Tyndale Bible Dictionary (The Tyndale Reference Library)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent desk reference
Review: The Tyndale Bible Dictionary is an excellent quick reference to most things Biblical. Unlike most of the popular pictorial dictionaries, Tyndale's Dictionary focus more on the content and less on the visual appeal. Don't get me wrong, it's a high quality printing, easy to read font, etc. You will find most of the articles are more detailed than many of the other Bible Dictionaries out there. No knowledge of Greek or Hebrew are necessary, though you will find some references to the original languages.

I can recommend this book to just about anyone who would like a good, consise Bible reference work.

Rating:
Summary: Too Preachy
Review: This is an excellent bible dictionary the value of which is reduced by its preachiness. A dictionary is an academic reference, not a tool for evangelizing or prosyletizing.

This dictionary has excellent articles on difficult subjects such as apocryphal texts. It does lack good attribution of scholarship. A list of writers, none of whom are acknowledged scholars, is not sufficient. With the variations of subject matter in a dictionary, each article needs attribution.

The editors shoot themselves in the feet by admonishments of a sectarian nature.

Also not acceptible in an academic instrument is the use of BC/AD. This is disrespectful to those who use the dictionary who are not Christian. The accepted practice in academic circles is BCE/CE. This is not a small point.

None of the above problems exist in the Eerdmans Bible Dictionary. Eerdmans is respectful of what a dictionary is.

However, Eerdmans lacks the depth in the harder articles (eg Gnosticism) to be found in Tyndale.