Glossary

APOCRYPHA - Most commonly refers to books or parts of books that are accepted by Roman Catholics as properly belonging to the Old Testament, but that most Protestants do not accept as inspired. There is also a group of books called the New Testament Apocrypha, but neither Catholics nor Protestants believe they should be included in the New Testament canon. See DEUTEROCANONICAL.  

ARCHAEOLOGY - The scientific study and presentation of material remains of biblical life and activities. 

ATLAS - The collection of maps, illustrations, tables, charts, historical data, climatology, and other information pertaining to biblical geography and cities.  

ANALYTICAL LEXICON - A dictionary that identifies the form of each original language word of either the Old Testament (Hebrew/Aramaic) or the New Testament (Greek) and shows the lexical form (the form one finds in a lexicon or dictionary) under which a word can be found in a standard Hebrew or Greek lexicon. See READER'S LEXICON.  

BHS - Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensis, the standard published form of the Hebrew Old Testament text.  

CANON - The list of books that belong in the bible because Christians regard them to be divinely inspired.  

COMMENTARY - Single or multivolume work that systematically explains the meaning of biblical passages, arranged in biblical order (book, chapter, verse). Application commentaries not only explain the original meaning of biblical passages, they also discuss the contemporary significance of those passages and how it is derived from the text. Devotional commentaries focus on the spiritual significance of the text for our lives. Expository commentaries focus on explaining the biblical text. Exegetical or critical commentaries focus primarily on technical issues related to the Hebrew/Aramaic or Greek texts and their interpretation and are written primarily for specialists.  

COMPANION - See HANDBOOK  

CONCORDANCE - An alphabetical index of biblical words with a short context, listed in book, chapter, verse order. Concordances may be abridged or exhaustive. They may be all English, or Hebrew-English and Greek-English, indexing biblical words in their original languages with textual references in an English Bible translation. Still other concordances may be all Hebrew or all Greek.  

CORE REFERENCE LIBRARY - The essential reference books and software you need to effectively study the Bible (and from which you can further build your library). They can be grouped into three categories: books that give you an overview of the Bible (Bible handbook), help you find verses and passages in the Bible (concordance and topical Bible), and help you understand things in the Bible (Bible dictionary and Bible commentary).  

DEUTEROCANONICAL - The Old Testament books of the Bible included in the canon by Roman Catholics but not by most Protestants. The name implies that these books have a secondary value even if not fully canonical. See APOCRYPHA.  

DICTIONARY - An alphabetical listing of theological terms and biblical topics, words, names, and places, together with their pronunciations and definitions. See ENCYCLOPEDIA.  
DOCTRINE - The major teachings of the Bible. See THEOLOGY.  

ENCYCLOPEDIA - An expanded dictionary; typically a multi-volume work providing detailed contextual information of biblical topics, words, names, places, events, theology, and teachings, arranged alphabetically.    

EXEGESIS - An explanation or interpretation of a biblical text, based on a study of the Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek texts.  

EXHAUSTIVE CONCORDANCE - The most complete version of a concordance. An index of all occurrences of all the words in the English Bible, showing the original Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek words behind the English words.
 
EXPOSITION / EXPOSITORY - A setting forth of the meaning or purpose of a biblical passage, including a straightforward explanation of what is difficult to understand.  

EXPOSITORY DICTIONARY - A dictionary that contains word studies of the most important words and concepts in the Bible, based on Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek.  

GOLD MEDALLION AWARDS - The highest award granted by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association to honor excellence in content, literary quality, design, and significance of contribution. Winners receive Gold Medallion status; finalists receive Silver Medallion status. Zondervan has won more of each than any other single publisher.  

GOODRICK/KOHLENBERGER (G/K) NUMBERS - A system that assigns a specific number to each of the Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek words that are found in the Bible, reflecting modern linguistic analysis. This allows the user to conduct word studies by tracing the translation of Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek words in the Bible.  

GREEK-ENGLISH CONCORDANCE - An index of all the words in the Greek New Testament, with the context line of each occurrence given in English. Requires some knowledge of Greek.  

GREEK NEW TESTAMENT UBS4 - The fourth edition of United Bible Society's standard New Testament text in the original Greek language.  

HANDBOOK - A conveniently portable, ready reference comprised of concise information, including Bible book introductions, outlines, commentary, archaeological discoveries, historical data, church history, maps, and more, arranged in biblical order.  

HEBREW-ENGLISH CONCORDANCE - An index of all the words in the Hebrew Old Testament, with the context line of each occurrence given in English. Requires some knowledge of Hebrew.  

HERMENEUTICS - The study of the principles of Bible interpretation.  

INTERLINEAR - The Hebrew/Aramaic or Greek text of Scripture with a literal word-for-word English translation printed between the lines with one or more standard English translation(s) in parallel columns. Requires little or no knowledge of Hebrew or Greek.  

LEXICON - A dictionary containing an alphabetical arrangement of Greek or Hebrew Bible words and their definitions.   

NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV)  - The most highly acclaimed, number-one bestselling Bible translation, supported by hundreds of Bible reference works. Known for its accuracy, beauty, clarity, and dignity, it took more than 100 international evangelical scholars, representing more than 20 denominations, 13 years to translate. Its copyright is held by International Bible Society.  

READER'S LEXICON - Arranged biblically by book, chapter, and verse (not alphabetically), this defines the less frequently used Hebrew or Greek words by going through the Old or New Testament book by book and verse by verse. Requires some knowledge of Hebrew or Greek.  

REFERENCE SOFTWARE CD–ROM - Programs that contain integrated reference tools for thorough Bible study using your computer.  

STEP - Standard Template for Electronic Publishing, a standardized software platform that allows consumers to simultaneously run programs from different publishers.  

STUDY BIBLE - A Bible that contains the complete Scripture text, as well as a variety of the following elements: cross-references and abbreviated topical articles, index, concordance, dictionary, illustrations, charts, maps, outlines, introductions, and commentary. Build your Core Reference Library around this.  

THEOLOGY - The fundamental, orderly, systematic presentation of the church's understanding of what the Bible teaches. See DOCTRINE.  

TOPICAL BIBLE - A Bible index showing passages that address a given topic, even if the topical word doesn't appear in the biblical text.  

TRANSLATION - The rendering of original Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek Scripture texts into English. Dynamic equivalence translations, e.g., Living Bible, New Living Translation, seek to render the original meaning of the text into English. Literal correspondence translations, e.g., King James Version, New American Standard Bible, seek to render the original languages into English in a more word-for-word style. The New International Version strikes a balance between the two as a thought-for-thought translation. Select a Bible translation for its accuracy, readability, and understandability, then build your Core Reference Library around it.  

WHO'S WHO IN THE BIBLE - A dictionary describing the people and their contexts in the Bible, with articles on major characters.  

WORD STUDIES - Dictionaries that discuss the meaning and significance of key biblical words, giving definitions and linguistic, biblical, historical, and theological information about words. These words are arranged alphabetically, either by Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek words or by their English translations. When arranged by English translation, word study books trace original-language words from Old Testament through New Testament usage, contrasting and comparing them. No knowledge of Greek or Hebrew is necessary.  


This concludes YOUR GUIDE TO BIBLE REFERENCE BOOKS & SOFTWARE.