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.

      It is worth noting that in the printed version the errors in spelling (not including the inexplicable mixture of British and American spelling conventions), punctuation, numbering, cross references have followed every printing of this one-volume edition of the Commentary (including the selections appearing in The Bethany Parallel Commentary). This electronic edition, then, probably represents the first corrected edition.

      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 abbreivated 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.

      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 for the OnLine Bible was begun in 1995, it was under somewhat different editorial rules. For example, since italics were not then supported, italicized words were enclosed within quotation marks, with emphasis within quoted phrases and clauses being ignored; since the OnLine Bible eschews hyphens, the separator in hyphenated compound words was eliminated wherever practicable; marginal notes were inserted to supplement those cited by the authors in the printed text; interpolations were placed within brackets instead of parentheses (in the printed version, parentheses are used in the Old Testament, and sometimes brackets in the New Testament); words supplied by the translators in Scripture were placed within brackets (the Old Testament commentary used italics for this purposes).

      When work on the Commentary was begun in 1995, it was under somehwat 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 have attempted to adhere more closely to the printed text in regard to use of italics, hyphenation, marginal notes, parentheses, and brackets.

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
373 Wilson Street
Derry, PA 15627-9770
412.694.8602
stefanik@westol.com