Sbl-Press

Using styles is a great way to ensure consistent formatting in a Word document. But, here’s a way to turn these styles into “direct” formatting.

The SBLHS, 2nd ed., defers to IATG, 3rd ed. for abbreviations that SBLHS doesn’t include. Follow these steps to make working with IATG as seamless as possible.

SBL style has a specific way to cite individually paginated articles from electronic journals. But Zotero can handle those citations too.

There are more up-to-date translations of the fathers. But if you do use ANF or NPNF, Zotero can handle SBL style’s special citation format.

You might think citing a grammar according to the “SBL Handbook of Style” would be straightforward. It is, but there are several special cases to account for.

Daily Gleanings about new releases from SBL Press on the theology and intertextuality of the Hebrew Bible.

Daily Gleanings about Colin Whiting’s “Documents from the Luciferians” and Crawford and Zola’s “Gospel of Tatian.”

The “Student Supplement to the SBL Handbook of Style” can be helpful for classes. For anything not in a higher authority, see the 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘨𝘰 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘵𝘺𝘭𝘦.

The “SBL Handbook of Style” is a great resource but doesn’t include everything. Two other sources are necessary authorities for abbreviations and spelling.

Daily Gleanings about Paul, the Law, and PDF versions of the “SBL Handbook of Style.”

After a house style, SBL Press itself provides the next two highest-level authorities for SBL style—namely, the SBLHS blog and the SBLHS itself.

The 𝘚𝘉𝘓 𝘏𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘵𝘺𝘭𝘦 doesn’t include everything. There are seven main SBL style authorities, starting with a publisher’s house style.

With Zotero, it can be tricky to get proper citations when author names have “Jr.,” “III,” etc. Here’s how to ensure you get their names output correctly.

CMS17 eliminates the use of “ibid.” SBLHS2 follows suit but does have a slightly different convention for how to format notes where “ibid.” would have appeared.

With the release of the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, SBL style now defers to this edition in certain circumstances.

One of the less-than-ideal features of using an iOS device for editing or producing documents in Biblical Studies has been the difficulty of getting standard biblical language fonts (e.g., SBL BibLit) to work on the device. There are now, however, at least a couple solutions: Chris Heard has discussed how AnyFont can resolve the issue successfully and allow users to install SBL BibLit (or other fonts) onto iOS devices and use them within standard productivity tools (e.g., Pages, Word, Keynote, PowerPoint). In the App Store, AnyFont goes for $1.99. On the freemium side of things, Fonteer will also do the same thing. Fonteer’s free version allows users to install up to 3 fonts. So, if you anticipate only using this number or fewer, the free version will do the job. Fonteer premium (also $1.99 via in-app purchase) allows unlimited fonts to be installed. Below is an example of Fonteer working with a draft excerpt from my essay in Explorations in Interdisciplinary Reading ( affiliate disclosure). Example of Fonteer working with SBL BibLit ...

SBL Press continues to be quite responsive on its blog to questions submitted by users of the SBL Handbook of Style. One of the latest examples is the Press’s clarification of how to format citations from J.-P. Migne’s Patrologia Graeca. The 161-volume series is available online in the public domain from various sources, including Patristica.net and Document Catholica Omnia. ...

The SBLHS blog has a helpful discussion on the use of “and” or “but” at the start of a sentence. And they are permissible. But one should use them sparingly. For the full and very helpful post, please see the SBLHS blog.

SBL Press has clarified its guidance about citing J.-P. Migne’s Patrologia Latina based on the discovery that various year’s printings of certain volumes within Patrologia Latina have differences. Among these differences are variations in the column arrangements for the texts contained in Patrologia Latina. The Press’s initial recommendation was that authors always check a PL volume title page to ensure that the printing is dated 1865 or earlier. If the publication or printing date is 1868 or later, we encourage authors to find an earlier printing of PL to cite. ...

There’s some fun to be had in hunting up references to and citing instances where volumes from Migne’s Patrologia latina exist in different versions. The folks at SBL Press have kindly resolved the mystery. Most significantly, SBL Press notes, According to the Patrologia Latina Database … , PL’s printing history can be divided into two distinct periods. Jacques-Paul Migne initially published the 217 volumes of PL over a twelve-year period, 1844–1855. Migne reprinted volumes as needed for another decade, then sold the rights to the Paris publisher Garnier. Unfortunately, in February 1868 a fire destroyed Migne’s presses and printing plates, which meant that Garnier, which had begun reprinting some PL volumes in 1865, was the only source for future reprints—all of which were produced on plates other than Migne’s originals. These plates differed substantially in some cases and are considered in general “inferior in a number of respects to Migne’s own first editions.” ...