Depending on your personal interests and the kinds of questions you want to find answers to, you'll soon find that you want more information about one or more of the following topics found in different types of reference books:
- THE GEOGRAPHY OF BIBLE LANDS—ATLAS
- THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES—SURVEYS
- THE BIG PICTURE—CHART BOOKS
- DAILY LIFE IN BIBLE TIMES AND HISTORY OF THE BIBLE—ENCYCLOPEDIAS
- THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE
- GREEK AND HEBREW TOOLS
1. THE GEOGRAPHY OF BIBLE LANDS
A good Bible atlas, such as the Zondervan NIV Atlas of the Bible by Carl Rasmussen, contains:
maps that show the location of places, groups of people, and nations in the Bible, as well as maps that illustrate specific historical events, such as the conquest of Canaan under Joshua.
geographical information about the various regions of Israel and Jordan, as well as Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, and Mesopotamia.
information about climate and weather, travel and roads.
historical geography—a historical survey of the Bible that shows where and how geography played a role in the history of Bible times.
a gazetteer or index of biblical places.
In choosing a Bible atlas, compare features and decide which has the most useful information and maps.
View an interior sample of The NIV Atlas of the Bible:
2. THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES
There are several approaches to biblical history:
Some books present Bible history in the context of world history. Two examples are A Survey of Israel's History by Leon Wood and New Testament History by Richard L. Niswonger. These books often include a focus on archaeological finds. Others discuss Bible history in chronological order but with an emphasis on the unfolding of God's plan and work in that history. An excellent example is Albert Baylis's book on the Old Testament, From Creation to the Cross. A chronological presentation of Bible history from the standpoint of historical geography can be found in a comprehensive Bible atlas. There are also many books on biblical archaeology that provide historical background, some arranged chronologically, others organized by the books of the Bible or in dictionary form.
3. THE BIG PICTURE
Chart books summarize large amounts of information in visual form. Some examples:
Chronological and Background Charts of the Old Testament by John H. Walton
Chronological and Background Charts of the New Testament by H. Wayne House
Charts of Christian Theology and Doctrine by H. Wayne House.
Chronological and Background Charts of Church History by Robert C. Walton
4. DAILY LIFE IN BIBLE TIMES AND HISTORY OF THE BIBLE
Much of this information can be found in a good, up-to-date Bible encyclopedia, but there are books that deal specifically with what is usually called “manners and customs.” Some are organized alphabetically, others topically.
How did the Bible come into being? How was it transmitted over the centuries? What is the history of English Bible translations? What is textual criticism? A good Bible Encyclopedia will give you answers to many of these kinds of questions. Or you can go to a Bible introduction. An example is A General Introduction to the Bible by David Ewert.
5. THEOLOGY AND DOCTRINE
Theology and doctrine both refer to the orderly, systematic presentation of the church's understanding of the things of God.
A basic understanding of doctrine can be helpful when studying the Bible, but there is always the danger of reading the Bible in the light of doctrine rather than letting the Bible speak for itself.
There's an enormous range of books about theology and doctrine, from books that deal with theology as a whole to books that cover only a small, specific point of theology, such as angels or the Cross.
I would suggest beginning with a book that presents a summary of doctrine, such as What Christians Believe by Alan F. Johnson and Robert E. Weber or Christianity 101 by Gilbert Bilezikian. Then you'll be ready to move on to a more thorough and systematic treatment, such as Wayne Grudem's Bible Doctrine.
6. GREEK AND HEBREW TOOLS
Q. Do you have to know Greek or Hebrew to understand the Bible?
A. No. The phrase “The original Greek says . . .” is heard so often from the pulpit that many people have the mistaken notion that knowing the original languages in which the Bible was written is necessary to really understand God's truth. But as Mark Twain said, “It's not what I don't understand in the Bible that bothers me, it's what I do understand.”
Knowing God and being obedient to his Word don't depend on a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. There are many Bible reference books that you can use without knowing the original languages, such as the ones discussed already in this booklet.
Q. Is it helpful to have some basic knowledge of Greek and Hebrew?
A. Yes. The main benefit of a very basic knowledge of Greek and Hebrew is that it widens the range of Bible reference books you can profitably use. Greek and Hebrew tools can be useful especially when you do word studies.
Greek is easier to learn than Hebrew, because it has an alphabet similar to ours and is also an Indo-European language. Hebrew differs quite a bit more from English and requires more concentrated study to be useful.
You should remember, though, that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Unless you have a solid knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, insights that you discover on the basis of the original languages that no one else has discovered before are probably wrong.
Tools That Require Little Knowledge of the Biblical Languages
If you want to know more about using Bible reference books based on Greek and Hebrew, an introductory book such as Do-It-Yourself Hebrew and Greek is helpful. It's especially useful for methodology, though somewhat outdated with respect to the Greek and Hebrew tools it describes. Greek-English Concordance and Hebrew-English Concordance. These concordances are based on the Greek New Testament or the Hebrew Old Testament respectively. Up-to-date examples are the Greek-English Concordance to the New Testament and the Hebrew-English Concordance to the Old Testament. Older works of this type are Englishman's Greek Concordance and Englishman's Hebrew Concordance.
To use these concordances, you need only to learn the Greek and Hebrew alphabets, or use a numbering system (either Strong's or Goodrick/Kohlenberger) that assigns a specific number to each Greek and Hebrew word in the Bible.
Word Studies
Word study books are encyclopedias that discuss the meanings and significance of all the main words in the Bible. They give definitions and provide linguistic, biblical, historical, and theological information about words. They are arranged alphabetically, either by Hebrew and Greek words or by their English translations.
When arranged by English translation, word study books trace the various original-language words translated by an English word—e.g., “love”—from their Old Testament usage through their New Testament usage, contrasting and comparing them. Word study books are useful for learning specific meanings of words and for being able to discriminate shades of meaning, especially for students who do not know Hebrew or Greek.
Expository Dictionaries
These dictionaries contain word studies of the most important words and concepts in the Bible, based on Greek or on both Greek and Hebrew. A useful example is the New International Encyclopedia of Bible Words by Lawrence Richards.
Advanced Expository/Theological Dictionaries
These dictionaries present in-depth studies of the most important theological words and concepts in the Old Testament and New Testament. The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (on Windows) and The New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (5 vols.), for example, are scholarly but don't require a knowledge of Hebrew and Greek.
Learning to Read Greek and Hebrew
Learning Greek requires a solid commitment on your part and an investment in at least three types of books.
1. Beginning Greek GrammarSelect one that's understandable, such as Basics of Biblical Greek by William B. Mounce, which has the advantage of an accompanying workbook to help you.
2. Interlinear Hebrew Old Testament and Interlinear Greek New Testament
An Interlinear Old or New Testament presents the Greek or Hebrew text with a literal, word-for-word English translation between the lines and one or more standard English translation(s) in the margin, e.g., The Interlinear NASB-NIV Parallel New Testament in Greek and English or The Interlinear NIV Hebrew-English Old Testament by John R. Kohlenberger III.
Greek New Testament - Standard Greek texts, such as UBS4, are available with or without one or more English translations in the margin.
3. Lexicons
A lexicon is the same as a dictionary. For the beginning Greek student, it is best not to get a standard Greek lexicon but rather an analytical lexicon. An analytical lexicon identifies the form of each word of the original language of either the Old Testament (Hebrew) or the New Testament (Greek) and shows the lexical form under which a word can be found in a standard Hebrew or Greek lexicon. One example is The Analytical Lexican to the Greek New Testament by William Mounce.
When you've learned the most common words in the Greek New Testament, a helpful tool is the reader's lexicon, which is not arranged alphabetically, but rather goes through the Old or New Testament book by book and verse by verse. It gives only those words that occur fewer than ten times in the New Testament. Examples are A Reader's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament by Sakae Kubo and A Reader's Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament by Armstrong, Busby, and Carr.
A Word of Caution
Anyone who's been involved in learning a second modern language, such as English or Spanish, knows how long it takes to fully grasp the nuances and idioms of a language. Yet preachers with little knowledge of Greek often make categorical pronouncements (“The original Greek says . . . .”) that are sometimes just plain wrong and or dangerously misleading.
Some of the More Common Problems:
A failure to realize that language and word meanings change over time. Going back to what a word meant five hundred years before Paul wrote can be irrelevant or even misleading. For example, how does it help us in English to understand the meaning of “He has a sense of humor” if we are told that humor comes from the Latin for “moisture” and meant “temperament” in the Middle Ages? (Unless you want to draw the conclusion that people with a sense of humor are all wet.)
A failure to realize that when two words are put together to form a new word, the new word may have a meaning unrelated to the original words. Just for fun, try to explain butterfly on the basis of the meaning of butter and fly.
A failure to realize that many words have more than one meaning and that you cannot simply pick and chose the meaning you like best—or find the “one-and-only” meaning of a word. For example, “Cinderella's ball” means one thing when the words are used in the well-known fairy tale, but something entirely different in a story about Cinderella's toys. And “Cinderella had a ball at the ball with her ball” adds a third meaning of ball.
Misinformation that has been repeated so often that it is considered a fact, such as, for example, the oft-heard claim that the Greek aorist tense represents once-and-for-all action (“Offer your bodies once and for all as living sacrifices”—Rom. 12:1)—it doesn't. Instead, the aorist tense represents simple, undefined action.
