Top 3 Best Bible Highlighters

Looking for the best Bible highlighters, that are safe on delicate Bible paper, won’t bleed, and do a great job of highlighting key Bible verses? These are my top three picks!

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I admit, for a long time I had absolutely no use for Bible highlighters.

Way back when I was teenager, I would see a wise lady in church with her Bible all marked up, and I thought it was an abomination! Who writes in their Bible like that?! I would never!

Of course, NOW I understand. Once I discovered Bible journaling, and came to realize how helpful it is for studying God’s Word on a deeper level, I was totally on board. And lately, I’ve been branching out, to do more highlighting and note taking, in addition to my usual Bible art journaling.

But when I started highlighting and taking notes in my old NIV Bible (which was a confirmation gift from my parents way back when), I was dismayed that my good ol’ Sharpie highlighters bled right through the pages.

Which brings me to the big dilemma: Do any truly great Bible safe highlighters exist—ones that WON’T bleed through the Bible paper, but yet still perform as well as regular highlighters?

With that question in mind, I set out to find the best Bible highlighters I could…

What highlighters are good for Bibles?

But first, what exactly should you be looking for, in the best Bible pens and highlighters? These are the characteristics I recommend:

• Obviously, a good highlighter should NOT bleed through the page.
• But also, it’s helpful if the color is pale enough so as not to overpower the Bible text.
• And, consider your preference for how crisp and clean the highlighted lines are, versus a fuzzy, sloppy, and/or imprecise highlight.

At first, this search for good no bleed highlighters was not easy! I was beginning to think I’d never find a set of Bible study highlighters that met all of the above criteria.

But thankfully, I was wrong!

Top 3 Best Bible Highlighters

Okay, so before I show you my top picks for the best Bible highlighters, I want to point out the highlighters I tried that absolutely did NOT work. I ordered a sampling of regular highlighters that claimed to be no bleed, as well as some dry highlighters for Bibles. (It’s worth noting that there are tons of other Bible highlighter brands out there, which I haven’t tried…these are just the most promising ones that I decided to test).

I had high hopes for some of them, but as you can see in my tests below (done on a back page of my Bible), most of the supposedly no bleed highlighters actually DID bleed. In fact, the Zebra Mildliners (marked as ‘Mildliner’ on my test) and Zebrite Bible highlighters (marked as ‘Zebra’ on the test page) bled just as bad as my Sharpie highlighters did.

But, there were three winners that DID pass my bleed test! And those are the best Bible highlighters as listed below…

1) BEST OVERALL: Pilot Frixion

The Pilot Frixion highlighters are the only traditional style of highlighters I tested, that didn’t bleed at all! They have a nice chisel tip, deliver a crisp highlighted line, and the colors are light enough that they don’t overpower the Bible text. ***Ding Ding Ding!*** We have a winner!

They also have the added bonus of being erasable. Each highlighter has a rubber-like plastic tip, which functions as an eraser. Don’t ask me how it works, but it does!

The only downside to the Frixion highlighters, is that they are slightly opaque, and since the color lays on top of the paper rather than sinking into it, they do make the Bible text look a little bit faded, as you can see in the highlighted portions of Romans 8 below.

But still, overall, the Pilot Frixion is my #1 pick for the best Bible highlighters. They’re everything I was looking for: a highlighter that functions in much the same way as a regular highlighter, but with no bleed. Needless to say, they’re now my go-to highlighters for Bible study note taking.

2) BEST FOR COLOR CODING: Studio Series Bible Highlighters

Next up, we have this set of Bible dry highlighters, made by Peter Pauper Press. What I like about these dry highlighters, is that they don’t bleed at all, the colors are very pretty, and they come in a nifty carrying case with a color coding study guide right on the case. Which makes them a great choice if you’re wanting to use a color coding system for your Bible study.

However, the problem with dry highlighters such as these, is that they tend to function more like crayons than highlighters. Which means, they’re very imprecise, and difficult to get a clean line with. You can see in my test on Psalm 37, how they look fuzzy and rough around the edges, and the line width varies quite a bit.

If having a crisp, accurate highlight is not important to you, then you may still really enjoy the beautiful hues and Bible study color coding guide of these Studio Series Bible Highlighters. But as for me, I prefer the crisp lines of the Pilot Frixion.

3) BEST FOR BIBLE JOURNALING: Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils

Last up for the best Bible highlighters, is my multitasking favorite, Prismacolor Premier pencils! Just as with the first two picks, these don’t bleed through the paper at all. What they really have going for them though, is the wide assortment of colors available (mine has 72, but you can get up to 150 in the largest set!).

I’ve actually been using these colored pencils for years, to ‘highlight’ verses in my journaling Bible. They’re great multitaskers, for drawing, coloring, AND highlighting. And while a highlighted line drawn with colored pencils still isn’t as precise as a traditional marker highlighter, I still enjoy using these a lot in my Bible journaling. And they ARE much more precise than the crayon-like Bible dry highlighters.

Colored pencils aren’t the only multitasking Bible journaling tool, though! I’ve also used watercolor paint, and even gelatos, to highlight passages of Scripture as I’m journaling. There are definitely some great alternative ways to ‘highlight’ key verses.

So in summary, the best Bible highlighters for me, are the Pilot Frixion highlighters (which I use in my regular Bible, for taking notes), and the Prismacolor pencils (which are definitely still my favorite Bible journaling highlighters).

I don’t like the Studio Series Bible Highlighters as much, due to their sloppier and less precise lines, although I still feel they get a lot of points for the color coding guide which is super handy. I may use them occasionally, but not nearly as much as the other two picks.

Did you find my recommendations for the best Bible highlighters helpful? You might also enjoy this best Bible pens post, and this handy guide on how to choose a journaling Bible!

Barbara Austin

Hi! Thank you so much for visiting Divine Creative Love. I’m a Jesus-lovin’ girl, lettering artist, designer, and general creative-at-heart. And, I have narcolepsy. I blog about faith in God, overcoming challenges, and creative topics such as Bible journaling. If you’re new here, be sure and subscribe to my list so you won’t miss anything!