BIBL 000: Bible Dictionaries/Encyclopedias and Commentaries

Originally published in 1850, lists, parses, and identifies the root of every word in the Hebrew Bible. Gives basic definitions of each root. Regularly alludes to relevant morphological and grammatical discussions found at the beginning of the volume. Somewhat dated insofar as it is based on a less reliable edition of the Hebrew text than more recent works, but remains extremely helpful as a parsing guide, especially for unusual or irregular forms. David R. Bauer, Essential Bible Study Tools for Ministry, 2.8.4.

...Since it first appeared in the early part of the twentieth century, BDB has been considered the finest and most comprehensive Hebrew lexicon available to the English-speaking student. Based upon the classic work of Wilhelm Gesenius, the "father of modern. Hebrew lexicography," BDB gives not only dictionary definitions for each word, but relates each word to its Old Testament usage and categorizes its nuances of meaning. BDB's exhaustive coverage of Old Testament Hebrew words, as well as its unparalleled usage of cognate languages and the wealth of background sources consulted and quoted, render BDB and invaluable resource for all students of the Bible.

.... This Hebrew dictionary contains over 6,000 entries of the most common words in the Hebrew Bible, giving users all the vocabulary they need in order to read biblical prose... the vast majority of the entries in the Dictionary of Basic Biblical Hebrew occur at least six times in the Hebrew Bible. This Hebrew dictionary is thus a great resource for building vocabulary and is a perfect companion volume for courses that focus on the reading and exegesis of biblical prose...

The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew: incorporates all Hebrew from the earliest times to c.200 CE; includes all the data from Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus), the Dead Sea Scrolls and related texts, and the Hebrew inscriptions down to 200 CE; lists and analyses all occurrences of every Hebrew word (with the exception of a few very common words); gives an English translation of every Hebrew word and phrase cited in the dictionary; provides statistics for the number of occurrences of each word in each of the four corpora of Hebrew; concentrates on the common words rather than the rare ones; indexes all the nouns to their verbal root and all the verbs to their derived nouns; is systematically based on modern linguistic principles; contains a word-frequency index and a list of all the sources for the Hebrew language, including all the manuscripts from Qumran; provides a comprehensive bibliography to scholarly studies on individual Hebrew words and an English-Hebrew index; and is available in electronic format and in a large print edition.

This English translation of an earlier German original from the 1950s is well on its way to replacing the older Brown, Driver, and Briggs (BDB) lexicon as the standard resource of its kind. The layout is similar to BDB with each entry including roots, variants and cognates, biblical examples, and citations for further study. The first volume includes an extended bibliography of works, mostly in German and English, and the rest of the Hebrew portion of the dictionary fills out the succeeding three volumes. The fifth, supplementary volume (with its own bibliography) is devoted to Aramaic. David R. Stewart, The Literature of Theology, rev. and updated; entry #64.

An essential tool for those using the Brown, Driver & Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, it helps you to quickly and easily find the right Hebrew word and discussion.  This index lists in consonantal form every Hebrew word in the BDB, gives its general meaning, and notes the location of the entry in the Lexicon.

First published in the middle of the nineteenth century, now somewhat dated in terms of the quality of the Hebrew text employed and suffers from some omissions. Still, accessible and user-friendly and generally reliable. Numerically coded to Strong's. David R. Bauer, Essential Bible Study Tools for Ministry, 2.10.3.

"Newer than Botterweck... a substantial part of this work's five volumes is devoted to theology and exegesis. there are four distinct parts... and an entire volume of detailed indexes. Most of its resources do not require a knowledge of Hebrew." David R. Stewart, The Literature of Theology, rev. and updated; entry #74.

Companion to Theological Dictionary to the Old Testament, this magisterial work offers in-depth discussions of key Hebrew and Aramaic terms in the OT. Each entry focuses on meaning, moving from general, every senses to full understanding of theological significance. Each key word is related to its larger linguistic and semantic fields, and attention is given to cognate terms and concepts in surrounding Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Attention is given also to use in Qumran and the Septuagint. Contributors represent a wide range of nations and religious traditions, though most are European and North American, and virtually all assume the general critical consensus of the historical and textual development of the OT and thus make use of form- and tradition-critical insights. Contains extensive bibliographies. [Vol. 16 (2018) is an Aramaic Dictionary; vol. 17 (2021) is an index to the entire set. The standard work in this category]. Bauer, Essential Bible Study Tools for Ministry, 2.9.1.

... this translation of the "Theologisches Handworterbuch zum Alten Testament" makes accessible for the first time in English a wealth of theological insight. (Includes) wide-ranging investigations of the historical, semantic, and theological meanings of Old Testament concepts... Can serve a wide audience, from professors and researchers to pastors and students of the Bible. Even readers with little or no knowledge of Hebrew can use it profitably... (T)he individual articles serve as concise, well-structured histories of research with conclusions, discussion of controversies, and references to the most important literature. The methodological repertoire of the "TLOT" is deliberately broad because today it is generally agreed that no single approach can fully illuminate a term's meaning. Assumptions that led to ill-advised short-cuts--e.g., the chimera of a basic meaning from which all other meanings developed--have given way to a methodological pluralism, that considers a term's significance from several points of view and thus does more justice to actual usage... Since the entries are generally ordered according to roots--the traditional and sensible approach for Semitic languages--and many words are treated as derivatives, synonyms, or antonyms of the terms listed in the article titles, thousands of words can be considered in about 330 articles. These other words can easily be found in the index. Besides examining the key verbs, nouns, and adjectives, the "TLOT" examines theologically noteworthy pronouns and particles in their own entries...

Extensive, scholarly discussion of every Hebrew word of theological significance in the Old Testament. Keyed to Strong's Concordance.

The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament was created to aid in the study of the Greek New Testament, using sophisticated computer resources to ensure an accurate, helpful, and in-depth analysis of the word forms that make up the New Testament. Its combination of features sets it apart from all previously published analytical lexicons: · Based on the UBS 3d edition (revised). · Includes both accepted and variant readings ·... · Gives the frequency of each inflected form, verse references for forms that occur only once · Includes Goodrick-Kohlenberger numbers for all words · Includes principal parts for all verbs · Contains a grammatical section with a discussion of paradigms and explanations as to why paradigms are formed as they are Most significantly, The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament is keyed to the author's Morphology of Biblical Greek, which explains in detail why some Greek words follow certain patterns and other Greek words follow seemingly very different patterns...

The English translation of the three-volume Exegetisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, t... first of all a complete English dictionary of NT Greek. ...EDNT also serves as a guide to the usage of every New Testament word in its various contexts, and it makes a significant contribution to NT exegesis and theology. EDNT's thorough, lengthy discussions of more significant words and its grouping of words related by root and meaning (with alphabetical cross-references) distinguish it from simpler Greek-English lexicons. Advancing the discussion of the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, EDNT summarizes more recent treatments of numerous questions in New Testament study and takes into consideration newer viewpoints of linguistics.

Described as an "invaluable reference work" (Classical Philology) and "a tool indispensable for the study of early Christian literature" (Religious Studies Review) in its previous edition, this new updated American edition of Walter Bauer's Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments builds on its predecessor's staggering deposit of extraordinary erudition relating to Greek literature from all periods. Including entries for many more words, the new edition also lists more than 25,000 additional references to classical, intertestamental, Early Christian, and modern literature. In this edition, Frederick W. Danker's broad knowledge of Greco-Roman literature, as well as papyri and epigraphs, provides a more panoramic view of the world of Jesus and the New Testament. Danker has also introduced a more consistent mode of reference citation, and has provided a composite list of abbreviations to facilitate easy access to this wealth of information. Perhaps the single most important lexical innovation of Danker's edition is its inclusion of extended definitions for Greek terms. For instance, a key meaning of "episkopos" was defined in the second American edition as overseer; Danker defines it as "one who has the responsibility of safeguarding or seeing to it that something is done in the correct way, guardian." Such extended definitions give a fuller sense of the word in question, which will help avoid both anachronisms and confusion among users of the lexicon who may not be native speakers of English. Danker's edition of Bauer's Wörterbuch will be an indispensable guide for Biblical and classical scholars, ministers, seminarians, and translators.

Based on Theologisches Begriffslexikon zum Neuen Testament, translated, revised, and enlarged by Brown, with additional articles by (primarily) evangelicals fromBritain and North America. Concise discussions of major NT theological terms are arranged in English alphabetical order. Discusses the use of each word in classical Greek, the OT, rabbinic literature, and the NT. Contains relatively extensive bibliographies of works in English, French, and German. More concise, more conservative in critical, historical, and theological outlook, and more accessible to the nonspecialist (i.e., less technical) than Kittel's TDNT... David R. Bauer, Essential Bible Study Tools for Ministry, 4.9.2

This new reference work improves on earlier works and, in canonical order, lists all words occurring fewer than 50 times. In addition to providing the word's definition, this indispensable tool includes the number of times a word occurs in a particular author's writings alongside the number of times a word is used in a given book of the New Testament.

This standard resource combines elements of a lexicon with those of an encyclopedia, as its interest is not only in etymology and meaning but in more integrative concerns such as tradition and theology. Entries are arranged by root word, rather than in strict alphabetical sequence. A longer entry typically includes a section on a term's broader Hellenistic usage, OT antecedents and parallels, usage in Rabbinic Judaism, all prior to considering the term in its NT setting. Bibliographies are included for most articles; there are also compendious footnotes. David R. Stewart, The Literature of Theology, rev. and updated; entry #71.

One of the most widely respected theological dictionaries put into one-volume, abridged form. Focusing on the theological meaning of each word, the abridgment contains English keywords for each entry, tables of English and Greek keywords, and a listing of the relevant volume and page numbers from the unabridged work at the end of each article or section.