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Rainbow Study Bible King James Version
/Here is one of the most unique approaches you will find to studying Scripture. Every verse in The Rainbow Study Bible is color-coded according to one of the 12 thematic headings such as God, love or prophecy. All words relating to the Trinity are printed in bold, capital letters throughout both the Old and New Testaments. Many more study features. 6 x 9. (Rainbow Studies, Inc.)
- GenresReligion
1680 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1986
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* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author
Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.
See also: Anonymous
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 1, 2021
This King James Version of the Bible is color-coded with a complex system designed to categorize each passage in ways predetermined by the editors. I married a Baptist and remember decades ago taking this Bible to one of our first churches and sitting with it opened upon my lap when the vocal preacher began denigrating this particular King James version as an arrogant “coloring” of scripture. I remember looking around a bit embarrassed and slowly closing this Bible with its multicolored pages, which at the time seemed to me to be flashing brightly about the church, like neon, coloring the ceilings, reflecting against the stained-glass windows, even washing over the countenances of everyone there.
Much time and religious exploration has transpired for me since that eventful day; and I certainly no longer identify exclusively with Baptists or any denomination for that matter. And this rainbow-colored Bible has sat for decades in my bookshelf until recently garnering my attention for use in undertaking this study of Genesis.
I’ve found there’s nothing quite like reading the Bible for oneself to bring into question many of the proclamations of orthodoxy. The historical position of early orthodoxy has been that the lowly parishioner is incapable of understanding the scriptures themselves and requires the help of church fathers. Certainly, this was more believable when the great majority of the masses were illiterate, but less true now, when most people can read for themselves. By reading the Bible for oneself, one finds many discrepancies between the Bible and certain orthodox interpretations.
Man’s Sinfulness Exemplifies Creation In Process, Not A Flawed Creation
As the publishers have attempted to pre-categorize every passage of this Bible with colors, so they have also added explanatory introductions. What I find particularly contentious in the Genesis introduction is the implication that the perfection of God’s creation was somehow marred or destroyed by Adam’s sin. This doctrine , commonly known as “The Fall of Man”, is perhaps one of the most misunderstood of the many misconceptions proliferated by orthodoxy.
The perception that God’s creation is flawed is a reduction of God and therefore untenable for those of us who recognize God in perfection. In any event, the implication that God was somehow surprised by Adam’s sin is quite ridiculous! Why would God create a forbidden tree and place it in man’s midst unless God fully expected man to eventually partake of it? God certainly knew Adam would sin because sin is a consequence of freewill. The gift of freewill necessitates the existence of polarized choices.
The idea that God somehow made a mistake in the assemblage and formulation of the human being is not supported in the narrative of Genesis. In contrast, the narrative states that humans were made “in God’s image”. We see later (v 21, c 8), as Noah and his cohorts are exiting the ark, that God remarks: “the imagination of man’s heart is evil” and pledges not to again smite every living thing. This is God’s recognition that sinfulness is a necessary and inherent component of freewill and that it remains very much alive in the survivors of the flood. God’s covenant to refrain from destroying humanity implies God’s willingness to tolerate sinfulness, while humankind is given an opportunity to mature in time and learn a proper exercise of freewill. Nevertheless, God will subsequently challenge Abram, the patriarchal forebearer of mankind, to: “Be thou perfect” (v 1, c 17). The creative process continues in time within the evolution of men.
Evolution & The Pre-existence of Water
Genesis begins with the statement that God created the heaven and the earth. These specific references to heaven and earth imply that other parts of the universe were pre-existent and certainly that God was preexistent. Further, the implication is that the oceans were preexistent, as we see in verse 2 of chapter 1, which states that “at first all was darkness and God moved upon the face of the waters”. There is no reference to God creating the water. God moves on to create the light, as we see in verse 3. The implication is that water was a primordial molecule and the importance of the substance of water (living water) runs deeply throughout the entire Bible. Interestingly, the paucity of water in the cosmos confounds modern astrophysicists, as they search after exoplanets.
Along with the light, God created time, in the form of reoccurring days and nights (v 4-5, c 1). There is specific reference to the creation of dry land (v 10, c 1), but the implication is that the dark oceans were preexistent. And in verses 11-14 of chapter 1, we see that God brings forth plants (via seed), planetary objects, and stars to establish seasons and time. And, not inconsistent with evolutionary theory, God creates life first in the preexistent waters (v 20, c 1), from which the birds, land creatures, and ultimately man emerge. In the explanations for the creation of woman (v 21-22, c 2), we see the process of using life itself to create (or evolve) other diversified life forms.
We learn in verses 5-6 of chapter 2 that it was necessary for God to make it rain upon the earth and the dew (or mist) was developed to water the ground. And we see in verses 10-14 of chapter two, the importance of water to the Garden of Eden, because four distinct rivers were made to flow: Pison, Gihon (In Ethiopia), HIddekel (Assyria), and the Euphrates (In Iraq). Generally, from these rivers we can anticipate that the Garden of Eden was located somewhere within a geography north-south from Ethiopia to Turkey and likely east-west from Egypt to Iran. This general area is shown on the map below. Of particular interest is that Mecca lies approximately at its center.
The Adam Experiment
In verse 26 of chapter 1, we learn that God is not alone in these creative endeavors, as the verse states: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Later, in verse 22 of chapter 3 (and in v 7, c 11), God again refers to “us”, as existing among others like Him or Her or It. And in verse 28 of chapter 1, we see that the created man is encouraged to multiply and reproduce. Thus, before there is any introduction of Adam and Eve, we see that man is created and encouraged to multiply and dominate the earth.
And yet, as we proceed into chapter two, we see (v 5) that God notices “there is not a man to till the ground.” However, we understand from the previous chapter that God had already created man and woman, so the implication is these former human creations were not inclined to till the ground. And so God forms Adam, a specific man, and places him in a garden with the express purpose (v 15, c 2): “to dress it (the garden) and keep it up”. And God purposefully installs temptation before Adam in the form of a specific tree that he is to avoid eating from. We see here that, although perhaps preprogramed with the instinct to be a gardener, Adam is also bequeathed with a choice, the freewill to make a decision for himself.
The Garden of Eden is like a specific experiment that God is conducting because, as we know from chapter 1, humans have already been created and encouraged to proliferate upon the earth. But what we see in the garden is the specific isolation of one man, perhaps to test his fortitude for following directions or his general ability to handle the power of freewill. And to entice Adam even more, God purposefully produces a temptress who will incite Adam even more to exercise the freewill, which he has been bequeathed.
Of all God’s creations, the woman is the most beautiful and the most difficult to resist. The body of a woman is a masterpiece of temptation for a man. As most men know, the flowing hair, beautiful curves, lips, neck, breasts, voice, eyes, soft skin, and very luscious countenance of a woman is virtually irresistible. And so, we see the magnitude of temptation that was necessary to get man to violate his pre-programmed instinct and become a vastly different creature of freewill. And we also see God’s purposeful hand in promoting freewill, like a mother bird luring her babies over the edge of the nest to make them fly.
Although Genesis proclaims (in chapter 1) that the creation of reproducing men and women preceded Adam, in Adam we see the development of something unique, via the grant of freewill. It is through this awakening, this sudden awareness of his ability to purposefully overcome instinct, that Adam and Eve evolve into more unique creations and begin to conduct work in the earth.
The Creation Continues In Time
Ultimately, the Adam experiment renders the line of humans that will endure upon the earth, as shown in the following genealogy chart.
We see in chapter five the line of descendants from Adam to Noah and in chapter six we learn that the sons of God had been interbreeding with the humans that had populated the earth, creating hybrids; and this situation grieved God because of the evil it was instigating in the earth (c 6, v 2-6). God is particularly disgruntled with this hybrid line because of the violence they practice, as we see in chapter 6. We learn here that an inherent characteristic of God is nonviolence (as ultimately will be demonstrated in Jesus); and clearly the infusion and interbreeding with an alien race was not the direction God wished for the earth and mankind to take.
Noah is selected by God because he is “perfect in his generations” (c 6, v 9); in other words, Noah is of the genealogical line of Adam, congruent with the Adam Experiment, and not of a line that has been corrupted with alien interbreeding. Popular orthodoxy tends to ignore the influence of these alien beings and attribute the deluge exclusively to mankind’s sinfulness, but the Genesis tells us differently.
In verse 10 we see that Noah begets three sons, Shem (the line of the Jews), Ham (the line of the Canaanites) and Japheth (the line of the Gentiles). So Noah and his family are saved in the Ark and God floods the whole of the earth, so that the Adam Experiment may continue unabated by the promiscuous aliens that had been infecting the human race with their sexual intrusions and interbreeding. Ultimately, the Jewish line descends through Shem to Abraham (and ultimately to Jesus Christ), as shown below:
In verse 3 of chapter 12, God informs Abraham that all families of the earth will be blessed through him and, as we know, there arises the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is interesting that God later changes Abram’s name to Abraham (ch 17, v 5). Is this to incorporate a reference to the descendants of Noah’s other son, Ham, who’s posterity are the Canaanites? As we know, the Muslims also claim Abraham as patriarch; and we also know that Christ’s ministry will later incorporate the posterity of Japheth, Noah’s other son, forebearer to the Gentiles.
The Continued Rise Out of Animality
In chapter 25, we learn that Isaac’s wife Rebekah becomes pregnant with twins and in verse 23 that the twins are the forebears of two different kinds of people. When the twins are born (v 25) we see that one (Esau) is red and hairy, a hunter (v 27), as opposed to the other (Jacob) who is referred to as “plain man” (v 27). Jacob is described as one who dwells in tents, as opposed to the open land, and one who cultivates the land (v 29). The latter verses in chapter 25 tell us how Jacob tricks Esau out of his birthright because Esau gives into the want of his hunger, the bodily, instinctual wants of the flesh; while Jacob uses cunning to get what he wants by appealing to and manipulating this instinct. Thus, the differences in human nature are portrayed as the ability to ascend from animality (the insatiable urge to satisfy physical needs) by arresting instinct within the power of free choice.
One’s birthright as a human (a plain man) is achieved in this process of awakening beyond animality; that is, to use our ability to think, reason, and resist the baser instincts of the body when it is in our best interests to do so. After sacrificing his birthright, we are told (v 34, c 25) that Esau despised his birthright, which may be interpreted to mean that he despised freethinking and preferred a life directed by animal instinct. The fact that Jacob was born after Esau (v 25-26, c 25) but with a hold on Esau’s heal is reflective of the thinking man’s struggle to overcome animality. Ripples through time are displayed when, on his deathbed, Jacob continues the tradition by giving the younger of his grandsons his greatest blessing (c 48, v 14-19).
Remarkably, however, the first notable expression of forgiveness is exhibited (c 33) by Esau who, even though he has suffered the thief of his birthright and blessing, nonetheless welcomes Jacob home with tears and kissing. And when Esau inquires of Jacob about the waves of gifts he has encountered along his way to reach Jacob, Jacob openly proclaims that he seeks “grace” from Esau (v 8). Interestingly, Esau responds in verse 9: “I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself.” Here we see a very different Esau, one that has matured and become spiritually aware. No longer is Esau a wild, animal-like man who would descend upon Jacob in vengeance. In time, Esau has become an enlightened and forgiving man, who welcomes Jacob. And in verse 11, we see that Jacob returns the blessing to Esau saying: “Take, I pray thee, my blessing that is brought to thee.” What we see through Esau is exemplary of the ascendance of man through time, from the hairy beast to the more refined being.
The fact that Esau and Jacob were born twins in the same womb exemplifies this as an evolutionary process that occurs through time. In fact, we don’t see the exhibition of this level of forgiveness again until many years later (c 45) when Joseph forgives his brothers for selling him into slavery. The progress of the continuing creation through time (evolution) is seen when (c 41), Pharaoh actually recognizes Joseph as “evolved”, stating in verse 38: “Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?”
Review Continued in Comments Below
Much time and religious exploration has transpired for me since that eventful day; and I certainly no longer identify exclusively with Baptists or any denomination for that matter. And this rainbow-colored Bible has sat for decades in my bookshelf until recently garnering my attention for use in undertaking this study of Genesis.
I’ve found there’s nothing quite like reading the Bible for oneself to bring into question many of the proclamations of orthodoxy. The historical position of early orthodoxy has been that the lowly parishioner is incapable of understanding the scriptures themselves and requires the help of church fathers. Certainly, this was more believable when the great majority of the masses were illiterate, but less true now, when most people can read for themselves. By reading the Bible for oneself, one finds many discrepancies between the Bible and certain orthodox interpretations.
Man’s Sinfulness Exemplifies Creation In Process, Not A Flawed Creation
As the publishers have attempted to pre-categorize every passage of this Bible with colors, so they have also added explanatory introductions. What I find particularly contentious in the Genesis introduction is the implication that the perfection of God’s creation was somehow marred or destroyed by Adam’s sin. This doctrine , commonly known as “The Fall of Man”, is perhaps one of the most misunderstood of the many misconceptions proliferated by orthodoxy.
The perception that God’s creation is flawed is a reduction of God and therefore untenable for those of us who recognize God in perfection. In any event, the implication that God was somehow surprised by Adam’s sin is quite ridiculous! Why would God create a forbidden tree and place it in man’s midst unless God fully expected man to eventually partake of it? God certainly knew Adam would sin because sin is a consequence of freewill. The gift of freewill necessitates the existence of polarized choices.
The idea that God somehow made a mistake in the assemblage and formulation of the human being is not supported in the narrative of Genesis. In contrast, the narrative states that humans were made “in God’s image”. We see later (v 21, c 8), as Noah and his cohorts are exiting the ark, that God remarks: “the imagination of man’s heart is evil” and pledges not to again smite every living thing. This is God’s recognition that sinfulness is a necessary and inherent component of freewill and that it remains very much alive in the survivors of the flood. God’s covenant to refrain from destroying humanity implies God’s willingness to tolerate sinfulness, while humankind is given an opportunity to mature in time and learn a proper exercise of freewill. Nevertheless, God will subsequently challenge Abram, the patriarchal forebearer of mankind, to: “Be thou perfect” (v 1, c 17). The creative process continues in time within the evolution of men.
Evolution & The Pre-existence of Water
Genesis begins with the statement that God created the heaven and the earth. These specific references to heaven and earth imply that other parts of the universe were pre-existent and certainly that God was preexistent. Further, the implication is that the oceans were preexistent, as we see in verse 2 of chapter 1, which states that “at first all was darkness and God moved upon the face of the waters”. There is no reference to God creating the water. God moves on to create the light, as we see in verse 3. The implication is that water was a primordial molecule and the importance of the substance of water (living water) runs deeply throughout the entire Bible. Interestingly, the paucity of water in the cosmos confounds modern astrophysicists, as they search after exoplanets.
Along with the light, God created time, in the form of reoccurring days and nights (v 4-5, c 1). There is specific reference to the creation of dry land (v 10, c 1), but the implication is that the dark oceans were preexistent. And in verses 11-14 of chapter 1, we see that God brings forth plants (via seed), planetary objects, and stars to establish seasons and time. And, not inconsistent with evolutionary theory, God creates life first in the preexistent waters (v 20, c 1), from which the birds, land creatures, and ultimately man emerge. In the explanations for the creation of woman (v 21-22, c 2), we see the process of using life itself to create (or evolve) other diversified life forms.
We learn in verses 5-6 of chapter 2 that it was necessary for God to make it rain upon the earth and the dew (or mist) was developed to water the ground. And we see in verses 10-14 of chapter two, the importance of water to the Garden of Eden, because four distinct rivers were made to flow: Pison, Gihon (In Ethiopia), HIddekel (Assyria), and the Euphrates (In Iraq). Generally, from these rivers we can anticipate that the Garden of Eden was located somewhere within a geography north-south from Ethiopia to Turkey and likely east-west from Egypt to Iran. This general area is shown on the map below. Of particular interest is that Mecca lies approximately at its center.
The Adam Experiment
In verse 26 of chapter 1, we learn that God is not alone in these creative endeavors, as the verse states: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Later, in verse 22 of chapter 3 (and in v 7, c 11), God again refers to “us”, as existing among others like Him or Her or It. And in verse 28 of chapter 1, we see that the created man is encouraged to multiply and reproduce. Thus, before there is any introduction of Adam and Eve, we see that man is created and encouraged to multiply and dominate the earth.
And yet, as we proceed into chapter two, we see (v 5) that God notices “there is not a man to till the ground.” However, we understand from the previous chapter that God had already created man and woman, so the implication is these former human creations were not inclined to till the ground. And so God forms Adam, a specific man, and places him in a garden with the express purpose (v 15, c 2): “to dress it (the garden) and keep it up”. And God purposefully installs temptation before Adam in the form of a specific tree that he is to avoid eating from. We see here that, although perhaps preprogramed with the instinct to be a gardener, Adam is also bequeathed with a choice, the freewill to make a decision for himself.
The Garden of Eden is like a specific experiment that God is conducting because, as we know from chapter 1, humans have already been created and encouraged to proliferate upon the earth. But what we see in the garden is the specific isolation of one man, perhaps to test his fortitude for following directions or his general ability to handle the power of freewill. And to entice Adam even more, God purposefully produces a temptress who will incite Adam even more to exercise the freewill, which he has been bequeathed.
Of all God’s creations, the woman is the most beautiful and the most difficult to resist. The body of a woman is a masterpiece of temptation for a man. As most men know, the flowing hair, beautiful curves, lips, neck, breasts, voice, eyes, soft skin, and very luscious countenance of a woman is virtually irresistible. And so, we see the magnitude of temptation that was necessary to get man to violate his pre-programmed instinct and become a vastly different creature of freewill. And we also see God’s purposeful hand in promoting freewill, like a mother bird luring her babies over the edge of the nest to make them fly.
Although Genesis proclaims (in chapter 1) that the creation of reproducing men and women preceded Adam, in Adam we see the development of something unique, via the grant of freewill. It is through this awakening, this sudden awareness of his ability to purposefully overcome instinct, that Adam and Eve evolve into more unique creations and begin to conduct work in the earth.
The Creation Continues In Time
Ultimately, the Adam experiment renders the line of humans that will endure upon the earth, as shown in the following genealogy chart.
We see in chapter five the line of descendants from Adam to Noah and in chapter six we learn that the sons of God had been interbreeding with the humans that had populated the earth, creating hybrids; and this situation grieved God because of the evil it was instigating in the earth (c 6, v 2-6). God is particularly disgruntled with this hybrid line because of the violence they practice, as we see in chapter 6. We learn here that an inherent characteristic of God is nonviolence (as ultimately will be demonstrated in Jesus); and clearly the infusion and interbreeding with an alien race was not the direction God wished for the earth and mankind to take.
Noah is selected by God because he is “perfect in his generations” (c 6, v 9); in other words, Noah is of the genealogical line of Adam, congruent with the Adam Experiment, and not of a line that has been corrupted with alien interbreeding. Popular orthodoxy tends to ignore the influence of these alien beings and attribute the deluge exclusively to mankind’s sinfulness, but the Genesis tells us differently.
In verse 10 we see that Noah begets three sons, Shem (the line of the Jews), Ham (the line of the Canaanites) and Japheth (the line of the Gentiles). So Noah and his family are saved in the Ark and God floods the whole of the earth, so that the Adam Experiment may continue unabated by the promiscuous aliens that had been infecting the human race with their sexual intrusions and interbreeding. Ultimately, the Jewish line descends through Shem to Abraham (and ultimately to Jesus Christ), as shown below:
In verse 3 of chapter 12, God informs Abraham that all families of the earth will be blessed through him and, as we know, there arises the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is interesting that God later changes Abram’s name to Abraham (ch 17, v 5). Is this to incorporate a reference to the descendants of Noah’s other son, Ham, who’s posterity are the Canaanites? As we know, the Muslims also claim Abraham as patriarch; and we also know that Christ’s ministry will later incorporate the posterity of Japheth, Noah’s other son, forebearer to the Gentiles.
The Continued Rise Out of Animality
In chapter 25, we learn that Isaac’s wife Rebekah becomes pregnant with twins and in verse 23 that the twins are the forebears of two different kinds of people. When the twins are born (v 25) we see that one (Esau) is red and hairy, a hunter (v 27), as opposed to the other (Jacob) who is referred to as “plain man” (v 27). Jacob is described as one who dwells in tents, as opposed to the open land, and one who cultivates the land (v 29). The latter verses in chapter 25 tell us how Jacob tricks Esau out of his birthright because Esau gives into the want of his hunger, the bodily, instinctual wants of the flesh; while Jacob uses cunning to get what he wants by appealing to and manipulating this instinct. Thus, the differences in human nature are portrayed as the ability to ascend from animality (the insatiable urge to satisfy physical needs) by arresting instinct within the power of free choice.
One’s birthright as a human (a plain man) is achieved in this process of awakening beyond animality; that is, to use our ability to think, reason, and resist the baser instincts of the body when it is in our best interests to do so. After sacrificing his birthright, we are told (v 34, c 25) that Esau despised his birthright, which may be interpreted to mean that he despised freethinking and preferred a life directed by animal instinct. The fact that Jacob was born after Esau (v 25-26, c 25) but with a hold on Esau’s heal is reflective of the thinking man’s struggle to overcome animality. Ripples through time are displayed when, on his deathbed, Jacob continues the tradition by giving the younger of his grandsons his greatest blessing (c 48, v 14-19).
Remarkably, however, the first notable expression of forgiveness is exhibited (c 33) by Esau who, even though he has suffered the thief of his birthright and blessing, nonetheless welcomes Jacob home with tears and kissing. And when Esau inquires of Jacob about the waves of gifts he has encountered along his way to reach Jacob, Jacob openly proclaims that he seeks “grace” from Esau (v 8). Interestingly, Esau responds in verse 9: “I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself.” Here we see a very different Esau, one that has matured and become spiritually aware. No longer is Esau a wild, animal-like man who would descend upon Jacob in vengeance. In time, Esau has become an enlightened and forgiving man, who welcomes Jacob. And in verse 11, we see that Jacob returns the blessing to Esau saying: “Take, I pray thee, my blessing that is brought to thee.” What we see through Esau is exemplary of the ascendance of man through time, from the hairy beast to the more refined being.
The fact that Esau and Jacob were born twins in the same womb exemplifies this as an evolutionary process that occurs through time. In fact, we don’t see the exhibition of this level of forgiveness again until many years later (c 45) when Joseph forgives his brothers for selling him into slavery. The progress of the continuing creation through time (evolution) is seen when (c 41), Pharaoh actually recognizes Joseph as “evolved”, stating in verse 38: “Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?”
Review Continued in Comments Below
July 25, 2011
This has been my favorite copy of the Holy Bible (KJV) because there are no "notes" throughout, only connections to other verses via the color coding for different biblical doctrines. There is room to write notes, too, which I've appreciated over the 15 years I've had this Bible, writing notes from personal devotions and from Godly preaching & teaching *_*
April 27, 2010
All kinds of different truths and lessons to learn. The Best Selling Book in the World!!!!
January 28, 2017
The Rainbow Study Bible has been my go-to Bible for years. It's awesome, but I do wish it had more and larger maps in the individual books.
June 10, 2011
I had this BIBLE since 1991. Is is a great study bible and with the verses being in color. Also have outline introduction to all of the books in the Bible as well as a brief subject information before each verse.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews