Lesson 4 | Decrypting Footnotes
Using Footnotes
You are past the tough part! With that foundational understanding, using footnotes becomes easy.
1. Recognize that yellow footnote dots come after the word(s) they relate to.
This is the opposite of gray cross-reference dots.
1 John 2 (ESV)
(Except for the NASB! Unlike the others, the yellow NASB footnote dots are placed like cross-references, coming before the word(s) they relate to.)
2. Understand the keywords and abbreviations.
There are too many words of this sort to be able to exhaustively cover what you will find in the footnotes of different translations. But there are not so many that appear often. If you add this list to the terms and texts you learned about on the previous step, you will be in good shape to understand almost all Bible footnotes. (This list is included on your cheat sheet.)
Glossary for Footnotes
Keyword/Abbreviation
Definition
al
“other manuscripts”
BDAG
A first-class Greek lexicon
BDB
Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon
cf.
“compare” (also: abbr. for cross-reference)
ff
“following verse(s)”
Grk
“relates to the Greek text”
HALOT
A first-class Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon
IBHS
A Hebrew grammar textbook
Josephus
A first-century Jewish historian
Lit
“literal translation”
L&N
A Greek lexicon
ms or mss
“manuscript(s)”
or
“an alternate translation”
pc
“a few manuscripts”
pm
“a great many manuscripts”
vid
“uncertain manuscript reading”
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3. Know where to find footnotes.
On Biblearc, you will find translation footnotes in the ESV, NASB, and NIV11. You will also find them in less major versions: BSB and FBV. Finally, there are a ton of them in the NET2 Bible—something we will look at further in the next step.
What You Will Find
The most common types of footnotes will tell you about the literal reading in the original language, an alternative translation caused by an ambiguity in the original, or an alternative translation based on a different reading.
Galatians 1 (ESV)
1 John 3 (ESV)
1 John 2 (ESV)
Other footnotes relate to topics such as spelling variations for names, explanations about acrostics, verse numbering discrepancies, cultural explanations, ancient measurements and representations of time, allusions and quotations to non-biblical writings, and musical terms.