Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible

David.N.Freedman (Ed.)
Eerdmans, 2000, 1425pp (plus maps)

Eerdmans’ major publishing venture last year was their ‘Dictionary of the Bible’. Nearly 600 scholars have made contributions to nearly 5,000 alphabetically arranged articles.

The term ‘Bible Dictionary’ shouldn’t be taken too literally, for this present work offers not only descriptions of names, places, events and terms found in the Bible, but it also offers some good archaeological material thus providing helpful background information to the Bible’s times and cultures. Furthermore there are a number of theological concepts discussed, as well as some ethical issues, such as: why ‘anti-Semitism’ cannot be justified Biblically. There are articles on the writing and textual transmission of Scripture as well as the usual introductions to Bible books.

This dictionary is a valuable resource and reference work for reading and studying the Bible. This reviewer makes two critical observations about an otherwise excellent work.

First, for an increasingly visually oriented culture I was surprised that there were not more illustrations and diagrams included – although I admit that this would have made the present work even larger. A comparison with the ‘Lion Handbook of the Bible’ certainly makes this work more of a dictionary than an encyclopaedia. Even the older work, ‘The New Bible Dictionary’ (IVF), included more graphics.

Secondly, with such a large number of contributors one also gets a correspondingly greater variety of views – and one therefore needs to read (as we always should) with discernment. Some contributors hold to views of Biblical authorship that many of us would not endorse – so I noted, for example the mention of ‘second Isaiah’ and the ‘deutero-Pauline epistles’ by some contributors.

I refer to one particular instance of varying views within the body of contributors. Being curious how the doctrine of the ‘atonement’ was treated I noted that the author of the article by that title tended to play down the wrath of God: “the Bible does not subscribe to the pagan view of appeasing the wrath of a capricious deity.” While I can appreciate that comment, nevertheless the overall thrust was that Christ’s sacrifice was an ‘expiation’ – a removal of the barrier of our sins. The article on ‘expiation’ further reinforced that idea. While hoping that the balancing article on ‘propitiation’ might bring out the Biblical idea that God’s anger does need to be appeased, I was disappointed to note there only a cross-reference to ‘expiation’. It was only when reading a further article by a different contributor on ‘wrath’ that I finally felt satisfied that the complete Biblical picture had been painted.

I did appreciate many other contributions that I read at random. It is of course beyond the scope of this reviewer’s resources to read a reference work such as this from cover to cover. Others may therefore find other matters with which to take issue. Incidentally, noticed that a city bookshop was selling this work for about $70 but that still makes it good value for money.

 

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