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General style issues pertaining to biblical and theological studies have to do with things like punctuation, numbers, terminology, and transliterations.
Regarding punctuation, should you use an apostrophe s or just an apostrophe with a noun that ends with an s (for example, Jesus' or Jesus's)? Or what is the proper way to refer to a biblical verse: Rom 1.16 or Rom 1:16?
Regarding numbers, when do you spell out a number or not? Regarding terminology, often specialized disciplines have many terms that are perhaps spelled a certain way or have a specialized meaning (for example, what's the difference between lowercase gospel and capitalized Gospel?).
And with regard to transliterations, characters in languages that do not use a Latin script (e.g., Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, etc.) are given standard Latin characters for consistent representation where a word processor does not use non-Latin characters.
These general issues are discussed at length in §4 and §5 (pages 12-67) of SBLHS.
Additional Concerns and Common Mistakes
1) Endnotes and Footnotes. Endnotes are placed at the end of the paper. Footnotes are placed within the paper. At North Central, only footnotes are utilized, endnotes are not.
2) Footnotes can be confusing! Please note that footnote numbers should be placed in the body of the paper (at the end of sentences) and that footnote content should be placed at the bottom of the same page as its respective footnote number.
3) Bibliography entries. They should be listed in alphabetical order according to the author’s last name. All publication information needs to be included in the bibliography in accordance with SBL style.
4) Spell check. Especially where an author's name, or the title of a specific reference is concerned.
5) Structure of the paper and pagination. Be sure to implement SBL guidelines thoroughly. Use Line Breaks and Page Breaks to properly follow Pagination Standards. Double check headings and margins.
Common mistakes submitted by Dr. Alaine Buchanan