According to the second edition of the SBL Handbook of Style (SBLHS),

Currently in its 16th edition, The Chicago Manual of Style remains the most comprehensive general authority on editorial style and publishing practices. Answers to questions not addressed in this handbook may be found there.1

That is, where SBL Press provides style guidance, that guidance is definitive for SBL style. On matters where SBL Press doesn’t provide guidance, SBL style requires simply what CMS requires.

Ambiguity in SBL Style’s Relationship to the CMS

This said, the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is now in its 18th edition.2 So, SBLHS’s reference to how CMS is “currently in its 16th edition” creates some ambiguity.

For matters that SBL authorities don’t cover, does SBL style defer specifically to CMS’s 16th edition, even if that edition is no longer current? Or does SBL style defer to CMS’s current edition, even if that edition is no longer the 16th?

In short, it’s always CMS’s current edition to which SBL style defers. But this deference only affects matters that SBL style authorities themselves don’t address. Where SBL style authorities speak to a given issue, that guidance remains definitive unless and until the SBL authorities update it.

SBL Style’s Deference to CMS’s Current Edition

On noting the release of CMS’s 17th edition, SBL Press described how “this new edition [would] no doubt prompt changes to our own style.”3 The press committed to “announce relevant changes on this blog in the coming months.”4

So, SBL Press was anticipating updates to their style might result from considering CMS’s 17th edition. But where did CMS’s 17th edition leave style guidance on the matters SBL authorities didn’t address?

SBL Press subsequently confirmed that

Our deference to CMS in matters not explicitly covered in SBLHS2 or on the SBLHS2 blog automatically upgrades to the most current version of CMS. Thus, as of September 1, 2017, we now defer to CMS 17th ed.5

Consistent with this principle, SBL Press is now evaluating its guidance against CMS’s 18th edition.6

An Example

One of the more noteworthy changes in CMS’s 18th edition is that CMS “no longer requires a place of publication for books published since 1900.”7 SBL’s style authorities did specify a place of publication in this case, however. So, with the release of CMS’s 18th edition, nothing changed for users of SBL style.

But on 5 December 2025, SBL Press announced it would follow this convention from CMS’s 18th edition.8 Moving forward from that point then, SBL style omits places of publication for books published after 1900.

Conclusion

In sum, SBL style gives comparatively focused guidance. It principally addresses issues that arise specifically in academic writing about the biblical text.

This focus, though, means there’s a lot that SBL style doesn’t address. For that “everything else,” there’s guidance from the University of Chicago Press.9

We continue to review the changes in Chicago 18 and plan for a third edition of the SBL Handbook of Style. As of yet, however, we do not have an estimate of when a new edition will be published.8

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  1. Society of Biblical Literature, The SBL Handbook of Style, 2nd ed. (affiliate disclosure; SBL, 2014), §3.3. Header image provided by SBL Press. ↩︎

  2. University of Chicago Press, The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th ed. (affiliate disclosure; University of Chicago Press, 2024). ↩︎

  3. SBL Press, “The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition,” SBL Handbook of Style, 7 September 2017. ↩︎

  4. SBL Press, “The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition.” ↩︎

  5. Personal correspondence. ↩︎

  6. SBL Press, “Publisher Locations,” SBL Handbook of Style, 5 December 2025. ↩︎

  7. University of Chicago Press, The Chicago Manual of Style, §14.30. ↩︎

  8. SBL Press, “Publisher Locations.” ↩︎ ↩︎

  9. If you’re a student writing for your degree program, you do have one more Chicago resource before you go to the full CMS. This is the distillation of Chicago style that Turabian’s Manual for Writers provides. ↩︎