I bought them all lol. I second that recommendation, they all have a lot of depth and all the information is different enough to get all of them. I use the cultural backgrounds bible as my reading anchor then go over the notes and articles from the other three. The cultural backgrounds bible notes seems to offer the best information for really getting a good grasp of what’s going on, then the others just add a ton of good information. Plus I went to the same university as one of the main contributors. On top of that it’s nice to have an ESV in the mix so you have a literal translation available to you since all the others are the phrase for phrase NIV. And I’m personally not a King James person. Reading these bibles, all four of them, feels like I’m reading scripture for the first time after being a Christian for over 30 years. I can’t put them down. The cultural backgrounds bible I purchased in the personal size and it almost always goes where I go. But your review was critical to my search for the right bibles for me and led me down that path so thank you!

Thanks Randy for the review of these. I certainly like to see what they look like inside the books before deciding on one. Most websites that sell them, only show you the cover, back and spine, or worse, just the box it comes in. Its refreshing to see and hear what you you like in them. Like you I like the color. I have seen some study bibles that are still just black and white with notes crammed in and it really isn't pleasant on the eyes. The notes and other stuff in a different color is the way to go for me.

As a Bible nerd, who was trying to choose one of these Bibles, your review helped a lot. I too ended up buying several of them lol

Thanks Randy, I've enjoyed your Bible reviews, especially this one which was very thorough! I recently received an NKJV Cultural Backgrounds Bible and love it.

Thank you, sir. You did a great job demonstrating these Bibles.!

Thank you so much for your great review! I have The Archaeological Study Bible and I got it from eBay. I paid around $77. Other copies of this bible were hundreds of dollars! I was shocked. I also bought the Cultural Background Bible as well. The price of bibles have really skyrocketed in price. The Baker’s Illustrated Study Bible is a good one as well. They are no longer printing it. Be blessed! 😎🙏🏼✝️😇

Excellent review sir.I really appreciate the effort you put into reviewing these Bibles.In a few days I plan to buy an ESV Archaeological Study Bible, so the information provided here is crucial.Thanks.

Thanks Randy. This is a great review and though I have the Archaeology Bible and the information in there seems accurate, I'd like to air my grievance against these kinds of study bibles for anyone who cares to know my perspective having studied these things to some length now. I have found these histories to be biased in the way the information is applied as accumulated by an unbelieving academic bias that is very hard for the typical Christian to detect, especially today when most people have no idea that the first "Hebrew" bible was not even in print for common circulation until the 11th century AD. The consequence is that earnest believers are misled into holding the unbelieving academic world's assumptions simply for lack of knowledge about what God actually did to sign His name upon the events of history in His salvation of all nations... a signature that unbelievers are NOT even going to look for like we do. Most believing Christians have no idea that when it comes to the bible, one is only considered a "scholar" until his belief guides his conclusions and _if_ belief in the bible "clouds" the scholar's conclusions, he is academically dismissed and demoted to "theologian". This bias to adhere to the secular historian's account of any matter is essential for the compilation of these histories and unfortunately they are stuck right in the bible as study guides. (2Cor 6:14) The very basic assumption that God meant to do something because He actually did it, is a paradigm generally not embraced by nor permitted for scholars so for the last 900y "enlightened" academics have tried to patch the holes in the assumption that God could not have _possibly_ meant to use Greek to transmit the Hebrew faith... despite the notable fact that that is *_exactly_* what God did. It is only through a believer's eyes that the logistics of the diaspora and the paving of the linguistic superhighway of Koine Greek come to view as the divinely directed, work of God's hands that they were, for the fulfillment of prophecy specifically for the spread of the gospel according to John 5:39. In other words, God's signature across the events of history is best viewed when those who are accumulating the evidence to tell you about history actually believe God was _involved in writing that history_ and that God _meant to do what He actually did_ because those historians will be the MOST likely to point out: (for example) 1. That by affixing His word in writing in 280BC, in the Koine Greek language, and distributing His word world-wide at a moment in time when *_all nations_* would be speaking the most technically precise & literally acute language ever spoken in the history of the world... God made sure His word would be ready and waiting for all nations by the day Jesus got here. 2. That by intentionally scattering His people into those soon-to-be Greek-speaking countries, God eliminated the Hebrew language barrier and made sure there would be a copy of those Greek Scriptures in all part of the world for _all_ men to read (Acts 15:21) 3. That _because_ His word was so precisely and rigidly affixed to writing, and in such wide-spread distribution for 300y prior to the arrival of The Christ, when His enemies (The Pharisees) would persecute His church and regret this common-distribution of His word and seek to retrieve or edit the content of those Scriptures, it would be FAR too late for any Jewish edition of the Greek to go undetected bc there was a copy of the LXX in every city and every nation of the world wherein the Jews had been scattered by GOD HIMSELF. 4. That because there was a copy of the Greek Old Testament waiting for Paul and the apostles, in every city of every state in the Roman Empire where ALL men(both Jew and the rest) had been speaking Greek for 400y before Jesus got here, Paul and those Apostles could convert those nations without having to teach pagans to read a dead vowel-less language (Hebrew) ; all men could could understand the Scriptures that Jesus said "testify of me " (John 5:39) 5. That considering the journeys and shipwrecks and persecutions of the early church it was a great miracle that there were Greek-speaking synagogues everywhere in the world, like Mc Donalds on a road-trip! All those apostles had to do was show up, shipwrecked, battered and torn, anywhere in the Roman Empire because there would be a synagogue of the Jews waiting with a copy of these scriptures that were available to even an Ethiopian eunuch who wanted to learn about the prophets!! 6. That despite how desperately the Pharisees tried to ban the LXX scriptures immediately after Christianity began to spread, that LXX had been the ONLY one in circulation among both the Jews and Christians outside of Jerusalem for 300y. By the first century, Hebrew had been nothing more than a dead imprecise, subjective consonantal language of letters (John 7:15) for several centuries before Jesus got here. It would take those Pharisees (Masorettes) several centuries to finally add vowel points for affixing meaning to their consonantal letter dialect that they dragged out of 6th century BC captivity, and they would not even agree on a text to put into common circulation until the *11th century AD* .. 7. That all 1st century Jewish authors wrote to their Jewish audience in GREEK and NOT Hebrew.. and that prior to the 20th century, the world did not have a single page of "ancient Hebrew" anything and to this date we still do not have a page of Scripture, or of Philo or Josephus or any New Testament or early church fathers EVER writing in Hebrew...or even mentioning the name yhwh or yeshua!! 8. but we DO have copious warning about the priests of the Jews, the Scribes and Pharisees and the synagogue of Satan spoken by Jesus Christ Himself. 9. we have Jesus Himself asserting in John 17 that, by the day He said the Lord's Prayer, He had _already_ manifested God's word and NAME unto all men All these, and many more details are neglected by a heavy unbelieving academic bias in scholarship that is still looking, at this very moment in time, to superimpose a non-existent Hebrew primacy of Hebrew-roots upon the events of history! My complaint about these study bibles is that they do not accurately reflect what God actually did... but they reflect what academic scholars imagine God should have done. Consequently, it is lost, the glory due to God in filling the Daniel 7:6 prophecy in the Greek OT where God tells Daniel He is going to give "language" (not authority) to the 3rd beast (the Greek Empire) for the purposes of having all men under one pure language to worship Him in one consent (Zeph 3:9) which is EXACTLY what happened! Rather, these unbelieving scholars leave gaping holes in the account of the transmission of the text in their ever ongoing attempt to stick to their assumption that the Jewish religion of "christianty" would naturally require Hebrew-primacy, despite the fact that God obviously very intentionally and BRILLIANTLY used Greek to establish the Christian faith... and to a believer who is aware of history, this is an egregious distortion of the glory due to God.

The exact comparison I was looking for. Thanks!! God Bless. ✝️

I seem to like the NIV archaeological Study Bible. It's single-column layout I really prefer. Beautiful coloring I like it

I really enjoyed this episode! Might I point you to: The Baker Illustrated Bible Background Commentary? (Baker 2020; editors: Duvall/Hays) That would be a nice pairing with all the great Archaeology info! And thank you!

Well, the whole reason I’m watching this video so you could help us choose which one not everybody can afford all of these and not all of us get them for free

Thanks so much! Exactly what I needed to see to make up my own mind. You might have mentioned the Cultural Bible comes in NKJV and NRSV since that can sometimes be a deciding factor. I snapped up one in NKJV and am sorry the old Archaological Bible doesn't come in any of my preferred translations. I like the look of it better than the new ESV one. I also highly recommend the NKJV Chronological study bible which pops with historical/cultural/archaeology info. Lovely full color with a definite Indiana Jones look. Not as many notes or articles as most study Bibles but an awesome chronological layout.

I have and love the archaeological study Bible. I had to pay $50 for a used copy, but it was worth every penny. I hope to find a large print version someday. 🙏

I have the NIV Archaeological Study Bible. This is the only video I've seen so far that compares these Bibles! Thanks VERY MUCH! HOWEVER, (brakes!!!) :D, one OBJECTIVE WAY to give commentary on the CONTENT is to look at the TOP 10 archaeological finds for given years RANDOMLY, and see if they are discussed in these Bibles. This is especially helpful since the NIV Archaeological study Bible is 12 years younger. So does the ESV Archaeological Study Bible have the latest info? So you could have looked over the list of the top 10 that you found most interesting and then check to see if they were covered. Of course, that might be harder for a book 12 years old. But it would have given us a 3rd party way to seeing how thorough the ESV is.

I got a Cultural Background Study Bible in goatskin leather custom made from Adrian Alonzo at AE Bibles. Love this Bible!!

I recently received the NIV Archaeological Study Bible and the ESV Archaeological Study Bible from Crossway. I had all intentions of looking over both of them and sending one back. I don’t think that’s going to happen.😬

It's too bad that the NIV archaeological study bible is out of print. It's a gem.

Thank you Randy, I loved the flip through and comparison of all these bibles! I bought the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible in NJKV today and love it. I like the look of the Archeological Study Bible and think that and the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible would complement each other nicely. I'll buy a copy of that too if I can find one🙂

Now I'm on the hunt for the NIV First Century Bible, since that one is out of print also.

Thanks for the overviews, it was helpful. However, I dislike that John Walton is the co-author of the Cultural Backgrounds Bible as he has some very unorthodox and frankly quite misleading views on Genesis, so I will steer clear of that one simply for that reason.

😂👌 I am sure I didn't help you, as usual...but in my opinion....buy 'em all ! Superb review Sir !

Great comparisons and info mentioned between the Archaeological Study Bibles..Well done sir

I love your all books reviews. Thank you👍👏🏻🙏. Pretty good work😄

This helped so much. Thanks and God bless you.

I have all but the NIV first century bible. They are all must haves imo. Treasure trove of knowledge.

I would also recommend The Jesus Bible, The Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, The NLT Illustrating Bible, The Complete Jewish Study Bible, The Holy Land Illustrating Bible, a good Bible Dictionary, a solid basic study Bible like the ESV, a devotional version like She Reads Truth Bible, a basic journaling version like the CSB Notetaking Bible, and the Archaeological Study Bible along with a good Bible Atlas. A good basic commentary set is the Bible Knowledge Commentary Old and New Testament set. Last would be Thompson Chain Reference Bible.

Love this video! Merry Christmas 🎄

I'm watching your video now on my TV using phone to comment take care and God bless

Great review as always. I know you dont want to choose and I respect that but I have a scenario for you. IF you can only buy 3 of the 4 and want to use them in conjunction with each other, What 3 would you get?

I'm comparing the Cultural Backgrounds vs Archaeological Study Bible for EASY TO READ NOTES/COMMENTARY study Bible to help me understand the verses in better in the context of the original reader. Which of those two is a better fit?

Thanks for the review. I love them all. However I am hesitating purchasing NIV because I know it has many different verses missing. That is my biggest concern. God bless.

I'll be picking up some of these bad boys soon.✝️👑😎😹

Is it just me or not? Why I can smell the book while he turn those pages.😳

I have three out of the four, just missing the First Century (which I’m hoping to find at the Nashville Mckays next trip since it is no longer available for purchase on Amazon 😞)

Thank you for this review of all 4, which seem great. Perhaps I missed it in the video, but what was your answer to the question of whether the First-Century Study Bible or the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible is better? I've heard the Cultural Background Study Bible takes a "higher critical" approach to the biblical scriptures questioning the authorship of the 5 books of moses, Isaiah, and and pauline epistles. Does the First-Century Study bible do the same? Thank you for your help.

Just get a book on Biblical archaeology.

So helpful thank you

Good afternoon Randy I just would like to ask a question regarding the Thompson chain Reference Bible and the Common Mans Reference bible which would you pick as your every day permanent Bible?

How do you feel for the accuracy of the cultural background bible on pagan and Christianity kinda being mixed in I think

Thx. Appreciate the look.

Hello sir, why first century is lacking information? & why ESV archeology is lacking commentary?

How much do you trust the cultural background study bible? I have the NIV translation

May I know what size is your Cultural Study Bible?

How can I get reference with no book in front... Job 16:20 [12:5]? Would it come from that Book?

Sorry pocket messaging but I love your reviews

Nonny Moose? I wonder who that could POSSIBLY be?

I have 3 of them but the first century one seems to no longer be in print.

If only there was a NASB Archeology/ Cultural Background Bible..

I can’t believe I’m here agin.🤦🏾‍♀️

21:21 Amen

One has the Bible in it, the other three don’t.

I like history and geography

can you find any of those in KJV

I bought the NIV Bible when it came out a number of years. I'd rather have my toenails pulled out with pliers rather than have to read the creepy NIV, though, and gave it away after reading the supplements. I enjoy the ESV Bible and also the CSB Holy Land Bible.

Quick index bible

Indiana Randy angry and dangerous