Reddit reviews The Access Bible

So the ESV and the ESV Study Bible are getting tons of recommendations so I want to put a spotlight on excellent material that isn't as well known. I really like:

• The Access Bible (NRSV) - scholarly and designed for beginners, very underrated in my opinion
  
  
• The English Bible (KJV): Norton Critical Edition - scholarly, literary, superb footnotes and annotations, two volumes for the Old Testament and New Testament/Apocrypha. What I LOVE about this study Bible is how it contains a large appendix of Biblical interpretation spanning multiple centuries.
  
  
• The New Oxford Annotated Bible (NRSV) - scholarly, very popular in seminaries and colleges, designed for more advanced students
  
  
• The New Collegeville Bible Commentary (NRSV; Old and New Testaments in separate volumes) - scholarly, written by Roman Catholics but follows mainstream scholarship and good for non-Catholic students
  
  
• The Life With God Bible (NRSV) - aka "the Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible", this is a devotional study Bible edited by many great evangelical writers like Dallas Willard and Richard Foster. It focuses on spiritual disciplines.
  
  

I dislike the ESV Study Bible - it obscures or dismisses the scholarly consensus on many books, which is academically dishonest.

I highly recommend the Access Bible. Its notes represent mainstream biblical scholarship. It uses the NRSV, which is a cousin of the ESV and is actually easier to read in my opinion (you can compare them on BibleGateway.com - the NRSV and the ESV are both revisions of the RSV.)

I would also recommend the New Oxford Annotated Bible.. It's a little more technical and meaty than the Access Bible. It also uses the NRSV. More importantly, its notes are excellent and represent mainstream biblical scholarship. It comes in an older edition (with shorter, more conservative notes) using the RSV (which is the basis for the ESV and very similar to it.)

Another study Bible I like is the Oxford Study Bible. This uses the REB (Revised English Bible) - this is a British translation that is not related to the RSV/NRSV/ESV family. It's a fresh, creative and easy to read translation that nicely complements the formal translations.

Finally, there is the Norton Critical Edition of the English Bible, KJV. It's very unique for a study Bible, because it focuses on how the KJV influenced English literature. Although the KJV is hard to read, the notes clarify some of the obscure English language.

So... I guess the lesson is that there are a lot of choices out there. But since you're a beginner, I'd highly recommend the Access Bible before you explore the other stuff.

Here are some progressive, critical sources that cover African-American and feminist perspectives:

• The Africana Bible: Reading Israel's Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora, ed. Page (Hebrew Bible + Deuterocanonicals)
  
• True to Our Native Land, ed. Blount (NT)
  
• Women's Bible Commentary, ed. Newsom, et al. (Hebrew Bible + Deuterocanonicals + NT)
  
  For individual book commentaries, you might consider selections from these series:
  
  
• The Anchor Bible (Doubleday)
  
• Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Westminster John Knox Press)
  
• Hermeneia (Fortress Press)
  
• International Critical Commentary (T&T Clark)
  
• Interpretation (Westminster John Knox Press)
  
• Old/New Testament Library (Westminster John Knox Press)
  
  Note that commentaries in the Hermeneia and ICC series are fairly technical (e.g., Hebrew and Greek words are not transliterated), and some books in the Hermeneia and OTL/NTL series are English translations of older German works that are now beginning to show their age. For example, the Hermeneia volume for the Johannine Epistles is a classic (1973 ET of Bultmann's Die drei Johannesbriefe [2nd ed., 1967]), but it's older than me (and I'm no spring chicken)! In contrast, the Hermeneia volume for Mark is a comprehensive, recent treatment by Adela Yarbro Collins, published just 11 years ago.
  
  I also agree with earlier comments regarding NOAB, now in its fifth edition, which is just slightly changed from the fourth edition. Note that a major revision in terms of page formatting, paper stock, etc., occurred between the third (2001) and fourth (2010) editions (cf. comments on Amazon for details). You can find used copies of these prior editions for reasonable prices both online and at places such as Half-Price Books.
  
  Two other Bibles to consider, in addition to the HarperCollins Study Bible:
  
  
• The Access Bible, ed. O'Day and Petersen (ecumenical study Bible geared for mainline audiences)
  
• The Peoples' Bible, ed. DeYoung, et al. (study Bible incorporating multicultural, liberationist, and post-colonial interpretive methods)
  
  Best wishes concerning your continued studies!