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Building a Bible Reference Library
It is impossible to establish with complete accuracy
the exact years of the writing of the original
documents that now make up your Bible. But it is
well-established by most Bible authorities that
almost all of those that are included in the Old
Testament section of your Bible were originally
written over 2,500 years ago--some of them perhaps
as long as 3,500 years ago. And all of those that
make up the New Testament of your Bible were
composed at least 1,900 years ago.
God has made sure that copies of the Greek and
Hebrew originals have survived down to our day, but
most modern Americans are unable to read Greek and
Hebrew. And most of them know little or nothing
about the ancient societies in which they were
written. Translators do their best to try to make
these ancient writings understandable to people in
their own language and time. But there is only so
much they can do with the raw words of the Greek or
Hebrew text. Some ancient phrases and concepts are
so foreign to our modern ways of expression and
thinking that it is difficult to translate them in a
way that makes complete sense. And even if we can
read the words clearly that describe ancient customs
of Bible times, some of those customs are so
foreign to our experience that we have a very
difficult time understanding what they were all
about. The same is true for the geography and animal
and plant life of the Bible. The Middle East of the
1st century AD is far from the American Midwest of
the 21st century, in both location and way of life.
Christians are convinced that the Bible is, in many
ways, an "instruction book for Mankind," revealing
the Creator and His plan for His creation. But if
you have trouble understanding that book, you may
end up with a garbled understanding of that plan.
Perhaps you have bought a piece of computer
equipment such as a printer, and opened the manual
that came with it only to find that it was written
by people who obviously had very poor communication
skills! It can take you days to get your equipment
up and running if you can't understand the
directions in that manual.
If you have started reading the Bible and found that
it is a bit like that equipment manual, really hard
to understand in spots, then relief is on the way.
Bible scholars long ago realized that the average
person needs help in wading through the Bible, and
they have been busy for centuries creating "Bible
Reference Works" that can aid Bible students in
their studies. If you plan to be a serious Bible
student, then you need to begin building your own
home library of such reference works. This
installment of the Toolbox will provide you
some general tips on how to inexpensively begin such
a project, and ideas on what your own Bible
Reference Library should include. Each type of
reference work will be only briefly described.
Future installments of the Toolbox will be
devoted to providing more detailed descriptions, and
suggestions on how to most effectively use each
type.
Many of the types of reference works outlined below
are usually available from local libraries, even in
the smallest of towns. So you won't have to wait to
buy your own to be able to start learning to use
them.
And you don't have to invest in expensive, brand
new, hard-bound editions of any of these unless you
want to and can afford them. Many are available in
new paperback versions, often for well under $10.
Used copies of both hard-bound and paperback
versions, sometimes priced as low as $1, can
frequently be found at used book stores, book sales
at local libraries, book sections in antique and
collectible stores, yard sales, and on the internet
at both E-Bay and used book sections of online book
stores such as Amazon.com.
Concordances
What if you are trying to find a passage in the
Bible that you recently read or heard, but you
forgot to write down the chapter and verse, so you
don't know how to find it again? The type of
reference book that will help you most in this kind
of situation is a concordance. This is a book
that is like a "database." It lists either all the
words in a given version of the Bible--even
including "a," "an," "the"--or a selection of what
the author believes to be the most significant
words. After each word listed, the author provides
chapter and verse references to either all the
passages in that version of the Bible that include
that word, or what the author believes to be the
most significant passages containing the word.
Many reference Bibles and Study Bibles contain at
least limited concordance sections in the back of
the book. Although these may help you on occasion,
the longer you study the Bible the more you will be
convinced that you really need a more extensive
concordance. Most Bible students find that a
concordance is the first reference work that they
plan to buy.
Bible Dictionaries
A Bible dictionary usually contains definitions and
descriptions of a wide variety of Bible words and
names that the author feels may be unfamiliar to the
average reader. If you don't know what a shofar
is, or don't know who Hagar was, a Bible dictionary
is the easiest place to start your search for such
information. Many reference Bibles and Study Bibles
also may contain a small Bible dictionary in the
back, but they are usually very limited. So after
obtaining a concordance, a good Bible dictionary
might be a very good choice to add to your library.
Overviews of Bible Times and Lands
This type of reference work contains more extensive
information than is usually in a Bible dictionary
regarding the manners, customs, agriculture,
animals, plants, social life, and more of people in
Bible times.
Bible Atlases
A Bible atlas will contain an extensive collection
of maps related to the story flow of the Bible. Many
reference and study Bibles include at least a small
collection of maps in the back of the book. But
particularly if you are fascinated by geography, you
may want to know a lot more about the details of
Bible geography than is in such limited collections.
Bible Encyclopedias
Bible encyclopedias may be in one large volume, or
several volumes. In addition to the kind of
definitions included in a Bible dictionary, the
encyclopedia will go into much more extensive
details on everything from Bible characters to the
customs of ancient times and the meaning of Bible
symbolism. Most are extensively illustrated with
drawings and/or photos. They will also likely
include charts, diagrams, timelines and more that
help to clarify unfamiliar concepts.
Commentaries
Most comprehensive Bible commentaries start with the
book of Genesis and provide a sequential collection
of comments on every verse, or selected verses, of
each book of the Bible. Sometimes these comments are
designed to just provide historical, sociological,
scientific, and linguistic background information to
make the content of the passage clear to the reader.
But frequently they also include extensive personal
opinions and speculation of the author or authors on
just how one ought to interpret the "implications"
of a passage. Although this can be valuable in
assisting you to apply what you read to your own
life, you need to remember that no commentator is
infallible, and it is possible that there may be
multiple other, conflicting interpretations of some
Bible passages. In debatable areas it is usually
wise to not just rely on the interpretation of one
favorite commentary, and compare and contrast what
several different commentaries say on the issue.
In addition to such comprehensive commentaries, most
Christian book stores carry a wide variety of series
of Bible commentaries, usually in small paperback
format, on just individual books of the Bible, or
perhaps small sets of books such as the four
Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Lexicons
A Bible lexicon is a reference work that has
listings either of Hebrew words used in the Old
Testament of the Bible or Greek words used in the
New Testament. Each word is shown in the alphabet of
the original, along with a "transliteration" of what
the sounds would look like in English. Then each
word is defined, and, in some cases, all the words
used to translate the word in a specific translation
version, such as the King James, are shown so
that you can see the various nuances of the word.
A lexicon is often connected directly to an English
concordance. Each English word in the concordance
will have a reference number next to it showing what
Hebrew or Greek word it has been translated from.
Using the reference number you go to the lexicon to
see just what the word was in the original language.
Special Topic Reference Works
In addition to these broader reference materials,
there are books which provide systematic reference
materials for special needs. One of the most useful
of these are compilations of explanations of
"alleged discrepancies of the Bible."
Bible students for the past 2000 years have noticed
some verses and passages in the Bible which seem, at
first glance, to blatantly contradict one another.
And thus Bible scholars have collected and
categorized examples of this type of "alleged
discrepancies," and created books that methodically
discuss them and attempt to provide reasonable
explanations for the seeming contradictions.
Computer Bibles and Reference Collections
Many standard reference works of all the types
listed above, and most common English Bible
translations, are available in software packages to
use with your computer. Although you can buy
"stand-alone" versions of the Bible to use by
themselves on the computer, the most popular Bible
software in the past decade has been the Reference
Collection. These often include multiple
translations that you can search, compare, and
contrast, and a wide variety of reference works,
including maps, concordances, lexicons,
dictionaries, commentaries and more. One of the most
significant features of computer sets such as these
is that all of the various reference works can be
directly interlinked. With the click of a mouse you
can find a passage in the Bible, look up the meaning
of just one word in it in a lexicon, switch to find
out more about that word in a dictionary, and then
switch to a commentary to see how the word might be
interpreted in context.
Internet On-line Bibles and Reference Collections
The type of computer reference sets mentioned above
can get a bit expensive, particularly for the new
Bible student who isn't exactly sure what he needs
or wants yet for his own collection. But now there
is an easy way to have access to much of the same
material for free. Websites are springing up all
over the Net that provide excellent free map
collections, lexicons, Bible versions, commentaries,
dictionaries, and even encyclopedias. These may not
be real convenient for you to use if you have a slow
dial-up connection for your Internet service. But if
you have cable or other high-speed connection, it's
almost as convenient as owning the software for your
own computer.
Future installments of the Toolbox will
assist you in choosing ... and using ... these
various types of Bible Study "Helps."
Please bookmark the Toolbox index page (see link
below) and stop back by there in the near future to
see links to new installments as they are added.
 Return
to the Index for the Bible Study Toolbox
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