I used the lexicon and concordance over at blueletterbible.org, a very awesome site and one I higly recommend for all, but I would like to buy one for home, any suggestions?
Lexicon and concordance
by PSacramento 5 Replies latest watchtower bible
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PSacramento
TTT :)
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moggy lover
Unfortunately there is no one single book that will answer all your requirements, and you will need to assess your own personal needs before investing in either a good lexicon or concordance. There is no one book which acts both as a concordance and lexicon for a serious investigation into the Bible text.
For instance, Zondervan books publish a comprehensive concordance of 1650 pages which lists every single occurence of every word in the Bible text of the NIV Bible. It is called the "Strongest NIV Exhaustive Concordance" They do this for the KJV Bible translation as well. At the back of each book a lexicon is featured which also lists all the original langauge words that undergird the English translation.
Holman books do the same for the NASV Bible.
You can get various editions of the "Strong's" concordance which have various sub features that highlight certain aspects of the text of the Bible in English as well as the original languages. You will need to investigate each of these to be satisfied on your needs.
If you are a Roman Catholic, the Liturgical Press have published the "Nelson's Complete Concordance of the New American Bible" which opens up the Catholic NAB Bible to readers. Tyndale Publishers have done the same for the New Living Translation.
There are other kinds of concordances that are more comprehensive which are called "Analytical" and which are formatted slightly differently. For instance, "The Analytical Concordance to the Revised Standard Version of the NT" is formatted not according to the English but the original Greek. Through this formatting you can look behind the original word that is used for the RSV NT, and you can see how many different ways it is translated into English.
Young's Analytical Concordance does the same for the the whole Bible. In a sense, these ought to be favoured over the comprehensive concordances because the variety of translation is more easily accessible. For instance, if you want to do a word study on the word "Hope" in the Bible, looking up a Comprehensive Concordance transcribing any particular version, you will get every occurence of the word in the Scripture text, but: 1 You will not be able to distinguish between the verb and the noun 2 Whether there are various original language words behind this word.
An Analytical concordance solves this problem by listing the occurences according to the origianl languages. For instance for "hope" an analytical concordance can tell you that is derived from 9 separate Hebrew words such as "betach" "bittachon" "kesel" "mibtach" etc.
It will also show you how the verbs are translated as well. The drawback is that naturally the occurences are not listed chronologically, but analytically. So with an analytical concordance you will be able to tell how many times "hope" is translated from the original Heb word "Bittachon" or "mibtach" but not how many times it occurs chronologically. [Unless of course you are game enough to count the various analytical occurences to get an overall number.]
Oddly enough, in 1973 The Watchtower Society published a very good "Comprehensive Concordance" to the NWT but I fear that it is no longer in print, since the original print run was for only 200,000 copies.
There are various editions of Hebrew and Greek lexicons available in the market today. For their price which is moderate, considering their invaluable content, Thayer's Greek Lexicon, and Gesenius' Hebrew Lexicon are the best available. A more comprehensive Heb lexicon is that of "Brown Driver and Briggs". Probabaly the best and most comprehensive available for the NT is that of "Bauer Danker Arnt and Gringrich" [BDAG]which has the added advantage of helping the student to see the evolution of meaning in these Greeks words from their earliest usages in pre-Christian times. Unfortunately it is not cheap, and like me, you may need to forego several meals before purchasing one of these.
Apart from Lexicons, there are "Exegetical Dictionaries" which detail, within any given context, the application of any given word. The three volume "Exegetical Dictionary to the greek NT" by Baltz and Schneider is recommended. Less comprehensive though worth its price is "Renn's Expository Dictionary of Bible Words", as is the "Word Study Dictionary of the NT edited by Spiros Zodhiates.
So, as you can see, there is a veritable smorgasborg of literature available to the serious, and not so serious student of the biblical text. A visit to your nearest Christian book store will help you to decide your needs.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
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Narkissos
On the same level as BGAD for the NT is the German HAL (Hebräisches und Aramäisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament) for the OT, which has been fully translated into English by Richardson et al. under the title The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, in two volumes (Brill publishers). This work is reflected in the much shorter Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament by Holladay (Brill / Eerdmans).
N.B.: Unlike the popular English lexica using the Strong concordance numbers, the above reference works are only accessible through Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek entries: meaning you have to know the Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek alphabet at the very least, and better extract the 'basic' form (lemma) of words from the variety of forms which can be found in the text to use them (not so hard to learn as one might think) -- or use them along with a Strong-type concordance.
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PSacramento
Thanks for the advice guys.
I have heard good things about Bauer's GreekEnglish lexicon of the NT and his new concise one is coing in November at 1/2 the price of the old one. thoughts?
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thomas15
go to christianbook dot com and have fun