Knowledge Library

Bible Dictionaries

Short entries on the names, places, objects and terms of Scripture.

Scripture first

Nehemiah 8:8 · Acts 8:30-31

The Levites read the Law and gave the sense of it so the people understood the reading, and Philip asked the Ethiopian whether he understood what he read. A dictionary serves that same errand: it removes the obstacle in front of the text so the text can be heard.

What this shelf holds

  • Alphabetical entries that identify a word, a person, a place or a practice and gather the passages where it appears.
  • The shortest kind of reference work, meant to orient a reader in a sentence or two rather than argue a case.

How to use it

  • Look up the term, then close the entry and read the passage again. The entry has done its work if the verse is now clearer.
  • Where a dictionary and the passage seem to disagree, the passage decides.

What this cannot settle

A dictionary gives a general sense assembled from many verses. It cannot tell you the force of a word in the one verse you are reading, and older dictionaries carry dating and site identifications later evidence has corrected.

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4 entries on these shelves

Reference works

Each of these is named so you can open it and check us. Each carries what it is good for and what it cannot decide.

Every entry below is labelled with the kind of evidence it is, so a lexicon is never mistaken for the text and a commentary is never mistaken for a conclusion Scripture has drawn.

  • Easton's Bible Dictionary

    Scholarly referenceSupports the text, never settles it · Matthew George Easton, 1893 · Public domain

    Short entries on nearly every name, place, object and term in the English Bible.

    Use forA quick, sober orientation to a word or name before you go back to the passage.

    CautionWritten for readers of a century ago. Its geography and dating have been overtaken in places by later excavation, and its theological asides are Reformed and nineteenth century, not neutral.

  • Smith's Bible Dictionary

    Scholarly referenceSupports the text, never settles it · William Smith, 1863 · Public domain

    Fuller entries than Easton, with the biblical references gathered under each heading.

    Use forSeeing every passage that mentions a person, place or practice in one list.

    CautionIts identifications of sites and its chronology predate modern archaeology and should not be quoted as settled.

  • International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

    Scholarly referenceSupports the text, never settles it · James Orr, editor, 1915 · Public domain

    Long, signed articles on books, doctrines, peoples, languages and customs.

    Use forWorking through a subject at length when a dictionary entry is too thin.

    CautionArticles differ in quality and outlook because they have different authors. Where one contributor states a critical theory, that is his judgement, not a finding.

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