When I reviewed Zondervan's NIV Archaeological Study Bible back in October, I was decidedly positive about this Bible, but pointed out that it was not without a few errors. One of This Lamp's frequent commenters, "Larry," pointed out a number of specific mistakes in addition to the upside down Rosetta Stone I had noted. In spite of the mistakes, I have remained positive about this edition of the Bible because of its promise, even if it didn't go as far as I'd like (with extended bibliographies and a translation more recent than the now almost 30-year-old NIV).

In fact, because of my enthusiasm for the ASB, my wife and I purchased one for my brother-in-law last week as a Christmas present. While taking a copy off the shelf in the store, I immediately noticed that the dust jacket was the same height as the entire volume. Remembering that the dust jacket on my copy had been more of a wrap-around cover, I wondered if corrections had been made to the copy I held in my hand. I quickly turned to p. 101 to see if the Rosetta Stone was turned right-side up. It was! However, something still did not look right. More about this below.

The new printing (recognized by a full-length dust jacket in the hardback) should not be mistaken for a new edition of the ASB. Bibliographies for further research are still missing, and a few things have been changed, but unfortunately other things have not. The list below should not be considered a complete one, but rather my checks on the issues discussed in the comments of my previous review. It should be noted that Zondervan was made aware of the issues in my last post of the ASB and the comments pertaining to it.

- The front matter now includes a list of article contributors which was missing from the original edition. Articles are still not signed, but at least the contributors, many of which were graduate students are now given credit. However, I can no longer find their names or even the names of the editors on the ASB website., although the link included in the comments of my previous review still works. If I am overlooking a link still on the ASB site, someone can correct me.

- The spelling inconsistency of "mikveh" (p. 1648) and "miqveh" (p. 2085) remains. Neither one is incorrect, but usually in a work like this a consistent spelling will be adopted. Obviously, this is a minor issue, but I'm surprised it has not been caught.

- William Hallo's name is still misspelled as "Hallow" on p. xviii (p. xix in the original edition). I double-checked my own copy of The Context of Scripture yet again, and the name is indeed misspelled. This should have been a prioritized correction.

- The Masoretic Text in the glossary listing on p. 2085 is still listed as being housed at the Saint Petersburg Public Library, but this title is slightly incorrect. Technically the manuscript is housed in the Russian National Library (or the State Public Saltykov-Shchedrin Library), which technically is a public library in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

- Something I hadn't noticed before, and is probably picky to some, but Dr. Duane Garrett (who served as General Editor and Theological Review) is associated with the "Southern Baptist Seminary" on p. xviii instead of the "Southern Baptist Theological Seminary," the actual name of the school.

- Now about that Rosetta Stone on p. 101--good news and bad news. The good news, which I have already mentioned, is that the Rosetta Stone in the new printing is now right-side up:

In the photo above, I have laid the first printing on the left next to the recent printing on the right. In the original edition of the ASB, the Rosetta Stone was incorrectly placed upside down. The new printing places it right side up. But when I first looked at the "corrected" image while still in the store, something bothered me; something didn't seem right. When I got home I looked up the Rosetta Stone in a few of my own resources. Sure enough--it's still not correct. The picture in the book is actually a mirror image of the original Rosetta Stone. Compare, for instance, this image from the website of the British Museum where the stone is kept:

Obviously, the original blunder was worse, but one would think that an artifact as well-known as the Rosetta Stone could be displayed correctly.

In spite of these issues, I'm still very enthusiastic about the Archaeological Study Bible. I own one myself, and I just bought one as a Christmas present. However, before the next printing of this Bible, hopefully someone can really give it a fine-tooth proofread. This should probably be an expert in the field of biblical archaeology and backgrounds who did not work on the original project. It's often quite hard to proofread one's own mistakes because one knows how the work is supposed to read (happens here on my blog all the time).

One more thing... before posting this blog entry, I contacted Zondervan almost a week and a half ago to see if there was a complete list of corrections and changes available for this new printing of the ASB. Unfortunately, I have not heard from them yet, but if I find out there are more corrections, I will post them here.

Tags: Zondervan, Bible study, NIV