I've mentioned a number of times that I have a particular homemade method of making annotations in my Bible. Over the last couple of years, this has become one of the most requested posts I've been asked to write. I remember one particular commenter stating that he had been looking for a really good academic method for a very long time. Well, my fear is that the final product may disappoint. There's nothing profound here and certainly nothing specifically academic in nature. My "system" (if you want to call it that) is simply something that has worked for me both in my own study and in my teaching.

I actually developed it while I was in college, and although I've tweaked it along the way here and there, it's not overly changed from the way it was years ago. I have to admit that the actual structure is based on the colors available in a pack of Stabilo Boss Dry Highlighters. The pack came in five colors. I never figured out what to do with the orange, so I used it elsewhere. However, here is how I arranged my categories:

YELLOW = General and miscellaneous notes that do not fall into other categories.
RED = Dates, chronology, date of composition
GREEN = symbolism, metaphor, literary features
BLUE = Messianic, Christological

With each of the dry highlighters, I use a corresponding pen for my annotations with the exception of the first category for which I use a black pen. In other words, I highlight in yellow, but the corresponding note is in black, unlike the other colors for which I have matching highlighter and pens.

The main Bible I take notes in is a NASB wide-margin single column reference Bible from Foundation Publications. I would be willing to use a more contemporary version such as the TNIV or NLT, but no adequate wide margin Bible is available in these translations. I make these annotations whenever I study a passage (using commentaries and other reference works) for personal edification or teaching others. I make different kinds of notes in a Greek NT, usually grammatical issues relating to the Greek text or a gloss of a rarely used word that is not in my memorized vocabulary.

Here are some random examples of the kind of annotations I've got marked in my NASB wide-margin Bible:

GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

• In Gen 45:4, I have the word alive highlighted in yellow. In the margin I have the words "meaning 'enjoying health and well-being.'" I have no idea where I got this information--probably from a commentary. I will list a source for extended notes, but not short comments like these.
• Sometimes I merely write annotations without highlighting anything specific. For instance, In the top margin above 2 Sam 13, I have "reminder" bullets: • Absalom and Tamar were David's children by Maacah, daughter of the king of Gesure; and • Amnon Was David's son by Ahinoam, the Jezruelitess.
• At Neh 4:3, I have highlighted in yellow the words "break their stone wall down." In the margin are the words, "Actually archaeological discoveries have revealed Nehemiah's wall to be four feet thick--NAC." In this case, I did note the source: the New American Commentary. I could have just as easily noted the author instead of the series, but more than likely, the series would make a more familiar reference in this case.
• At Neh 3:13, Zanoah is highlighted in yellow with the accompanying note, "13 mi. sw of Jerusalem."
• Sometimes the notes will reflect alternate translations. In Neh 5:7, I highlighted the words "I consulted with myself" and in the margin have the note "lit. 'my heart took counsel upon me.'"
• Certain books like Job are heavily annotated. In this case, I was doing personal study through Job at one point, and then I've taught the book a few times.
• In many places throughout the Bible, I'll highlight a word in yellow, and in the margin or very close to it, write the actual underlying original language word.

DATES AND CHRONOLOGICAL ISSUES

• In Jer 1:2, I highlighted in red the phrase, "the thirteenth year of his reign." The corresponding note (written in red ink) says 627 BC.
• I highlighted in red the Hebrew month "Nisan" with the corresponding note "spans March-April; 1st month of the Persian year." Similarly at Neh 9:1, I highlighted the phrase "the twenty-fourth day of this month" with the annotation "Oct 30, 445 BC."
• I have a note in red at Acts 6 that these events occur five years after Pentecost.
• At the beginning of books, I often try to list suggested dates of composition. For instance in Matthew, I have a number of suggestions including on the more conservative side: "60's <70" from Carson, Moo, & Morris' NT Intro and "After 70" from Kümmel's more progressive NT Intro. Because these types of annotations come at the beginning of the book, I sometimes write other introductory notes in red as well such as suggested authors, but I don't do this consistently, it seems.
• I occasionally use red for brief outlines and structural notes.

SYMBOLISM/METAPHOR/LITERARY

• I highlighted "with fasting, in sackcloth and with dirt upon them" in green and my corresponding note written in green says "mourning and humility." This kind of note seems unnecessary after a while. I simply "know" that kind of information. Do I really need to make a note of it? And yet, I tend to add that kind of notation anyway for teaching purposes as it reminds me to mention it in an instructural setting.
• In Job 1:2 I have highlighted "Seven sons and three daughters" with the annotation "The symbolism of the numbers imply that Job had an ideal family." This kind of note gets a lot of play in a book like Revelation, where I have quite a bit of green.
• In Psalm 74:19, turtledove is highlighted with the simple annotation "Israel."
• A passage like Eccl 12:3-6 is loaded with symbols. "watchmen of the house" = arms, "mighty men" = legs, "grinding ones" = teeth, etc. I have all of these highlighted in green with accompanying annotations written in green.
• I use green for the many euphemisms in a book like Song of Solomon.

MESSIANIC/CHRISTOLOGICAL

• This turns out to be my least used color, perhaps because it could be overdone, especially in the gospels and become meaningless. Often annotations that could receive blue treatment simply get highlighted in yellow.
• Since the NASB wide margin that I use has a cross reference system, I often will highlight in blue the cross references between the testaments referred to in messianic prophecies. Surprisingly, often I find that the references aren't included both ways and I will have to write one of them in using a blue pen.
• In Rev 5:5, I have Lion highlighted in blue with an annotation written in blue that says "conquering warrior messiah." Then in v. 6, I have the accompanying Lamb highlighted in blue with the note "sacrificial death; links the Messiah to the passover lamb." I also have a note written in blue with v. 6, but not directly related to anything specifically highlighted, that says "Here John joins the OT Davidic Messiah and the Suffering Servant of Isaiah (Isa 52-53)." I really should have listed my source for that because I doubt it was my own original conclusion. It may have come from John Newport's book, The Lion and the Lamb.

Obviously, there are thousands of other examples, but the above are a sampling which I believe gives the flavor for what I am doing.

The actual Stabilo Boss Dry Highlighters are no longer made, but are still available on eBay. I have stocked up on enough to last for a very long time. The dry highlighters I usually see in stores these days are the Staedtler dry highlighters. To me these are a perfectly suitable replacement, except for the yellow pencil which makes me continue to seek out the older highlighters.

For years, I used ballpoint pens for my corresponding notes, with green ballpoints always the most difficult to come by. Noticing that some of my oldest notes were starting to bleed through, and I began to look for something else. A number of readers for this blog suggested the Pigma Micron pens. These are what I use exclusively in my Bibles now, and having experimented with different nib sizes, settled on a 01 point for writing in my Bibles. I like these pens so much, I use the larger nibs for grading papers and writing in my Moleskine journal.

I also discovered that Pigma Micron has a brown pen. I like the color brown for a pen, having used brown ink the last couple of years in the Mont Blanc I carry with me everyday. I incorporated brown into my Bible notetaking recently (the first new color added since the originals) by using it as the color for notable quotations that I sometimes find room for in the top or bottom margins of the page.

When I was teaching out of the NASB in which I take notes, I could truly say this was my primary Bible. At one time, I was studying with this Bible, teaching from it, and occasionally preaching from it. I really feel there's great value in using the same Bible for both preparation and delivery. Because I have chosen to teach from a more contemporary version, I have to leave my NASB at home and rely on typed notes and any annotations I may have had room to write in the limited space of the Bible I've been using. Of course, I always taught from pages of notes as well anyway, but in conjunction with the annotations in my Bible. Obviously, not everything could fit into a Bible's margins. But not having the same Bible for both phases definitely has its drawbacks.

And every Sunday morning as I pack up my bag of books to take to church, I am often tempted to chuck the contemporary versions and go back to my trusty NASB instead. Again, I've been willing for two years to make a complete jump to newer translations. The publishers just don't seem to want to comply.

Tags: Wide-Margin, Bible study