The Orthodox Study Bible is an English translation of Scripture with commentary and study notes written from an Orthodox Christian perspective. It’s the Bible you’ll see most often in Antiochian parishes, including right here at St. Michael.
Published in its complete form in 2008 by St. Athanasius Academy of Orthodox Theology (the New Testament with Psalms came out earlier in 1993), it uses the New King James Version for the New Testament and a translation based on the Septuagint for the Old Testament. That second part is what makes it distinctly Orthodox.
Why the Septuagint Matters
Most Protestant Bibles translate the Old Testament from the Hebrew Masoretic text. We don’t. The Orthodox Church has always used the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures made a couple centuries before Christ. This is the Bible Jesus and the Apostles knew and quoted. When St. Paul references Scripture in his letters, he’s usually quoting the Septuagint.
The Septuagint includes books that Protestant Bibles label “Apocrypha” and leave out entirely: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, and 1-4 Maccabees, plus additions to Daniel and Esther. We call these the deuterocanonical books, and they’re just Scripture to us. The Church has always read them in the liturgy and drawn on them for teaching. When you open the Orthodox Study Bible, they’re right there where they belong.
What’s Inside
The study notes come from the Church Fathers and the liturgical tradition. When you read about the Passover in Exodus, the notes will connect it to Pascha and Christ’s sacrifice. When you read Isaiah’s prophecies, you’ll see how the Church has understood them christologically for two thousand years. This isn’t one scholar’s opinion or a denominational spin, it’s how the Church has read these texts from the beginning.
You’ll also find icons throughout, a lectionary showing which passages are read on which feast days, and articles explaining Orthodox approaches to Scripture. There are maps, a glossary of terms, and prayers. The book introductions give you historical context and explain how each book fits into the larger story of salvation.
Fr. Peter Gillquist, who led the mass conversion of evangelical Protestants into the Antiochian Archdiocese in 1987, was involved in this project. So were other Orthodox scholars and clergy who understood that English-speaking converts and inquirers needed a Bible that reflected what they were hearing in church.
How It’s Different
If you grew up Baptist or at Abundant Life, your study Bible probably had notes about dispensations, the rapture, or personal salvation decisions. The Orthodox Study Bible doesn’t. It presents salvation as theosis, a process of being united to God through grace. It treats the sacraments as real means of grace, not symbols. It references the saints and the Theotokos naturally, because that’s how the Church reads Scripture, in communion with all the faithful, living and departed.
The whole approach is different. We don’t read the Bible alone, by ourselves, asking the Holy Spirit to show us what it means. We read it within Holy Tradition, with the Fathers as our guides and the liturgy as our context. The Orthodox Study Bible helps you do that.
Should You Get One?
If you’re inquiring into Orthodoxy or you’re a catechumen, yes. Get one. It’ll help you understand what you’re hearing on Sunday mornings. When Fr. Michael references a passage in his homily, you can go home and read not just the verse but the Orthodox understanding of it.
If you’ve been Orthodox for years and you’re still using your old NIV Study Bible from college, consider switching. Not because the NIV translation is bad (though it has its issues), but because the notes in that Bible are teaching you a different faith. You’re trying to learn to think like an Orthodox Christian. The Orthodox Study Bible helps you do that.
Ancient Faith Publishing released an updated edition in 2019 with better binding and layout, and that’s the one you’ll find at most Orthodox bookstores now. Antiochian Village sells it, and so does Ancient Faith. It’s not cheap, usually around fifty dollars for a hardcover. But it’s the one Bible that’ll actually help you understand what we believe and why we read Scripture the way we do.
You can keep your other Bibles. But if you’re serious about learning the Orthodox faith, this one belongs on your nightstand.
