Annotations add great value for works where the reader would otherwise miss cultural context (or can even reveal inside-jokes, as with The Annotated Alice). I

Annotations add great value for works where the reader would otherwise miss cultural context (or can even reveal inside-jokes, as with The Annotated Alice). I wouldn't try to read James Joyce or Shakespeare without them. In the case of the Bible, there are books that rely heavily on well-known allegories, Aramaic puns, or just features of everyday daily life in the ancient middle-east that a modern reader wouldn't have internalized.