If I have any qualms with this version, it would be the lack of notes and certain mistranslations in the text, for example Psalm 2:12, the Masoretic, Vulgate and Septuagint texts reading something like "maintain purity" and unfortunately, most printed editions of the Bible including the KJV and even the NRSV, render the text as "kiss the Son" or something like it. This fifth edition of the Annotated remains the best way to study and understand the Bible at home or in the classroom. Bible scholarship is a very interesting field, even - or even especially if - you’re not a believer. Yes, some of the laws in the Bible seem brutal and primitive, but if a person had a genuine relationship with God, the laws would not even be necessary. This is my favourite translation of the Bible and also my preferred study Bible but the kindle edition is what I am referring to in this review.

Most non-Christian critics would counter that Christians, especially fundamentalists, rarely do that themselves, and that context is by definition irrelevant if we are to take the Bible literally as literalists would insist. A graduate of Brandeis University, he has published and lectured widely on metaphor and the Bible, the nature of biblical historical texts, and gender issues and the Bible. For context, I would consider myself to be of a moderate, Church of England theological perspective; happy to affirm in a literal way the Nicene Creed, but put off by the excesses of both theological conservatism and liberalism. Not only great commentary but really gives you the context of the scriptures by setting up historical settings, customs, etc.

It also makes it as ecumenical as possible - almost any Christian tradition can feel comfortable using this Bible.

Brettler is Dora Golding Professor of Biblical Studies and chair of the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, with twenty new essays and introductions and others--as well as annotations--fully revised, offers the reader flexibility for any learning style.The supplementary tables, charts, diagrams and maps are extremely helpful, although the latter, being in colour, don't come across well on a Kindle. The most interesting parts were not the text of the Bible itself, but the annotations, introductions and essays by the scholars and translators that worked on this edition. I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever" - the NRSV rendering of Psalm 23:4 is: "Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil. In the same year, the OAB received the official imprimatur of Cardinal Richard Cushing for use by Roman Catholics as a study Bible.

The new edition includes a full index to all of the study material (not just to the annotations), and one that is keyed to page numbers, not to citations.

As others have noted, while this fifth edition of the NOAB is a big improvement over the fourth edition in being more than just a pdf copy (and so can be read on a Kindle e-ink device as well as in the Kindle app), it has a significant flaw, making that improvement of less value than it should have been. The notes appear by default in a font size that is about 11 if you used that for the text but a normal reading size for the text would be 4 or 5.