Holman Christian Standard Bible (2 page)

The uses of Christ and Messiah

The Holman CSB translates the Greek word
Christos
(“anointed one”) as either “Christ” or “Messiah” based on its use in different NT contexts. Where the NT emphasizes
Christos
as a name of our Lord or has a Gentile context, “Christ” is used (Eph 1:1 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus...”). Where the NT
Christos
has a Jewish context, the title “Messiah” is used (Eph 1:12 “...we who had already put our hope in the Messiah”). The first use of “Messiah” in each chapter is also marked with a bullet referring readers to the Bullet Note at the back of most editions.

Place-names

In the original text of the Bible, particularly in the OT, a number of well-known places have names different from the ones familiar to contemporary readers. For example, “the Euphrates” often appears in the original text simply as “the River.” In cases like this, the Holman Christian Standard Bible uses the modern name, “the Euphrates River,” in the text without a footnote or lower corner brackets.

Substitution of words in sentences

A literal translation of the biblical text sometimes violates standard rules of English grammar, such as the agreement of subject and verb or person and number. In order to conform to standard usage, the Holman CSB has often made these kinds of grammatical constructions agree in English without footnotes or lower corner brackets.

In addition, the Greek or Hebrew texts sometimes seem redundant or ambiguous by repeating nouns where modern writing substitutes pronouns or by using pronouns where we would supply nouns for clarity and good style. When a literal translation of the original would make the English unclear, the Holman CSB sometimes changes a pronoun to its corresponding noun or a noun to its corresponding pronoun without a footnote or lower corner brackets. For example, Jn 1:42 reads: “And he brought Simon to Jesus . . .” The original Greek of this sentence reads: “And he brought him to Jesus.”

The Holman Christian Standard Bible has several distinctive formatting features:

1. OT passages quoted in the NT are set in boldface type. OT quotes consisting of two or more lines are block indented.
   
2. In dialogue, a new paragraph is used for each new speaker as in most modern publications.
   
3. Many passages, such as 1 Co 13, have been formatted as dynamic prose (separate block-indented lines like poetry) for ease in reading and comprehension. Special block-indented formatting has also been used extensively in both the OT and NT to increase readability and clarity in lists, series, genealogies and other parallel or repetitive texts.
   
4. Almost every Bible breaks lines in poetry using automatic typesetting programs with the result that words are haphazardly turned over to the next line. In the Holman CSB, special attention has been given to break every line in poetry and dynamic prose so that awkward or unsightly word wraps are avoided and complete units of thought turn over to the next line. The result is a Bible page that is much more readable and pleasing to the eye.
   
5. Certain foreign, geographical, cultural, or ancient words are preceded by a superscripted bullet (
   Abba
   ) at their first occurrence in each chapter. These words are listed in alphabetical order at the back of the Bible under the heading
   Holman CSB Bullet Notes
   . A few important or frequently misunderstood words (slaves) are marked with a bullet more than one time per chapter.
   
6. Italics are used in the text for a transliteration of Greek and Hebrew words (“
   Hosanna
   !” in Jn 12:13) and in footnotes for direct quotations from the biblical text and for words in the original languages (the footnote at Jn 1:1 reads: “The
   Word
   (Gk
   logos
   ) is a title for Jesus...”).
   
7. Since the majority of English readers do not need to have numbers and fractions spelled out in the text, the Holman CSB uses a similar style to that of modern newspapers in using Arabic numerals for the numbers 10 and above and in fractions, except in a small number of cases, such as when a number begins a sentence.