The best Christian Bible Dictionaries & Encyclopedias books: Reddit reviews

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I have both the BHS Student edition, and it is as great as you say, but for a casual student I would recommend this Reader's Hebrew Bible. It does two things the BHS does that make it worthwhile. First, as you can see in the 'Search Inside' I linked to, it has proper nouns in a lighter gray font. There are tons of places where not racking your brain trying to unpack the names people and places eliminates frustration.

And I find the Reader's text is more convenient to determine verb conjugations. To explain how the BHS lets you know the verb conjugation, it gives you (IIRC) a code that indicates binyan, tense and person/gender/number. So you will see a code, just making this example up, like 3P34HG in the footnote and you need to look that up on a chart to find out it is Hiphil imperfect 3MS. It gets the job done, but it does require you flipping back to the table, though with time I would expect you would come to recognize them somewhat.

The Reader's bible, on the other hand, will just, using this example, have (HIF) in the footnote. It is not as exhaustive obviously, and not as precise if you wanting something rigorous, but this casual reader doesn't really find it that hard to discern the tense/PGN on my own.

It has been a good couple of years since I took the BHS off my shelf, so I may be misremember some of that. If so, please let me know if I am unfair in my comments.

The Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (online version) generally does a good job of exploring influences and parallels from other religions; though some contributors (eg van der Toorn) are more interested in pushing their own theories than covering all of them.

Regarding the question of demons, angels, devils, etc. in the Bible, consider the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. A first edition was published by Brill in 1995, and a second edition by Wm. B. Eerdmans in 1999. https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Deities-Demons-Bible-Second/dp/0802824919

Ironically, almost every single one of these translation arguments that Christians have could be refuted and resolved with a copy of Strong's, which is available in every Christian bookstore, or even Amazon.

https://www.amazon.ca/Strongs-Expanded-Exhaustive-Concordance-Bible/dp/1418541680/ref=pd_lpo_1?pd_rd_i=1418541680&psc=1

They are actual beings in rebellion against God. See Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 for more information on them. I'd also recommend reading the "Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible."

I've gotten very fond of the English Standard Version (ESV) because it aims for more word-for-word accuracy, but I don't think it's as hard to read as something that is strictly word for word.

You might also look into a parallel Bible. That will included 2 or more translations at the same time. Then you can compare different translations simultaneously.

I have both of those, and I just use https://www.blueletterbible.org/ if I get curious and want to study anything out in the Greek. Otherwise you can also add a concordance if you wanted something physical for that kind of study.

>Coulter (a novelist and engineer) and Turner (a writer and researcher)

I wonder what the quality of this book is like. What I have is this:

https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Deities-Demons-Bible-Second/dp/0802824919

I am a little stunned at seeing the price. I purchased this when it was new from my university bookstore and I don't recall it being anywhere this pricey. I would guess it was roughly $70 in Y2K dollars. I think maybe niche books like these end up getting overpriced on Amazon.

BHS is what you will likely need for class. I recommend a reader's version if you want to actually read it though. https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0310269741/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ZxNaGbHB19MMW

They probably won't let you use it in class.

I will ask around to some of my apologist friends and see if they have any further suggestions. One book that may help is https://www.amazon.com/Charts-Apologetics-Christian-Evidences-ZondervanCharts/dp/031021937X which gives visual charts. They have one for philosophy, theology, and several other topics. Definitely not thorough and it may poorly summarize some ideas, but it was useful for me as an aid with reading other books.

This is the textbook we used in my History of Christianity class.

It covers what you talked about generally, but does a fantastic job of providing sources for further reading.

I would recommend a Bible dictionary to refer to while reading. I personally use the HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, but there are plenty of other good ones.

Look up the "Dictionary of" series by InverVarsity Press. There are some for both Old and New Testament. The NT ones are Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Paul and His Letters, The Latter New Testament, and New Testament Background. I had a graduate-level New Testament course which used these as the main textbook for the class; they are excellent.

You can find them in almost any Christian college/seminary library and they are fantastic. They're complied by more conservative Christian scholars, but they really do a good job of including what liberal and non-Christian scholars have to say about textual, biblical, theological, etc. issues. If you want a solid foundation of current scholarly consensus on any issue, this is an amazing resource.