reader to how the early and Byzantine Church read a passage — drawing on John Chrysostom, Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the broader patristic tradition. The notes are joined by topical articles on Orthodox doctrine, the sacraments (the Mysteries), the Church's worship, fasting, the Theotokos, and the Christian life, so that the running commentary and the essays reinforce a single, consistent reading.

This is the layer that makes the volume distinctively Orthodox rather than just a Septuagint Bible with footnotes. The notes are introductory by design — they orient a reader inside the tradition rather than exhausting every interpretive question — which is both their strength and their ceiling. A catechumen or a lay reader will find them clarifying and warm; a graduate student or clergy member doing close exegetical work will treat them as an on-ramp and reach for fuller patristic commentaries beyond it. That is the right trade-off for a one-volume study Bible, but it is worth knowing the depth is broad rather than deep.

The full Orthodox apparatus: lectionary, icons, and an introduction to the faith

Around the text sits a complete set of Orthodox reference material. There is a lectionary keyed to the Church's annual cycle of readings, so a reader can follow along with what their parish hears across the liturgical year. There is an introduction to the Orthodox faith and its history, a glossary of terms that a newcomer will not otherwise know, charts and maps, and full-color reproductions of icons placed throughout the volume. Together these turn the book into something closer to a single-volume introduction to Orthodox Christianity than a bare annotated Bible.

For a catechumen or inquirer, this apparatus is often the most useful part of the whole package — the articles and glossary answer the practical questions that come up while learning the faith, and the lectionary connects private reading to the rhythm of corporate worship. For a lifelong Orthodox reader it is a convenient single reference that gathers the Church's framing, its calendar, and its visual tradition between two covers. The icons reproduce well in the print editions; on Kindle they display but lose some of their fidelity, which is one more reason most buyers reach for the hardcover.

Pricing

Where The Orthodox Study Bible falls behind

A Septuagint Old Testament that differs from other English Bibles. This is a deliberate feature for Orthodox readers — the Septuagint is the Old Testament the Eastern Orthodox Church receives — but it is the thing other readers most need to know. The wording, the numbering of some Psalms, and which books appear will not always match an NIV, ESV, NKJV, or KJV, because those translate the Hebrew Masoretic Text instead. If you cross-reference across Bibles, expect the Old Testament to diverge in places.

Introductory notes. The annotation is built to orient a reader inside the tradition, not to settle every exegetical question. Compared with the 20,000-note density of the largest evangelical study Bibles or a dedicated multi-volume patristic commentary, the notes here are broad rather than exhaustive. A close student of a single book will read the introduction, get the patristic framing, and then move on to fuller commentaries.

A quickly completed Old Testament translation. The complete Old Testament was produced on a relatively compressed timeline, and some reviewers have wanted more depth and consistency than that schedule allowed. For everyday reading and study it serves well; readers doing detailed comparative work sometimes note the unevenness.

Two source-text streams. A Septuagint-derived Old Testament sits beside an NKJV New Testament, so the volume is not built on a single uniform translation philosophy end to end. In practice the editorial team kept the English registers close, but the underlying texts are not the same kind of thing, and a reader who values a single consistent base text across the whole Bible should know that.

A thin digital footprint. There is no first-party app and no deep online ecosystem — the edition is essentially print and Kindle. Readers who want their study Bible integrated into a software library, with tappable cross-references and original-language tools, will find the major evangelical platforms far ahead here.

The Orthodox Study Bible vs. the ESV Study Bible vs. a Catholic study Bible

These serve genuinely different readers, and the differences start before the notes. The ESV Study Bible is built from within the broad Reformed evangelical world: a Hebrew-based Old Testament, the sixty-six-book Protestant canon, and an enormous, densely cross-referenced apparatus aimed at pastors, seminarians, and serious lay readers. A Catholic study Bible — the NABRE or RSV-2CE editions, for instance — uses the Catholic canon and reflects Catholic teaching and emphases. The Orthodox Study Bible is the Eastern Orthodox counterpart: a Septuagint-derived Old Testament, the broader Orthodox canon, and patristic commentary that reads scripture through the Church Fathers and Orthodox worship.

The single biggest practical difference is the Old Testament. The ESV and most Protestant and Catholic English Bibles translate the Hebrew Masoretic Text; The Orthodox Study Bible translates the Septuagint. That alone changes wordings, some Psalm numbering, and which books appear. The second difference is the interpretive frame — the ESV surveys modern evangelical scholarship and indicates editorial preferences, a Catholic edition weaves in magisterial teaching, and the Orthodox edition routes you back to Chrysostom, Athanasius, and the patristic tradition. None of these is a more or less faithful Bible; each presents scripture as a particular tradition receives it.

Different strengths. The ESV Study Bible is denser, more heavily cross-referenced, and far stronger as a digital and visual reference. A Catholic study Bible is the natural pick for a Catholic reader who wants the Catholic canon and framing. The Orthodox Study Bible is the only one of the three that gives an English reader the Septuagint Old Testament, the full Orthodox canon, and a patristic study layer in a single volume. For an Orthodox reader, or anyone wanting to understand how the Orthodox Church reads scripture, it is the obvious choice; for readers committed to another tradition, it is best read as a window into Orthodoxy alongside a study Bible from their own.

Alternatives to The Orthodox Study Bible