CSB Apologetics Study Bible Quick Review
The CSB Apologetics Study Bible aims to equip Christians with information that’s helpful in understanding and defending their faith. Apologetics is an area of theological study that I love and have recently dived head first into. So, I got this Study Bible and read from cover-to-cover. It took me about a month (including some time off over Christmas) of daily reading. In this post I’ll describe what I did and didn’t like about it and hopefully help you decide if you want to read it, too.
Disclaimer
I’m not a master theologian, I’ve never been to seminary, or anything like that. I’m a Christian who reads scripture to help grow closer to God and learn about his character and will for me and others. I like Study Bibles because often God’s word can be complicated or challenging to interpret. It’s helpful to stand on the shoulders of others by reading their thoughts and interpretations, but we must also be very careful to choose proper teachers and resources to help us do that.
I bought the CSB Apologetics Study Bible because I love apologetics and have found it to be a great way to strengthen my faith.
About the CSB Apologetics Study Bible
This Study Bible describes itself this way:
The CSB Apologetics Study Bible helps today’s Christians better understand, defend, and proclaim their beliefs in an age of increasing moral and spiritual relativism. This revised and updated edition includes new articles and extensive apologetics study material from today’s leading apologists to reflect and provide deeper understanding of the relevant apologetics issues and questions being discussed today.
If you were to read this Study Bible without prior awareness of its mission, you’d certainly be able to tell it has an apologetics slant.
CSB Translation
This isn’t the right place to really dig into which Bible translations I like and which are good, or the differences between the vast variety of English Bible translations a modern Christian has the luxury of choosing between, but here are my quick thoughts.
CSB, the Christian Standard Bible translation, is neither a full-blown literal, “word for word” translation like the NASB, nor a full-blown “thought-for-thought” translation like the NLT. My personal favorite translation is the ESV, and the CSB seems like an unneeded half-step between the ESV and the NIV. Indeed, today, I think the NIV is an unneeded half step between the ESV and the NLT, but I’ll write a longer post on translations another time. The CSB is a reputable and worthwhile translation, but I think if someone struggles to read the ESV, they’ll struggle to read the CSB, too. If someone is reading the NLT or NIV and wants something more literal, I think they should just pick up the ESV, personally. That being said, I have nothing specifically against the CSB and I think it’s a perfectly fine translation on its own.
Features
The CSB Apologetics Study Bible has a handful of unique study features that I’ll describe and share my opinion on now.
Book introductions
Most Study Bibles include an introduction to each book in the Bible, and the CSB Apologetics Study Bible is no exception. The unique value added, however, is that this Study Bible’s introductions are obviously geared towards Christian apologetics. Each book’s introduction includes information about the author of the book, how we know who the author was, debate points about books whose authorship is contested, when the book was written and how we know the date of the original writing, and other information that is very useful for apologists that other Study Bibles routinely omit.
I think the book introductions are a huge asset for the CSB Apologetics Study Bible. A large part of Christian apologetics is defending the integrity of scripture, and this Study Bible’s book introductions are enormously valuable for doing that.
Footnotes
Almost every Study Bible has footnotes that appear on the same page as the scripture they relate to. The CSB Apologetics Study Bible’s footnotes are obviously done from an apologist perspective and are pretty good overall. This Study Bible includes a ton of useful notes that tend to fall into a few categories in general:
- Defending the integrity of the scripture - ex: “some people say this was added later because x, but we know it wasn’t because y”
- Defending the character of God - ex: “this passage about slavery is not an endorsement of the practice but rather…”
- Explaining challenging passages - ex: “this prophet isn’t saying x, but rather y”
The footnotes are the meat and potatoes of this Study Bible. There’s tons of them, present on almost every one of the 1600 pages of scripture. Not every footnote is going to resonate with every reader, but there’s enough in here that any reader will come away with apologetic ammo.
This is a good time to mention that the study material in this Study Bible doesn’t necessarily tackle concepts like “is water baptism necessary for salvation” because that’s not really an apologetics-related topic. It’s a contested area of theological debate among Christians, but it’s not important to defending your faith. If you’re looking to defend a specific denomination, you might be in the wrong place, but if you want to be able to intelligently defend Christianity overall, you’ll be well-served by the information shared in the notes of this Study Bible.
“Twisted Scripture” inline notes
The CSB Apologetics Study Bible includes a feature where inline with the actual scripture (as opposed to in smaller font below the scripture like a footnote) it presents explanations for commonly misunderstood passages. There are 48 of these such notes, which sounds like a lot, but honestly I almost forgot to write about them in this review. There are over 31,000 verses in the Bible and far more than 48 of them are regularly taken out of context and “twisted” in unbiblical ways. Additionally, the content in many of the “twisted scripture” features explains thoroughly the positions of Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses or other heretical cults for most of the feature, and then seemingly takes one sentence at the end to say “this isn’t what that verse means” and… it just doesn’t feel very valuable.
The “Twisted Scripture” features aren’t bad but they’re basically inconsequential.
Articles
There are 134 articles on apologetics issues in the CSB Apologetics Study Bible and most of them aren’t great. None of them are wrong in the information they share, but hardly any of them do a very good job of preparing an enthusiastic young Christian starting out in the field of apologetics. They’re all on relevant and worthwhile topics, they’re all factually correct, but many of them are just lacking in substance. It’s hard to strike a balance, I think, in this area because some of these topics could have their own books, but three short paragraphs isn’t enough to cover a topic like the Trinity.
Don’t buy this Study Bible just for the articles. Any Christian can easily find more worthwhile answers to the topics and questions covered in these articles for free online. The articles in this Study Bible aren’t wrong, they’re just leaving a lot unsaid.
Biographies of notable apologists
In addition to the 134 articles, the CSB Apologetics Study Bible includes biographies on 12 notable apologists throughout Christian history. These are kind of neat, but like the articles, really short. I don’t think anybody is expecting a full-blown complete biography of CS Lewis in this Study Bible, but these biographies barely scratch the surface.
Physical Book
I am not a big Bible snob. I think prioritizing the “build quality” of a Bible over the scripture it contains is silly and borders on idolatry. That being said, it’s nice to know that when you’re paying a publisher money for something that it’s going to hold up to your use of it.
I got the brown/tan imitation leather version of the CSB Apologetics Study Bible and it held up great. It lies open flat if you place it on a flat surface like a table, the words on the page aren’t clearly visible on the opposite side of the page, the ribbon is a solid bookmark, and the cover itself doesn’t look beat up at all after one complete read through. I didn’t go out of my way to treat it like it was made of sugar, but I tried to treat it with respect. Bibles are meant to be read, and this one will hold up well to repeated readings.
Final verdict
Overall, I recommend the CSB Apologetics Study Bible to any Christian who’s looking to improve their ability to defend their faith and learn more about the field of apologetics. We’re called by God to be able to defend our faith to others, and to make new disciples. Understanding why Christianity is true and how we can prove that is critical. This Study Bible is an enormously valuable tool for any Christian looking to expand their apologetics knowledge.
Want to buy the CSB Apologetics Study Bible?
If you want to buy the CSB Apologetics Study Bible after reading what I think about it, consider using my affiliate links. You can get it in:
- Hardcover
- Brown/tan imitation leather (this is the one I bought)
- Navy imitation leather
- Black imitation leather
- on Kindle
I do find it’s tough to read reference books with lots of footnotes on Kindle, so if you’re looking to buy this Study Bible, I’d recommend one of the other options.