This compact work is written as a guide for the ordinary reader of the Bible, and is intended for use with the Standard, Authorized or Revised versions. It contains over 1,400 entries, which range from two‐or three‐line definitions to more substantial articles of a page or more in length. Although individual offerings are not attributed, a list of contributors is provided, all of whom have excellent credentials, being mainly British academics. Generally a critical approach is aimed at, being informed by scholarship, but written in a fairly simplified style appropriate to the lay user.
There is no indication of how the terms have been selected for inclusion, or if the book aims to be comprehensive of Biblical terminology, although the size of it would seem to suggest not. A great number of the entries are for proper names, either of people or places in the Bible, and meanings of these names in the original languages are normally provided, often with transliteration of the originals. Birds, animals and everyday objects are also included, as are feasts, festivals and other aspects of religious practice and belief. Otherwise the entries are for theological concepts such as “atonement”, “death” and “resurrection”. The definitions are very well furnished with Biblical references, but of necessity tend to provide a relatively superficial treatment, particularly of the more complex and abstract religious concepts. There is no attempt to establish a broader context for the reader, so that, for example, there is no discussion of the documentary sources of either the Old or New Testament. Therefore the dictionary is perhaps most useful as a quick reference tool, rather than for serious study of the Bible, for which a good one‐volume commentary would serve better. I imagine most potential readers would use this to accompany their reading of the Bible itself, and it seems therefore more likely to appeal to the devotional reader, to the churchperson rather than the student.
Some of the entries are tiresome, viz. raven, defined as “a black bird rather like a crow”, or the rather unscientific definition of a rainbow, as an “arc of colours appearing in the sky opposite the sun after a storm”. One assumes that most readers will be familiar with the meaning of everyday words such as knife or cucumber, and their laboured (and sometimes inaccurate) definitions impart a rather patronizing tone to the book.
The book is well laid out and relatively easy to use. Not much use is made of cross‐referencing, and what does exist is not always consistently done.
But the major criticism must be of the dated appearance and style of the work. It reminds me of the textbooks of my own undergraduate days, although it is not, that I recall, one I used at the time. It does have a distinctly old fashioned flavour, and of course, 40 years of scholarship have altered attitudes to a number of topics covered, making it also feel very conservative in approach. Even the choice of Bible versions confirms this, since the New English Bible (recently published at the time of the book's first appearance and now itself revised) is only rarely referred to. Most lay readers of the Bible in the 21st century will surely use more modern translations in preference to the Authorized or Revised Versions. It does not compare at all well with more recent (and inexpensive) handbooks of the Bible, such as Bowker (2004) or the more evangelically positioned (Alexander and Alexander, 2002) with their lavish illustration and well crafted text.
In summary, this is a basically sound, if rather traditional reference work for the novice or non‐academic user, but it tends to fall between two stools. It is not sufficiently scholarly to stand on its merits, but on a popular level it cannot compete with more stylish modern equivalents, which seem preferable in every way.
