About the Electronic Edition

ABOUT THE ELECTRONIC EDITION

This electronic edition of Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's one-volume Commentary on the Whole Bible has been prepared from text scanned by Woodside Bible Fellowship. The work has been completed in three passes: first, to import the text into the verse notes of the OnLine Bible, correct common scanning errors, and insert markers for Scripture references, boldface and italics; second, to verify the markers for boldfacing, italics, Scripture citations, cross references, &c.; third, to format the notes.

Expanded Electronic Version.

The designation of this electronic edition of the commentary as expanded refers to the editor's preference for complete words rather than abbreviations in the commentary (with the exception of Scripture references); the addition of white space in layout by placing on new lines the portion of the Scripture on which commentary has been provided by the authors; the replacement of the standard abbreviations "ch." and "vs." in citations with a complete reference to the Bible book, chapter, and verse; the rendering of the abbreviation of standard reference works by Greek and Latin Fathers in full English titles. The purpose of these expansions is to make the Commentary more readable and accessible to the modern reader.

It is worth noting that in the printed version, errors in spelling, punctuation, numbering, cross references have followed throughout the printing history of this one-volume edition of the Commentary. This electronic edition, then, may represent the first corrected edition.

Conventions.

In formatting the commentary for use with the OnLine Bible, the following corrections and improvements have been made, with a view toward improving the readability and, thus, enhancing the usefulness of this reference work:

(1) Added "white space" by beginning a new paragraph with each part of quoted Scripture for which commentary is written.

(2) Formatted Scripture references, using the OnLine Bible abbreviations. When an entire chapter is referenced, the first and last verses are included so that the Scriptures may be viewed from the notes. The abbreviations for "chapter" ("ch." and "chs.") and "verse" ("vs." and "vss.") have been replaced with the appropriate OnLine Bible book designations. Scripture references have been checked for validity, but not necessarily for appropriateness.

(3) Added Scripture references to quotations and allusions in the commentary. These have been enclosed within square brackets.

(4) Standardized inconsistencies in conventions observed by the three authors. For example, in the printed edition, references to notes are indicated variously as "see on," "cf. on," "Note"; marginal notes are indicated as "Margin," "marg.," or "margin" (sometimes the word "margin" appears before the verse reference, sometime after), in roman or italic type; inferential words in Scripture are some times indicated by parentheses or square brackets, or by use of regular type when the verse is in boldface type; bibliographic citations are variously given (for instance, Josephus's The Wars of the Jews as B.J., J.B., Bell. Jud., Wars, Jewish Wars); alternate textual and marginal readings appear variously in roman type, italic type, within quotation marks; to indicate continuation of the Scripture quotation, sometimes ellipsis is used, at other times, "&c."

(5) Expanded the following abbreviations:

"cf." (French, "confer") as "compare" or "for comparison";
"ed." as "edition";
"e.g." (Latin, "exempli gratia") as "for example" or "for instance";
"i.e." (Latin, "id est") as "that is";
"lit." as "literal" or "literally";
"LXX" and "Sept." as Septuagint;
"MSS." as "manuscripts,"
"N.B." (Latin, Nota Bene) as "Note";
"q.d." (Latin, quasi dicat) as "As if he should say";
"viz.," (Latin, videlicet) as "namely."

(6) The English titles have been provided for the titles (and abbreviations of titles) of Greek and Latin books. For example, instead of adv. Haer., Irenaeus' treatise has been specified as Against Heresies; instead of De viris illustribus or Catalogus scriptorum ecclesiasticorm, or De scriptorum, Jerome's book has been designated as On Illustrious Men. For patristic works, the titles in The Early Church Fathers series have been the ones preferred. Where authors or titles abbreviated in citations cannot be identified certainly, the authors' notes have been retained. (Not all references have been checked for accuracy; however, some corrections have been provided.) The following is a list of the Greek and Latin titles and their English equivalents used in this electronic edition; variants of authors' names are also listed:

Citations in which the author and chapter-section notations are given, but not the title, this has been supplied. For example, [Eusebius, 5.2] has been expanded to [Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5.2], referring the reader to the fifth chapter, the second section of that work.

Since, in the printed edition, the use of the abbreviations in citations for "book" ("l.," for the Latin "liber"), "chapter" ("c." or "ch."), and "section" ("s." or "sec.") is somewhat erratic, these abbreivations have been eliminated (in most instances) and the Loeb system of citation has been adopted. For instance, [Irenæus, adversus Hæreses, 4.18, sec. 3] has been cited as [Irenæus, Against Heresies, 4.18.3], referring the reader to the fourth book, the eighteenth chapter, the third section.

(7) In the printed version, both quotation mark and italics are employed to designate a word used as a word; in the electronic version, quotation marks have been used for this purpose, and the use of italics reserved for emphasis of words.

(8) Where boldfacing has been used to highlight words within a sentence, italics have been substituted:

Pr 19:5

5. Compare Pr 19:9, where perish explains not escape here (compare Ps 88:9, 10).

5. Compare Pr 19:9, where perish explains not escape here (compare Ps 88:9, 10).

(10) Passages including interpolations have been formatted in the manner of the Commentary as a whole. For example, in the printed text, the passage from Mt 2:22 is set as follows:

notwithstanding [or more simply, "but"] being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside [withdrew] into the parts of Galilee, or the Galilean parts.

In the electronic version, however, it is set as follows:

notwithstanding—or more simply, "but."

being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside—withdrew.

into the parts of Galilee—or the Galilean parts.

When work on the Commentary was begun in 1995, it was under somewhat different editorial rules. (1) Since the OnLine Bible did not support italics at that time, quotation marks were used to indicate emphasis; emphasis within quotations in the text was ignored. (2) Since the OnLine Bible eschews hyphenated compound words, many of the hyphens used in the text were eliminated. (3) Marginal notes from the Bible were included in the Commentary to supplement those already mentioned by the authors. (4) Interpolations in quotations were set off by square brackets instead of parentheses. However, when the final pass was begun in 1997, I attempted to adhere more closely to the printed text in regard to use of italics, hyphenation, marginal notes, parentheses, and brackets.

Public Domain Status.

This expanded edition of the Jameison-Faussett-Brown Commentary is in the public domain and may be freely used and distributed. It was first posted on the Christian Classics Ethereal Library server in December 1997. The links to the Bible Gateway for Scripture references in that copy were added in January 1998 by Harry Plantinga. During July and August 1999, the Scripture references and links were inspected and corrected as necessary. Thanks to correspondents, especially Ken Hamel, who have offered corrections.

Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Created 13 December 1997
Revised 11 July 1998
Revised 27 August 1999
Last Updated 17 October 1999

Ernie Stefanik
373 Wilson Street
Derry, PA 15627-9770
e_stefanik@email.msn.com