Sbl-Handbook-of-Style on J. David Stark

The Authorities for SBL Style: How to Use Those Provided by SBL

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

After a house style, SBL Press itself provides the next highest-level style authorities. These are the SBL Handbook of Style blog and the SBL Handbook itself.

The Right Way to Change Word Styles to Direct Formatting

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 12:00:00 +0000

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.

How to Master IATG for SBL Style with 4 Simple Steps

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 01:45:03 +0000

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.

5 Steps to Store Series Information in Zotero

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 15:59:36 +0000

Citation managers like Zotero can simplify how you reference series. But what a citation manager puts out is only as good as what you put into it.

How to Cite Individually Paginated Journal Articles with Zotero

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 13:40:14 +0000

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

How to Easily Cite ANF and NPNF with Zotero

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 12:00:00 +0000

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.

How to Use Zotero to Properly Cite Grammars in SBL Style

Mon, 14 Jun 2021 13:00:00 +0000

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.

How to Cite Dictionaries with Zotero

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 12:00:00 +0000

SBL style prescribes different citation formats for encyclopedias, lexicons, and dictionaries. Zotero can handle these formats if you know how.

How to Actually Paginate an Essay

Mon, 04 Nov 2019 12:00:00 +0000

The guidance about page number placement in the “Student Supplement for the 𝘚𝘉𝘓 𝘏𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘵𝘺𝘭𝘦” is mostly clear. But some of it takes some guesswork.

How to Master SBL Style in 7 Simple Steps

Mon, 09 Sep 2019 16:30:24 +0000

SBL style shares much with Chicago but also has many details specific to biblical studies. Here’s a 7-step checklist to help you master SBL style.

Authorities for SBL Style: Classes, Miscellanea

Mon, 17 Jun 2019 12:00:00 +0000

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.

Authorities for SBL Style: Abbreviations, Spelling

Mon, 10 Jun 2019 12:00:00 +0000

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 (4 June 2019)

Tue, 04 Jun 2019 16:00:06 +0000

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

Daily Gleanings: Post Updates (3 June 2019)

Mon, 03 Jun 2019 16:00:00 +0000

I’ve been grateful to be able to materially update two prior posts with additional content:

Publication Year Ranges in Zotero: Previously, this post described how to get Zotero to produce the proper output when citing a series or multivolume work as a whole that was published over a range of years. The prior post version, however, was only able to address this for ranges of years that already had an end date. But with thanks to Brenton Wiernik on the Zotero forums, I’ve been able to update the post to describe how to get the output required if the year range doesn’t yet have an end. This is useful when citing series that are still being published (e.g., the Göttingen Septuagint).
Get Strack and Billerbeck via Internet Archive: Previously, this post identified how to access on Internet Archive volumes 1–3 of Hermann Strack and Paul Billerbeck’s Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch. But these volumes represent only half of Strack and Billerbeck’s commentary. Happily, Ronald van der Bergh mentioned that he had found another page on Internet Archive that provides a combined file of volumes 1–4. I’ve now included a link in the post to this additional file. If anyone comes across volume 5 or 6, do please leave a comment with where you found them, and I’ll be happy to update the post further.

Authorities for SBL Style: School House Style

Mon, 27 May 2019 12:00:00 +0000

The SBL Handbook of Style doesn’t include everything. There are seven main SBL style authorities, including your school’s house style.

Authorities for SBL Style: Publisher House Style

Mon, 20 May 2019 12:00:00 +0000

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

Generation Designations (Jr., III, etc.) in Zotero for the SBL Handbook of Style

Mon, 04 Feb 2019 13:00:01 +0000

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.

SBLHS2 and Ibid.

Fri, 02 Feb 2018 14:58:49 +0000

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.

How to Accommodate Publication Year Ranges in Zotero

Mon, 18 Dec 2017 13:00:09 +0000

At present, Zotero’s “date” field doesn’t properly handle publications made over a range of years (e.g., 1950–1960).((Header image provided by Zotero via Twitter.)) Instead of including the full range in the corresponding note or bibliography entry, only the first year of the range would be presented (e.g., 1950).

If the Range Has an End

There is, however, a workaround that depends on entering the following syntax in an item’s “extra” field: issued: [first year]/[last year]. Thus, for example, if the extra field has issued: 1950/1960, Zotero would properly output a range of publication dates (thus: “1950–1960”).

The Chicago and SBL Manuals

Wed, 11 Oct 2017 13:00:52 +0000

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

Zotero forum thread on commas, periods, and closing quotation marks

Mon, 22 May 2017 13:00:13 +0000

I’ve recently had a discussion over at the Zotero forums that brought to light a couple interesting points that I hadn’t been aware of:

There’s currently in beta a major update to Zotero 5.0, which includes several important feature changes. The beta isn’t quite ready for prime time yet but should be “very soon.” Included in this update is the new Citation Style Language (CSL) processor that should remedy the comma and period placement issue in the forum thread.
Frank Bennett has provided an updated CSL processor that can be installed in a current Zotero 4 version via the Propachi Vanilla plugin.

For additional discussion of Zotero here, see this tag.

Starting sentences with "and" or "but"

Thu, 23 Feb 2017 14:00:35 +0000

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.

A further update on Migne's "Patrologia Latina"

Wed, 08 Feb 2017 14:00:13 +0000

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.

Migne's "Patrologia Latina": Mystery solved

Wed, 01 Feb 2017 14:00:15 +0000

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.”

SBLHS student supplement and "ibid."

Fri, 27 Jan 2017 19:56:23 +0000

According to SBL Handbook of Style, 2nd ed., §§1, 3, 4.3.6, supports the use of “ibid.” From those descriptions, conventions look to be the same as for the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed., §14.29.

As an easy (and free) reference for students, SBL also provides a Student Supplement to the SBLHS. One of the courses I’ve been teaching has a comparatively heavier emphasis on getting to know the nuts-and-bolts of SBL style. And a keen-eyed student, pointed out that page 4 of the Student Supplement has consecutively numbered footnotes 78 and 79. Both notes are for the same source, but the second (note 79) does not use the “ibid.” notation.

Fun with multiple editions of Migne's Patrologia Latina

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 16:26:59 +0000

There are a pair of references in Cranfield’s ( affiliate disclosure) and Moo’s ( affiliate disclosure) Romans commentaries to comments by Ambrosiaster about the origin of the Christian community in Rome, and I’ve been curious to give this reference a look. Both authors cite the reference as found in J.-P. Migne’s Patrologia latina, vol. 17, col. 46 (Cranfield, xiii, 17n2; Moo, 4n7).

Citations in Footnotes in SBL's Footnote-bibliography Style

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 11:00:00 +0000

SBL Press has some helpful clarifications about citations in the footnote-bibliography, or traditional, style.

Full-height Footnote Numbers in Microsoft Word

Tue, 19 Jan 2016 22:06:10 +0000

Microsoft Word ties footnote anchors in the main text and footnote numbers at the start of footnotes to the same style. Consequently, it’s difficult to get full-height footnote numbers followed by a period (cf. Chicago Manual of Style, SBL Handbook of style).

The process for getting this result discussed at Word MVPs does not seem to work in Word v16. But Word’s InsertFootnoteNow function can be intercepted to add the following macro commands to produce this result: