It happened again. I read through 1 John and had to stop and think: what is Gnosticism again? I knew that John was writing to God’s people who were in danger of being swayed by it, but I always forget what the Gnostics believed.

I flipped open The Baker Compact Dictionary of Biblical Studies and looked it up.

In two short paragraphs, my mind was refreshed. Gnostics said that everything in the material world is evil and salvation comes not through Jesus, but through discovering the pure, spiritual realm within oneself. Now that I was reminded, I turned back to 1 John able to more fully understand why John was writing.

The Baker Compact Dictionary of Biblical Studies is a brand new reference book from BakerBooks. It’s no bigger than a trade paperback and contains a wealth of information about Biblical studies. The authors wrote the book primarily for new Bible college and seminary students, but they also hope that pastors and laypeople find it useful in their studies as well.

How I Will Use the Dictionary of Biblical Studies

• To look up theologians. I wish I had this book when I was reading Willing to Believe. There were so many theologians mentioned in the book. Sometimes I recognize a theologians name, but I don’t really know what they believed or why they were famous. This dictionary mentions theologians from early church history in addition to more modern theologians especially those involved in biblical criticism.
• To discover the background behind Bible translations. Did you know Kenneth Taylor wrote The Living Bible? I only knew of his excellent devotional writing for children. Apparently, he wanted a Bible his kids could easily understand so he wrote this paraphrase.
• To look up some historical Bible terms. When I was reading Habakkuk for the Habakkuk study, the Bible uses the term Chaldeans for the nation that would come and conquer. I wanted to double check that was the same nation as the Babylonians so I looked up Chaldeans in this compact dictionary.
• To look up literary device terms. The dictionary includes simile, poetry, doublets, epics and other literary terms. If you are delving into the different types of literature from the Bible, this feature is handy. I thought a doublet was a type of men’s clothing in Medieval times (which it is). In Biblical criticism, it refers to two different episodes in the Bible that are similar but critics say are really two different tellings of the same event. For example, Abraham lying about Sarah being his sister and the feeding of the four thousand and the feeding of the five thousand in Matthew and Mark.

What I Won’t Use, But Maybe You Will

There are a lot more textual criticism terms then I will ever use like postcolonial biblical criticism (interpreting the Bible in light of Western world domination) and haplography (when a scribe would inadvertently leave out a letter or a word). However, in Bible college, I ran across some of those terms. This would be a great book for someone headed to Bible college or seminary.

I am thankful to have a copy of The Baker Compact Dictionary of Biblical Studies on my shelf of Bible reference books.

Read the Hard Parts readers are always on the hunt for reliable Bible reference resources. What reference books do you use when you are studying the Bible? Comment below.

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