HCSB Apologetics Study Bible (review)

Everybody (myself included) has been saying such nice stuff about the new NLT Study Bible, and that just doesn't fit with the sarcastic tone of this blog when it comes to reviews. So I went on a quest for the study bible with the worst notes. I had so hoped in would be the MacArthur bible, but alas twas not to be, the honor goes to Chuck Colson and the Apologetics Study Bible. Why would anyone pick Richard Nixon's hatchet man to write a bible? The HCSB is a reasonable evangelical translation well covered on a dozen other blogs so I won't bother critiquing that.


We will focus on the notes. The apologetics study bible has these little notes inserted into the text which give the up and coming apologist valuable information to counter the occult, atheists and other religious claims. There is a large note before genesis about creationism. Everyone already knows about that so it's boring. So lets go to the first small note pictured directly to the left.

The first paragraph asserts that Satan falls between verses 1 and 2, which is at the very least a sign of ignorance and at worst a heresy. Romans 5:12 is quite clear that Adam's sin is the cause of evil in the word, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin..." On the other hand we see Satan tempting Adam, and 1 John 3:8 that the devil has been sinning "since the beginning". That is Satan's fall predates Adam but is Adam's sin which introduces evil, Satan's fall is not the cause of evil. This incidentally is covered quite well in just about every standard reference materials like the Catholic Encylopedia entry on the devil, or Summa Theologica on the malice of the Angels, with the original source Augustine's City of God chapter 14 (which is on the subject of the origin of sin).

Maybe I'm being too harsh in asking them to look stuff up? So lets move onto the 2nd paragraph where we are informed about how Edgar Cayce taught about Atlantis existing 10 million years in the past and how it was inhabited by spirit beings (as per these verses) who took up with Adam and Eve.... Interesting story but absolutely none of it is true to Cayce. Moreover in my entire life I've met 0 people who believe in Edgar Cayce. Why are they bothering with this? And if they were wouldn't it be worth mentioning the best counter Cayce / Atlantis argument was he predicted Atlantis would rise again from 1958-1968 which hasn't turned out so accurate.

OK so what did Edgar Cayce actually believe? He accepted Plato, and Donnelly's dates for Plato and thus had Atlantis dieing 9564 BCE (not ten-million). For Cayce Atlantis was inhabited by normal people (not spirit beings), though many of the people alive today were reincarnations of the people from Atlantis. Not everyone lived there, there were other countries at the time. He agreed with Madame Blavatsky about it being the fourth "race" of humans (not the first), current humans are in the 5th race. (see sacred texts on Atlantis for details). So yes ever single "fact" in that paragraph is wrong. Chuck I'm impressed.

So now we advanced though our trusty apologetics study bible to Genesis 1:27.
where we encounter Lilith. Take a moment to read the entry to the right. Again I am curious which group this is supposed to refute. Vampires? Anyway, the connection between vampires and Lilith comes from a now defunct game called Vampire: The Masquerade. So these "modern-day" vampires are people buying a rule book for a game? The rest of the passage is a gross over simplification of the Lilith legend here some of the facts are correct sorta so let's just focus on mistakes:

• Lilith isn't derived from Genesis she had a pre-existing mythos from Mesopotamia. No one claims she originated as a biblical figure.
• They are confusing two versions of the story. In one she is Adam's first wife. In another she is a demon that Adam has sex with after Cain murders Abel. There is no version where both are true.
  
• In the versions where Lilith gives birth to demons Cain is the father not Adam.
  
• She is never said to give birth to all the demons of the bible, generally it is two Galiu and Alû (or Ailo).
  
• She is never in any legend the Queen of Demons.
  
• Outside of the game there is no association between Lilith and vampires. Within the game she is not a vampire and does not turn people into vampires, vampirism is the curse of Cain.
  

Finally I should mention that if they are going to do Lilith they miss the point entirely. The worship of Lilith is not ancient it is modern. Lilith was always seen as a demon in the ancient world. In the 20th century Jewish feminists picked her up as an icon (not a goddess since they were atheistic). They did this because she is a strong female character associated with rejecting procreation, i.e. masturbation for men and miscarriage for women. Gardner is influenced by them and Lilith comes into Wicca as a lesser goddess. The Church of Satan and Luciferianism then pick her up as a consort (not a wife) for Satan. At the same time directly from Jewish feminism she gets a more major role in modern Kabbalah cults. So if they are going to do Lilith they have completely missed the point.

I could keep going, but I've reached the end of the free Amazon preview. I'm sure there are some notes that are better than these two but I think we have a winner for worst notes in any study bible.

See also:

• Bryon did a follow up with his candidate for worst study bible notes. The Positive Thinking Bible.
• Review on Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth (Nick Noreli)