4.2.1. Translation theory
A good translation not only renders the words of the original into their best English equivalents, it also reflects the style, the spirit, and even the impact of the original wherever possible. You are the best judge of what constitutes a faithful translation. Your familiarity with the passage in the original, and with the audience for whom you write or preach, allows you to choose your words to maximize the accuracy of the translation. Remember that accuracy does not require wooden literalism. The words of different languages do not correspond to one another on a one-for-one basis, yet the concepts must correspond. Your translation should leave the same impression with you when you read it as does the original. A translation that meets this criterion can be considered faithful to the original.
Three fine books on Bible translation remain valuable:
Eugene A. Nida and Charles R. Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation (1969; repr; Leiden: E. J. Brill, fourth impression, 2003).
John Beekman and John Callow, Translating the Word ofGod (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1974).
Sakae Kubo and Walter Specht, So Many Versions? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1975).
The following more recent works focus on the debate about types of translations and translation theory, and all are of use and importance:
Eugene Nida and Jan de Waard, From One Language to Another: Functional Equivalence in Bible Translation (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1986).
Eugene Nida, “The Sociolinguistics of Translating Canonical Religious Texts,” in Traduction, Terminologie, Redaction 7, no. 1 (July 1994): 191-217.
Stanley E. Porter and Richard S. Hess, eds., Translating the Bible: Problems and Prospects (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999).
Glen G. Scorgie, Mark L. Strauss, and Steven M. Voth, eds., The Challenge of Bible Translation: Communicating God’s Word to the World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 2003).
4.2.2. Translation aids
Even if your knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and other languages has deteriorated (or was never adequate), you can still work profitably with the original languages by using several English-oriented texts. Do not hesitate to use these. There is no shame in saving time and frustration, and no value in guessing your way through material you simply cannot read.
The fastest and most versatile basic translation aids come in the form of computer software, the two most powerful being Accordance and Bible-Works, followed by Logos Bible Software (see 4.4.2). These programs provide instant lexical and grammatical data for any word you point your cursor at. They also can in seconds assemble for you all the various contexts where a given word is used throughout the rest of Scripture so that you can examine for yourself the range of its usages. Moreover, they can instantly provide a complete list of translated contexts in any of the modern translations whose modules you have purchased so that you can readily examine how various modern translators have dealt with your word or wording in various parts of their translations. All this is enormously useful, but it does not automatically render useless the book references listed below. A book can be selective and focused at various points according to the author’s judgment in a way that the mechanical processes of a computer concordance do not allow, and a book can also follow a particular format or variety of formats for the presenting of its data (including the unique way that authors may have chosen to show the intersection of their specific advice to you within the context of a helpfully formatted text). Moreover, a book can show judiciously selected combinations of contexts that may prove more helpful to you in some instances than the automatic complete screen formats generated by the computer concordances.
For the Hebrew OT several complete interlinear editions are available. Each contains an acceptable translation printed in interlinear fashion, as well as separately in paragraph form alongside the main text. Interlinears can be useful for skimming through larger passages:
Jay P. Green Sr., ed., Interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English (Lafayette, IN: Sovereign Grace Publishers, 1997).
Jay P. Green Sr., ed., Interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English, large edition (Lafayette, IN: Sovereign Grace Publishers, 2000).
John R. Kohlenberger III, ed., NIVInterlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1987).
Also available for part of the OT is a similar interlinear edition, somewhat less useful because it is more wooden in style:
Joseph Magil, The Englishman’s Linear Hebrew-English Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zonder-van Publishing House, 1974).
An excellent translation of the LXX is available:
Albert Pietersma and Benjamin Wright, eds., New English Translation ofthe Septuagint (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
For the LXX no book-form interlinear is available, but a convenient side-by-side Greek and English publication does exist:
Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton, The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament with an English Translation (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons, 1844; repr., Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1971).
Several Web sites have interlinear LXX-English Bibles that provide the convenience of rapid-search speed. Simply google “interlinear Septu-agint.” See also ApostolicBible.com for a CD-ROM version that can be purchased or accessed online.
The Web site “The Septuagint Online” has a variety of suggestions for LXX text and translation links:
http://www.kalvesmaki.com/LXX/Texts.htm.
A translation of the Syriac Peshitta into English has been made. Usually reliable, it serves to tell you when the Peshitta is different from the MT and other versions, even if you do not know Syriac well:
George M. Lamsa, The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts (Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Co., 1957).
Various portions of the Aramaic Targums are available in English translation. Among these are
J. W. Etheridge, The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch, 2 vols. (London: Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, 1862-65; repr., New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1969).
Bernard Grossfeld, ed., The Targum to the Five Megilloth (New York: Hermon Press, 1973).
Some Targum translations into English are available online. Google “Tar-gum translation” or “Targum online.” See also
http://www.library.upenn.edu/cajs/etexts.html.
The Latin Vulgate is also translated into English:
Ronald Knox, The Old Testament: Newly Translated from the Vulgate Latin, 2 vols. (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1950).
And a reasonable translation is available online at
Analytical lexicons list words directly as they occur in the biblical text and then provide the parsing. They can be useful as time-savers or if you have no access to a computer program to do the same thing, but they are not be to relied on for meanings or other technical data. Use the formal lexicons for that purpose. For Hebrew and Aramaic there is
Benjamin Davidson, The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons, 1848), 2nd ed. (1850; repr., Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1970).
For LXX Greek words, Bagster’s analytical lexicon of the NT is often adequate even though its vocabulary is limited to words found in the NT:
Harold K. Moulton, ed., The Analytical Greek Lexicon Revised (originally published as The Analytical Greek Lexicon, London: Samuel Bagster & Sons, 1852; rev. ed., 1908; new rev., Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1978).
The newer Bible software programs are faster and easier to use than these books, so if you own or have access to Accordance, BibleWorks, Logos Bible Software, or another such program you will find them faster and more productive than analytical concordances in book form.
To make it easier to use the still-popular Brown, Driver, and Briggs Hebrew Lexicon (see 4.4.1), an index was produced that lists the Hebrew words mostly in the order in which they occur in the chapters and verses of each book, with reference given to the appropriate entry in BDB. Such an aid is necessary only if your Hebrew is weak enough to make parsing a problem:
Bruce Einspahr, Index to Brown, Driver and Briggs Hebrew Lexicon (Chicago: Moody Press, 1982).
You must use a reliable lexicon for careful exegesis. But if you are reading a passage in Hebrew for the first time, or trying to read through several passages quickly—and your Hebrew vocabulary is limited—you may find the following books to be time-savers:
John Joseph Owens, Analytical Key to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989; also packaged in Logos Bible Software, for example).
Terry A. Armstrong, A Reader’s Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1989).
A. Philip Brown II and Bryan W Smith, A Reader’s Hebrew Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 2008).
4.3.1. Reference grammars
Properly used, reference grammars are a ready source of exegetically relevant information. The grammars often collect many or all of the instances of a certain type of grammatical phenomenon. When you refer to the grammar for information on such a phenomenon, you are thus provided with a list of parallels and an explanation of how the phenomenon functions in the OT. That can be just the sort of information you need to help you make certain exegetical decisions.
If you need to refresh your knowledge of Hebrew by using a basic grammar, the following are excellent:
Gary D. Pratico and Miles Van Pelt, Basics of Biblical Hebrew (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 2001).
Duane Garrett, A Modern Grammar for Classical Hebrew (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2002).
Choon Leong Seow, A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew, rev. ed. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995).
Thomas O. Lambdin, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971).
Allen P. Ross, Introducing Biblical Hebrew (Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 2001).
Arthur Walker-Jones, Hebrew for Biblical Interpretation (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003).
For Hebrew the classic reference grammar has been
H. F. W Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar, rev. E. Kautzsch, ed. and trans. A. E. Cowley, 2nd English ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910).
Some newer grammars offer a fine array of sophisticated insight into the grammatical structures and nuances of Hebrew. The first one, by Williams, is easier to use than the others and is particularly comprehensive because it is keyed to all of them, although all are useful and erudite:
Ronald J. Williams, Williams’ Hebrew Syntax, 3rd ed., revised and expanded byJohn C. Beckman (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007).
Paul Jouon and T Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, rev. ed., 2 vols. (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 2006).
Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990).
B. T. Arnold and J. H. Choi, A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni
versity Press, 2003).
C. H. J. van der Merwe, J. A. Naude, and J. H. Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002).
Helpful both for its collection of instances of special grammatical features from throughout the Hebrew Bible, and for its solutions for many problematic grammatical issues, is
Alexander Sperber, A Historical Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966).
For Aramaic grammatical features, you will probably find almost everything you need in one of these:
Frederick E. Greenspahn, An Introduction to Aramaic. 2nd ed. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003).
Alger F. Johns, A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1982).
Franz Rosenthal and D. M. Gurtner, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic: With an Index of Biblical Citations, 7th ed., rev. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006).
William B. Stevenson, Grammar of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic (repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2000).
If you wish to refer to data relevant to the Aramaic grammar from the entire Old Aramaic period (earliest texts through the end of the Persian Empire in 333 BC), a technical and very comprehensive source is
Stanislav Segert, Altaramaische Grammatik (Leipzig: Verlag Enzyklopadie, VEB, 1990).
Attention to Targumic Aramaic is found in
David Marcus, A Manual of Babylonian Jewish Aramaic (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1981).
Yitzchak Frank, Grammar for Gemara and Targum Onkelos (New York: Ariel Institute/ Feldheim Publishers, 2003).
Two useful grammars for the Septuagint are available, though the first tends to concentrate on morphology:
Henry St. J. Thackeray, A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek according to the Septuagint (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909).
F. C. Conybeare and St. George Stock, Grammar of Septuagint Greek: With Selected Readings, Vocabularies, and Updated Indexes (repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002).
If you do exegesis of passages of poetry, especially the Psalms or Job, you may find in the secondary literature frequent reference to two languages, Ugaritic and Phoenician, which are quite similar to Hebrew. Even if you have not studied these languages formally, you may be able to understand something of their relevance and helpfulness on specific points by consulting the following grammars:
William M. Schniedewind and Joel H. Hunt, A Primer on Ugaritic: Language, Culture, and Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Stanislav Segert, Basic Grammar of the Ugaritic Language: With Selected Texts and Glossary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
Daniel Sivan, A Grammar of the Ugaritic Language (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1997). Cyrus H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook, rev. repr. (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1998). Zellig S. Harris, A Grammar of the Phoenician Language (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1936).
Stanislav Segert, A Grammar of Phoenician and Punic (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1976).
Charles R. Krahmalkov, A Phoenician-Punic Grammar (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2001).
For Syriac, a language necessary for competence in OT textual criticism, three recent works may be commended:
Wheeler M. Thackston, Introduction to Syriac: An Elementary Grammar with Readings from Syr-iacLiterature (Bethesda, MD: IBEX Publishers, 2000).
Takamitsu Muraoka, Classical Syriac: A Basic Grammar (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997). Michael P. Weitzman, The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
For Akkadian, the language of hundreds of thousands of documents from Babylon and Assyria, many of which directly bear on biblical knowledge, an excellent grammar is
John Huehnergard, A Grammar of Akkadian, rev. ed. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005). A key to its excercises has also been published by Wm. B. Eerdmans. John Huehner-gard, Key to a Grammar of Akkadian, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Harvard Semitic Museum; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005).
Consider also:
Richard Caplice, Introduction to Akkadian, 3rd ed. (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1988).
4.3.2. Other technical sources
It is sometimes helpful to be able to refer to a comparative grammar, one that considers Hebrew forms and features in the context of those of other Semitic languages. The following are all useful in this regard:
Patrick R. Bennett, Comparative Semitic Linguistics: A Manual (Winona Lake, IN: Eisen-brauns, 1998).
E. Lipmski, Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar, 2nd ed. (Leuven: Peeters, 2001).
Gideon Goldenberg, Studies in Semitic Linguistics: Selected Writings (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1998).
De Lacy O’Leary, Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages (London: Routledge, 2001). William Wright, Lectures on the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages (1890; repr., Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2002).
To understand Hebrew in the more immediate context of the Canaan-ite language family, see the following:
Zellig S. Harris, Development of the Canaanite Dialects (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1939; repr., New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1976).
William L. Moran, “The Hebrew Language in Its Northwest Semitic Background,” in The Bible and the Ancient Near East, ed. G. Ernest Wright, 54-72 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961).
Anson F. Rainey, Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets: A Linguistic Analysis of the Mixed Dialect Used by Scribes from Canaan (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1996).
Orthography (spelling analysis) is a technical study within the field of grammar that can occasionally help the exegete unravel aspects of a difficult text. The classic study compares Hebrew with Phoenician, Aramaic, and Moabite during the OT period, based on the evidence of the inscriptions dating to OT times:
Frank Moore Cross Jr. and David Noel Freedman, Early Hebrew Orthography (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1952).
This has been helpfully updated in various aspects by
David Noel Freedman, A. Dean Forbes, and Francis I. Andersen, Studies in Hebrew and Aramaic Orthography (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992).
4.4.1. Lexicons
A lexicon is a dictionary. The fact that the term “lexicon” has been used instead of the term “dictionary” by biblical and classical scholars is simply a quirk of linguistic history, well deserving of a word study of its own.
The lexicons are valuable sources of information about the words they list. Lexicons often devote lengthy articles (mini-word studies or, better, concept studies) to the words that are especially interesting or significant theologically, and also to words that have any unusual or crucial features.
It is a mistake to launch upon a word study or even to comment at length about the usage of a word in Scripture without first consulting the relevant lexicons.
The Hebrew lexicon to use (if possible) is
Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, rev. Walter Baumgartner and Johann J. Stamm, Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, 5 vols. (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1994-2000).
This lexicon is the world’s standard. It is available on CD-ROM and is also packaged as a module with the leading Bible software. It is a massive and expensive work, and therefore it is also wise to consider a fine abridgment, one that preserves virtually all the essential information of its comprehensive parent:
William L. Holladay, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, new ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2000).
Currently nearing completion is a most welcome, massive lexicon project, which includes not only all biblical Hebrew but also Qumran, Hebrew inscriptions, and Ben Sira:
David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, 8 vols. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994-).
Much less reliable, though still widely used (mainly because its copyright protection is gone and therefore it is cheaply available and sometimes bundled with or linked to various Bible software programs), is
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907; repr., 1962, 1966, 1978, 1999, etc.).
The BDB is also available as a module of Bible software programs. It is still somewhat useful because of the sheer volume of its fine articles, but it is relatively outdated because it lacks cognate information from Ugaritic and other recent finds. Moreover, many of its suggested etymologies (histories of word origins and their relation to Semitic word roots) are often unacceptable.
For biblical Aramaic, the standard Hebrew lexicons all have an Aramaic section. For Aramaic outside the Bible, especially in the Targums, a traditional source in English has been
Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the MidrashicLiterature, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (New YOrk: Choreb, 1926; repr., New York: Pardes Publishing House, 1950). The entire work is now available online: Google “Jastrow Dictionary.”
To Jastrow’s work may now be added the newer volumes:
Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary ofJewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990).
Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary ofJewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods (Ramat Gan, Israel: Bar Ilan University Press, 1990); 2nd ed. (with Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002).
If you can read Latin, an excellent Aramaic lexicon is yours to use:
Ernesto Vogt, Lexicon Linguae Aramaicae Veteris Testamenti Documentis Antiquis Illustratum (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1971).
But the default source, even though it may take a few moments for you to learn the transliteration and search system, is the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, which contains entries covering virtually all the Aramaic known from the ancient world and is searchable freely online:
Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon (CAL) (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion), http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/.
For the Septuagint, nothing excels the combination of the following works:
Takamitsu Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Leuven: Peeters, 2002). Johann Lust, Erik Eynikel, and Katrin Hauspie, eds., Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., 2 vols. (New York: American Bible Society, 2004).
Consider also the following:
W Bauer, W F. Arndt, F. W. Gingrich, and F. W Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) or 3rd ed. (2000).
Also often useful, but occasionally plagued by misleading Septuagint definitions, is
Henry O. Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, rev. Henry StuartJones and Roderick McKenzie, 9th ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), revised and augmented throughout (1996).
See as well
E. A. Barber et al., eds., A Greek-English Lexicon: Supplement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968).
For working from the Syriac Peshitta, use
R. Payne Smith, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, ed. J. Payne Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903; repr., 1957; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1999).
The two following massive Latin dictionaries are excellent for the Vulgate and other Latin texts:
Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, also titled A New Latin Dictionary, first published as Harper’s Latin Dictionary (New York: American Book Co., 1879; repr., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979).
P. G. W Glare, ed., The Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).
Handy is
James Morwood, ed., The Oxford Latin Desk Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Since much lexical information about OT Hebrew has come from
Assyrian/Babylonian and Ugaritic sources, from time to time you may
find it necessary to consult the lexicons for these languages.
For Assyrian/Babylonian, use wherever possible the multivolume CAD:
Ignace Gelb, Benno Landsberger, A. Leo Oppenheim, Erika Reiner, et al., eds., The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, 21 vols. (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1956—).
For those who can read German, von Soden’s dictionary is still useful:
Wolfram von Soden, AkkadischesHandworterbuch, 3 vols. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1965-81).
An affordable paperback is
Jeremy Black et al., eds., A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2000).
For Ugaritic words, one comprehensive lexicon is in German:
Joseph Aisleitner, Worterbuch der ugaritischen Sprache, 4th ed. (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1974).
And another is in English:
Gregorio del Olmo Lete and Joaquin Sanmartin, trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson, A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition, rev. ed. (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2003).
A Phoenician-Punic lexicon is also available:
Richard Tomback, A Comparative Semitic Lexicon of the Phoenician and Punic Languages (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1978).
4.4.2. Concordances
A concordance lists the places where a given word occurs throughout the Bible (or some other literary collection). Concordances can help you determine the usage, distribution, and contextualizations of any given word (see 4.4.3) and are thus valuable tools for lexical analysis. It is almost impossible to do word (concept) studies without concordances, and almost impossible to do thorough exegesis without word (concept) studies.
Computer concordances are much faster and much more powerful than book concordances. Any of the various computer concordances can give information quickly, many allow original-language searches, and some are available for free via various Web sites. Two stand out for their true exegetical sophistication (the rich number of ways that Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic grammatical and lexical information can be ascertained, combined, and/or assembled for exegetical use).
The two best are these:
Accordance (Macintosh), from OakTree Software, accordancebible.com.
BibleWorks (Windows), from Hermeneutika, bibleworks.com.
Logos Bible Software is also relatively sophisticated, though not quite as technically adept as the two above (www.logos.com). It has a greater library of secondary literature than either of them, however.
Book concordances remain useful. Their strength can be the fact that they are the result of judicious choices made by scholars of what to include and what to exclude, so that even though they are far less comprehensive than and not nearly as versatile as the computer concordances, they provide at a glance some of the key sorts of information most exegetes are looking for. Any of the following may prove useful to you:
John R. Kohlenberger III and James A. Swanson, The Hebrew-English Concordance to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998).
Abraham S. Evans, ed., A New Concordance of the Old Testament Using the Hebrew and Aramaic Text (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989).
Robert L. Thomas, ed., New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible with Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1990). Eliezer Katz, Topical Concordance of the Old Testament Using the Hebrew and Aramaic Text (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992).
An older standard and still useful book concordance for the Hebrew OT is Mandelkern’s. Written in Latin and Hebrew only, it lists words in a somewhat complicated order (partly by context within a given book rather than by successive references), but these drawbacks are minor:
Solomon Mandelkern, Veteris Testamenti concordantiae Hebraicae atque Chaldaicae, 8th ed. (repr., Brooklyn, NY: P. Shalom Publications, 1988).
Mandelkern’s concordance is becoming difficult to find, however. Largely replacing it is
Abraham Even-Shoshan, ed., A New Concordance of the Old Testament, 2nd ed., introduction byJohn H. Sailhamer (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer Publishing House; Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989).
Somewhat easier to use, though less complete, is another concordance:
Gerhard Lisowsky, Konkordanz zum hebraischen Alten Testament (Stuttgart: Wurttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1958).
For King James-Hebrew connections the standard concordance is:
George V Wigram, The Englishman ,s Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance of the Old Testament, 3rd ed. (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons, 1874; repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996).
For the Aramaic Targums there are also concordances:
J. C. de Moor et al., eds., A Bilingual Concordance to the Targum of the Prophets, 17 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995-2005).
Chaim J. Kasovsky, Otsar Leshon Targum Onkelos (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1986).
For the Septuagint, a complete book concordance exists. In analyzing the text of a passage, you must analyze the Septuagint wording. The only way to know whether the Septuagint wordings are unique, unusual, or common is to consult the concordance, which gives the Hebrew word equivalents for the Greek word chosen by the Septuagint translators:
Edwin Hatch and Henry A. Redpath, A Concordance to the Septuagint and the Other Greek Versions of the Old Testament, 3rd ed., 2 vols., including R. A. Kraft and E. Tov, “Introductory Essay,” and Takamitsu Muraoka, “Hebrew/Aramaic Index to the Sep-tuagint: Keyed to the Hatch-Redpath Concordance” (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1998).
A brief but very useful (and inexpensive) one-volume Septuagint concordance is also available:
George Morrish, A Concordance ofthe Septuagint (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons, 1887; repr., Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976).
The granddaddy of sources for Greek words, phrases, and larger units of speech is the
Thesaurus linguae graecae (TLG E), www.tlg.uci.edu.
The online version of this amazingly comprehensive database contains almost a hundred million words, practically everything known from the ancient world to have been written in Greek. Parts of it require a subscription to search, but other parts are free, including an abridged version of the basic lexical database.
See also
A Handy Concordance of the Septuagint: Giving Various Readings from Codices Vaticanus, Alexan-drinus, Sinaiticus, and Ephraemi (London: Samuel Bagster, 1887; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2008).
Bernard Alwyn Taylor, The Analytical Lexicon to the Septuagint: A Complete Parsing Guide (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994).
For the Dead Sea Scrolls, a fine new concordance exists:
Martin G. Abegg Jr., James Bowley, and Edward Cook, eds., Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, 3 vols. Vol. 1: The Non-Biblical Texts from Qumran (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2006).
Searching online is possible at a number of sites, including septuagint .org, which is one of many that has a searchable text of the Rahlfs edition. Google the following for information on Tov’s Hebrew/Greek matchup electronic concordance, which has a good number of text-critical annotations: “The Parallel Aligned Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Texts ofJewish
Scripture.” For the books of the Apocrypha, there is a book concordance keyed to English words but listing the Greek equivalents:
Lester T. Whitelocke, ed., An Analytical Concordance of the Books of the Apocrypha, 2 vols. (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1978).
A strictly English-language equivalent is
A Concordance to the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical Books of the Revised Standard Version (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans; London: Collins Liturgical Publications, 1983).
4.4.3. Word studies (concept studies)
A word (concept) study is a thorough analysis of the range of meaning(s) of a word or wording designed to arrive at its specific meaning in a given passage: what concept the word or wording connotes and, as appropriate, what other words or wordings may connote the same essential concept. There are various ways to approach this sort of study, but the following outline may serve as a basic guide. A word study seeks to establish how the word or wording under investigation is used (1) in general, (2) in various contexts, and (3) in the passage itself. The steps to establish this are generally the following:
1. Using a concordance—electronic or printed—find where all the OT occurrences of the word or wording are. If the word or wording is common, think in terms of groups of occurrences; if it is rare, you may be able to examine every usage in detail. Because of the magnitude of the enterprise, you may find it advisable to set more narrow limits (e.g., “the meaning of זנה [prostitution/prostitute] in Hosea”).
2. Using other aids such as lexicons and concordances, take cognizance of the non-OT usages of the word or wording (in inscriptions, rabbinic literature, etc.).
3. Using lexicons and concordances, take note of any cognates in other languages you know well enough to work with. Try also to identify any synonyms of the word or wording, because a given concept can be connoted by different wordings, and it is ultimately the concept behind the word or wordings in your passage that you want to be sure you understand.
4. Examine the biblical usage, trying to establish the various ranges of meaning that the word or wording and its cognates seem to have. Bear in mind here as well that a concept can be connoted by various words or wordings, and there may be a number of synonyms or closely related terms that will come to your attention and ultimately inform your judgment as you seek to connect your word or wording with its actual meaning (concept) in your passage. Part of the reason for this is that what we call “definition” is established not merely by trying to say what a word means, but also by being sure to try to say what it does not mean. (Example: Is the word “man” to be understood in a given context as man as opposed to woman, or man as opposed to child, or man as opposed to animal, or man as opposed to supernatural being, or man as opposed to coward, etc.?)
5. Examine the distribution of the word or wording. Much can be learned about the meaning this way. Is the word or wording used only or mostly by the prophets, for example? That might tell you a great deal about its meaning. Is it used only or mostly in legal formulas? In certain kinds of wisdom expressions? And so on. Look for patterns wherever possible.
6. Establish the key usages—those that are unambiguous enough to really pin down the meaning (concept) in a definite way.
7. Center on the function of the word or wording in the passage itself. Bring all you have learned in the study so far to bear on the passage, relating the specific use and meaning in the passage to the ranges of use and meaning known from elsewhere.
8.Offer a paraphrase, synonyms, a summary statement, or all of these to your reader or congregation as a means of defining the word or wording. That is, give your own “dictionary” definition of the word, not just in its general use or uses, but according to its use in the passage itself. Again, remember that the concept is the ultimate goal, and the word or wording functions not in itself alone but always in the role of pointing to a concept.
On the theory behind word studies, see
Moises Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An Introduction to Lexical Semantics, rev. ed.
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994).
James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (London: Oxford University Press, 1961; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004).
Arthur Gibson, Biblical Semantic Logic: A Preliminary Analysis (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002).
4.4.4. Theological dictionaries
The theological dictionaries provide the reader with the results of careful word/concept studies. Obviously they must concern themselves with the broad, general usage of words and wordings throughout the OT and cannot usually focus on individual passages. But they are nevertheless invaluable as time-saving, informative exegetical resources written by seasoned scholars. It is important not to accept blindly the conclusions of any theological dictionary article, however. A given writer’s view can be slanted. Sometimes an older work is better on a given word or wording than a newer work; sometimes it is the other way around. Because theological dictionaries are anthologies of articles written by many individuals of varying skill, perspective, and energy, the quality of some articles will be superb and that of other articles may be mediocre. It is always best to follow with a critical eye the arguments and the evidence contained in the article devoted to the word or wording you are investigating.
The TDOT is usually thorough, erudite, and invaluable as a reference tool:
G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry, eds., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, trans. J. T. Willis, G. W Bromiley, and D. E. Green, 15 vols. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1974-2006).
Extensive coverage of words and themes is also found in NIDOTTE:
Willem A. VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, 5 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), also on CD-ROM (2001) and as a module within some of the Bible software programs.
Also see TLOT:
Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann, eds., Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, trans. M. E. Biddle, 3 vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997).
The TWOT is a very useful two-volume theological dictionary containing careful analysis of Hebrew words. Its articles are briefer than the corresponding articles in TDOT or TLOT or NIDOTTE but by the same token are often more readable:
R. Laird Harris, Gleason Archer, and Bruce K. Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, 2 vols. (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2003).
There is still also much to be learned from
Johannes B. Bauer, ed., Encyclopedia of Biblical Theology, 3 vols. (London: Sheed & Ward, 1970; repr., New York: Crossroad, 1981).
The older TDNT provides useful background information on OT terms with equivalents in the NT:
Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans. G. W Bromiley, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1964-76; repr., 1993).
Note: You can also use with great profit the major Bible dictionaries, which contain detailed articles on hundreds of key words and concepts, often written by scholars who have studied these concepts extensively. In other words, the best article on “faith” might not be found in a theological dictionary, but might easily be found in, say, the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia or the Anchor Bible Dictionary.
4.4.5. Inscriptions
Reading and analyzing inscriptions is a specialty that requires linguistic and philological training beyond the interests of most students and pastors. Nevertheless, a detailed word (concept) study may well take you to the inscriptional evidence. There are many fine analytical collections of inscriptions that may contain vocabulary related to that of an OT passage—in various languages, with varying contents. While many of the important inscriptions are translated in Pritchard’s ANET and works similar to it (see 4.8.1), their vocabulary is not analyzed there. In their titles the following works contain descriptions of their respective contents:
George Albert Cooke, A Text-Book of North-Semitic Inscriptions: Moabite, Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic, Nabataean, Palmyrene, Jewish (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903; repr., White-fish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2007).
Jacob Hoftijzer et al., Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1994).
Graham I. Davies et al., Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991-2004; repr., 2007).
John C. L. Gibson, Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions, vol. 1, Hebrew and Moabite Inscriptions; vol. 2, Aramaic Inscriptions; vol. 3, Phoenician Inscriptions Including Inscriptions in the Mixed Dialect of Arslan Tash (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971, 1975, 1982). Walter Aufrecht and John C. Hurd, A Synoptic Concordance of Aramaic Inscriptions (Wooster, OH: Biblical Research Associates; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975).
James M. Lindenberger, Ancient Aramaic and Hebrew Letters, 2nd ed. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003).
F. W Dobbs-Allsopp, J. J. M. Roberts, C. L. Seow, and R. E. Whitaker, Hebrew Inscriptions: Texts from the Biblical Period of the Monarchy with Concordance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).
Another useful source is in German:
H. Donner and W Rollig, Kanaanaische und aramaische Inschriften, 5th ed. (Wiesbaden: Har-rassowitz, 2002-).
Several Bible software programs also include inscription texts. Check the respective Web sites for listings of modules (see 4.12.7).