Introduction

I have compiled these Bible notes over the past 15 years from various sources: pastor/teachers, books, commentaries, theological journals, Bible Study Fellowship (BSF), and my own study.

There are notes for all 66 books of the BIble. Some NT books have extensive notes, such as the John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1&2 Thessalonians, James, 1&2 Peter, 1-2-3 John, Jude, and Revelation. Other NT books are lighter in notes, but still have sufficient content.

As for the OT, Genesis, Joshua-Esther, Song of Solomon, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah and many of the minor prophet have extensive notes. The other OT books have lighter notes, but may be sufficient to help some.

I have attempted to make these notes as easy to read as possible. They should be able to be understood by the average believer without a seminary degree. The primary Bible translation used is the NASB20. I use the NASB (New American Standard Bible) translation because it is consistently rated as the closest translation to the original Greek. No translation is perfect, and the NASB has some issues (many that I’ve come across are pointed out in the notes), but in my opinion it’s the best translation for studying the Bible. Infinitely better than any of the paraphrases (NIV, NLT, AMP, etc.).

In the notes, every verse is presented in four Bible translations. Using John 11:35 as an example, the order of translations, top to bottom, is always:

35 [NASB20] Jesus wept.
35 [NASB95] Jesus wept.
35 [ISV*] Jesus burst into tears.
35 [KJV] Jesus wept.

For many verses, a word or phrase will be bold (primarily in the NASB20 translation), meaning there is an explanation or meaning given below. If a translation other than the NASB20 is referenced, for clarity sake, the word will be bold in that translation, and the note below will indicate the translation from which the word(s) come from in brackets (i.e. [KJV]).

*The ISV is a moderately literal translation and seeks to avoid the paraphrasing tendencies of some modern versions. It’s goal is to be a compromise between formal equivalence and functional equivalence by attempting to stay as close to the source text as possible without losing communication. The target reading level in English is 7th-8th grade. I have found it to be a much better translation than the NIV, NLT, and others, which are too much paraphrase and not enough translation.