If you’re using SBL style, it’s important to observe any applicable house styles. These might be maintained either by publishers or by schools. House styles may modify in important ways what SBL style otherwise calls for.
That said, the whole point of making “modifying what SBL style otherwise calls for” is that SBL style covers many cases without modification. So, after a house style, SBL Press provides the next highest-level authorities. These authorities are the SBL Handbook of Style (SBLHS) blog and the SBLHS itself (affiliate disclosure).
The SBLHS Blog
After your house style, you might think the next highest style authority is the SBLHS.
That’s a logical assumption. But one notch higher than the SBLHS is actually the SBLHS blog. The reason is that SBL Press sometimes uses the blog to clarify or change SBLHS’s current edition.
An example of a clarification would be SBL Press’s updated advice about citing J.-P. Migne’s Patrologia Latina. An example of a change would be the Press’s guidance about how to cite the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series.
This practice has upsides and downsides. On the upside, it means that SBL Press doesn’t need to
- release of a new version of the SBLHS each time a clarification or change needs to be noted or
- make those who use the style wait for a new version of SBLHS to incorporate these clarifications ans changes.
On the other hand, this practice makes the SBLHS blog an important authority for determining SBL style. So, you have one more resource to consult in using that style than you otherwise would.
The SBLHS
After the SBLHS blog, there is the style guidance that the SBLHS itself provides.
To apply the guidance of the SBLHS, you do need to know what the SBLHS has to say. And there are really no better ways to learn the SBLHS than to
- read it carefully and
- reread relevant portions as needed to refresh your memory.
One reason for this is that, overall, the SBLHS is helpfully organized. But it sometimes it has advice in places you might not naturally think of.
For example, the SBLHS references Siegfried Schwertner’s Internationales Abkürzungsverzeichnis für Theologie und Grenzgebiete (IATG) logically enough under §8.4, dealing with abbreviations. But there’s no mention of IATG under the SBLHS’s §3.4 on “other authorities.” So, if you only look in §3 because you’re looking for other abbreviation authorities, you’ll miss the guidance the SBLHS gives in §8.
The SBLHS won’t be the most riveting thing you’ll read. Over time, though, it’ll take less and less effort to recall and apply the style’s guidance.
Conclusion
In sum, if you haven’t yet, subscribe to the SBLHS blog, and stay aware of the posts that the Press releases there. You may also want to save particularly important posts for later reference.
By the same token, if you haven’t read the SBLHS cover-to-cover, plan to do so. Then, as you find yourself unsure of what the SBLHS’s guidance is in a particular case, take a few moments to look it up and reread the relevant material.
If you do, you’ll soon find SBL style much easier. And you’ll be able to apply it without needing to look things up nearly as often.
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