Making Notes in God’s Word

I was reading the Bible Design & Binding Blog and the issue of taking notes in the Bible came up. I haven’t read any books on this issue and am certainly no expert on making notes in a Bible but I do it often and will share the (I hope) wisdom I’ve ascertained through the past couple of years. Here’s a numbered list of the points I try to follow:

• (1) Use mechanical pencils — especially when working in haste (eg. during a class lecture or sermon). Later recopy the notes in ink using a small-tip pen. Consider using a “draft” Bible where you can first copy your notes before later copying them to your pride and joy. I used a draft Bible my first year at Criswell College.
• (2) Don’t wet highlight. Use dry highlighters. I do not use highlighters at all for my main Bible because I simply have not thought up a color scheme.  This begs the next point: try to use different colors when highlighting, letting each color stand for a particular theme (e.g., for Christology use a red, dry highlighter, or for eschatological notes, maybe blue). These are only examples, use what you would prefer. Have a general color, yellow perhaps, for all general observations when highlighting. Try not to highlight a lot (although, this is hard because most will struggle with the urge to highlight all of Scripture).
• (3) Use a wide-margin Bible. If it’s a study Bible, try not to repeat the same notes given.
• (4) Apply a manual of style and use it systematically. Obviously, it is best to be space conscience, so abbreviating books of the Bible and other words is a must do item. Do not use different abbreviations for the same book throughout your Bible (e.g., Ex, Exod, or Exds, etc). I use Criswell’s Manual of Style to determine abbreviations for books, proper nouns, and other phrases.  Notice also, the use of the very common word “verse” and its plural form, “verses” (i.e. v. or vv.). Try to be as systematic in your choices as possible.
• (5) This can be optional, but write the verse or verses your note addresses then follow with the note.
• (6) For notes that encompass a large amount of literature, try writing these notes where they can be easily located (e.g., for a general Johannine soteriological note, consider placing this note either at the beginning of John’s Gospel, or at the end, depending on space necessity or constraint). Or, if the notes are general Pauline notes, a page in one of Paul’s epistles that has plenty of empty space is a great place to list this data (e.g., if noting Paul’s use of the LXX’s ’LORD’ passages, where ‘LORD’ originally meant ‘YHWH’, the Tetragrammaton, this type of note might go on it’s own page where the data can easily be gathered and later referenced, rather than making a note at each verse where this high-implication Christological event occurs).
• (7) Do not add a note for the sake of adding a note. Only if it is something that is crucial to the text, memory, your doctrinal beliefs or convictions, or a very relevant detail — do not add it. Like the article at Bible Design & Binding suggests, you’ll later be embarrassed and want to buy some white-out!
• (8) Buy some white-out.
• (9) Use a ruler for underlining Scripture or when separating columns of notes.  A chief means of making your Bible unnecessarily messy is to forgo a ruler.
• (10) Like the different colored highlighting, I would also suggest using different colors of ink that systematically represent a certain type of note.  Which begs a similar point: use micro-tipped pens — I recommend Pigma Micron 005.
• (11) Avoid dating your notes unless you really want to for sentimental reasons.
• (12) Spell check everything before writing. Keep a dictionary nearby. If you’re not sure, look it up before writing it. Also, check cross-references before transferring them from a book or previous collection of notes. Sometimes they are wrong and will need to be corrected, or not added.
• (13) For quick references, those opaque-colored page-tabs are very handy.

I only have a lot to say on this subject because I recently spent about six weeks transferring over notes to my new main study Bible (a wide-margin Key Word NASB). This was a voluminous task since I had collected quite a bit of data in the past couple years of study. I’m sure expert scholars have a better system of making notes in their bibles and I would be interested to hear what other systems they are using.

Thanks and God bless your studies.

Michael