I received it as a gift when I started preaching and find myself bypassing seminary books and using this one for historical facts for sermon preparation. It is written in plain English with maps and photographs that help you get into the time and place of the topic.
Huge, heavy, illustrated, and comprehensive
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 18 years ago
This is one BIG book. More than 1000 large pages, most of them with a photo or two. And it is comprehensive, with some 3500 entries, covering pretty much everything you would ever want to know about the Bible, from locations to individuals to customs to coins and archaeological excavations, etc. Easily enough info to keep a person busy for days if not weeks. As an added bonus, it is remarkably inexpensive for such a large, illustrated tome. My only complaint is the quality of maps (there are few, but they are not the best quality, and the satellite photos at the end are just plain annoying), the fact that the individual entries do not have the contributer's name attached (there are more than 70 of them - Jewish & Catholic professors, for the most part), and finally, the complete lack of footnotes, bibliography, or index. In spite of these reservations, I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Bible. I have the 1986 version, but the new 2006 edition is, as far as I can tell, almost exactly identical, with the addition of some colorful - OK, loud - satellite photos of Israel.
Illustrated Dictionary and Concordance
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 19 years ago
Wow. If you're looking to understand names and places and theme of the Bible, this book covers it all. I couldn't really find anything that's in the Bible that's not in this book. It can help a serious scholar or the casual interest (like me). If there is more than one entry for a topic, this book covers them all. It is richly illustrated and well written. The only problemn is it weighs so much it's difficult to carry. You'll need to put it on a table because if you bring it to bed to read, you'll knock the wind out of yourself. Obviously it's meant as a coffee table book, but church libraries in particular should consider adding this volume to their collections. It's not cheap, but it's worth every penny.
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