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You are here: Home / 101Study Help / Bible Study Tools #4: Lexicons & Dictionaries

Bible Study Tools #4: Lexicons & Dictionaries

July 7, 2012 by Krisan Marotta

How to Use a Bible Dictionary or lexicon - Bible Study Tools | WednesdayintheWord.com

A good interpretation rests on a solid understanding of the words used in the passage.  Along with a concordance, a lexicon and/or a dictionary is your best bet for understanding the original language.  Frequently they reveal ideas that were ‘lost in translation.’  Many dictionaries are now available in electronic form either included with or as an add-on to your bible study software.

Lexicons

A Lexicon  is a systematized concordance, that includes the linguistic factors and discussion of the different forms or conjugations of a word.

Biblehub.com Lexicon

Studylight.org Lexicons

BibleStudytools.com Lexicons

Dictionaries

A Dictionary is an alphabetical listing of the Hebrew or Greek words, giving their basic meanings, usually in less detail than a lexicon.

Biblehub.com: Dictionary (multi-sourced)

Studylight.org Dictionaries

BibleStudytools.com Dictionaries

Bill Mounce Greek Dictionary

Caution

Exploring a new dictionary frequently tempts us to stuff every nuance we learn about a word into the verse at hand.  Words have more than one meaning and context determines which meaning the author intended.   Our task as bible students is to decipher which of the possible meanings for a  word the author had in mind in this particular verse.

For example, when Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13), He did not intend for us to conclude that everything we know to be true about salt must also be true about us.   Our goal in bible is study is to learn which of the 100 facts we know to be true about salt Jesus had in mind.  Context is the only way to answer that.

Beware falling into the trap of “I learned a new fact about a word and I must use it.”

Example Books:

Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament  ed. Harris, Archer & Waltke.  [Correlated to Strong’s numbering system and uses transliteration of the Hebrew letters.]

Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, ed. Brown, Driver, Briggs. [Correlated to Strongs. Words are arranged under their Hebrew roots which may be difficult for English-only readers.]

A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Bauer, Gingrich & Danker.

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. C Brown. (3 Vols)

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1 volume), ed. Kittel & Bromley.  [Known as “Little Kittel” this is a an abridged version of the 10 volume set of the same name edited by Kittel & Friedrich.]

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Thayer’s Greek Lexicon – full definition

Most online sources provide the abbreviated Thayer’s definition. This resource gives the full Thayer definition. To use this site, find the Strong’s number, select the appropriate range, and then the number for Thayer’s full definition.

0001 – 0999

1000 – 1999

2000 – 2999

3000 – 3999

4000 – 4999

5000 – 5624

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Next: Bible Study Tools 5: Multi-volume Encyclopedias

Previous: Bible Study Tools 3: Concordances

Part of the Series: Bible Study 101

Photo by Pisit Heng on Unsplash

(This article has been read 863 times plus 10 today.)

Related posts:

  1. Bible Study Tools #3: Concordances
  2. Bible Study Tools #5: Multi-volume Encyclopedias
  3. Bible Study Tools #6: Commentaries
  4. Bible Study Tools #1: Different translations
  5. Bible Maps, Charts & Tools

Filed Under: 101Study Help, 101Tools Tagged With: dictionary, lexicon, study tools

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