Helps for Basic Study
A believer in today's Western world can easily obtain a multitude of aids to understanding the Scriptures. He need not struggle without help through a difficult text, or endure unsatisfied curiosity about the historical and cultural setting of a passage.
For every Bible student—for a beginner as well as for someone with long experience—two aids are indispensable:
1. A modern translation. The King James Version is written in a style that is becoming more and more remote from today's spoken English. Where the language is especially antiquated, as it is in certain passages and books, a contemporary reader may sink into complete mystification as to the meaning. The hardest book in the New Testament is 2 Corinthians. Many Old Testament books, including Job and several minor prophets, frustrate attempts at full comprehension. The greater clarity of a good modern translation is evident if we read it side by side with the King James. It is especially enlightening to compare renderings of obscure passages, such as the following (a small sample of those that might have been chosen): Habakkuk 1:9; Micah 2:8; Hosea 10:10; Job 28:3; 38:31; 39:13; 2 Corinthians 9:13. 38:31; 39:13; 2 Corinthians 9:13.
But is any modern translation really more reliable than the KJV? Of the numerous modern translations available, which is the best? These questions have fueled a debate currently raging in fundamentalism. Combatants take basically four positions:
- The King James Bible is still the best version, and we have essentially no need of any other.
- The only legitimate translations of the New Testament employ the Received Text (the basis of the KJV) or the Majority Text (differing from the Received Text only where the majority of manuscripts disagree with it).
- Translations employing the so-called eclectic text of the New Testament are preferable, so long as they maintain close equivalence to the original. The eclectic text gives greatest weight to the earliest complete manuscripts, although these are not as old as many fragmentary manuscripts and many Scripture quotations in other writings that are more in line with the Received Text. Many of the readings found only in the eclectic text appear to be corruptions.
- Loose translations in an understandable contemporary idiom are legitimate also.
One tool useful for determining what a text is truly saying is a parallel Bible, which presents different translations in parallel columns. You can then easily compare the different renderings and treat them as commentaries on each other. Look for one with a good choice of translations.
Always when comparing translations you should bear in mind, however, that none is free of problems. None is identical to the original text. As we have pointed out already, many modern translations do not even use the true original text as their starting point. What they use instead for the New Testament is a late corruption. They are therefore less reliable in the New Testament than in the Old. The most problematic modern translations are those that forsake word-for-word equivalence. In the quest for mass appeal, they replace the real passage with a loose paraphrase. Especially to be avoided are translations that turn the Bible into vulgar slang, or that compromise basic doctrine. For example, “virgin” is missing from many modern translations of Isaiah 7:14, the great prophecy of Christ’s virgin birth. The RSV, NEB, and many others replace “virgin” with “young woman,” an insupportable translation dictated by unbelief. In their desire to hide from Jesus’ fulfillment of prophecy, liberals prefer translations that change what the Old Testament says.
Anyone interested in investigating further the relative merits of different translations can consult the extended treatment of this issue elsewhere on this website.
2. A concordance. A concordance tells every place in the Bible where you can find a particular word. For example, if you look up the word "heal" in a concordance, it lists all 40 occurrences, giving the reference for each as well as a few words of context. The three best-known concordances are Strong's, Young's, and Cruden's. It has often been said that Strong's is for the strong, Young's for the young, and Cruden's for the crude. Indeed, Cruden's is not as exhaustive as the others. The great advantage of Strong's is that beside each listing of an English word, it gives a number showing where to find the original word in Greek and Hebrew dictionaries at the end of the concordance.
A concordance is useful for several purposes. Most people use it mainly to find the reference of a verse that they remember at least in part. Generally, one word is enough to find the reference. Another use is to find all the texts employing the same word, the goal being to determine the word's meaning in Scripture. A concordance is also a good tool for locating verses relevant to a given topic or question.
Helps for Advanced Study
Whatever your budget, you should obtain a readable translation and a concordance. But if your budget allows, you should add other study aids to your library.
1. Study Bibles. A serious Bible student has many varieties to choose from.
- Topical Bibles. These offer lists of passages speaking on the same subject. Two classics are Thompson's Chain Reference Bible, my favorite as well as my father's, and Nave's Topical Bible. Thompson's has an appendix with thousands of topics arranged alphabetically, each followed by a list of texts. The major texts are quoted in full, so that the user can easily judge whether a particular one meets the need. When collating texts on the same topic, Nave's omits quotations, but provides more references. A topical Bible is handy for researching what the Bible says about a certain issue, or for preparing a topical lesson. Every preacher or Bible teacher needs one.
- Annotated Bibles. The best known work of this kind is the Scofield Reference Bible, which has been a best seller for over a century (originally published in 1909). Its chief rival in recent years has been the Ryrie Study Bible. Both offer an abundance of notes that provide background, expound doctrine, or explain difficulties. Although both are conservative in orientation, neither is right about everything. Both contain serious faults. If you use an annotated Bible, do not give the notes the same authority as Scripture itself.
- Bibles that facilitate linguistic study. The Bible I carry to church is a Zodhiates' Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible. Each key word in the English text has a number above it showing where it is discussed in the appendix, which contains ample dictionaries for both Greek and Hebrew. This Bible is useful during a sermon for making sure that the preacher is defining words correctly. Various other study Bibles specializing in linguistic helps are also available.
2. Interlinear translations. These provide the text in the original language, with the English equivalent of each word placed above or below it—that is, between the lines; hence, the name "interlinear." Thanks to such translations, a layman without formal training in Greek and Hebrew can still gain a good idea of how any text reads in the original language. The best for the Old Testament is probably J. P. Green’s. For the New Testament I would recommend George Ricker Berry’s.
If a Bible student wishes to delve further into the text as God gave it, he can expand his understanding of the words by consulting a Greek or Hebrew lexicon. Brief lexicons come at the end of Strong's Concordance. The most widely used exhaustive lexicon of Hebrew and Aramaic words (Aramaic is the language of a few passages in the Old Testament) is known, after its authors, as Brown-Driver-Briggs. The leading Greek lexicon is the one compiled by Arndt and Gingrich.
3. Dictionaries and encyclopedias. These are the best place to find lengthy discussions of all names and terms that a student of the Bible needs to understand. The best reasonably up-to-date dictionary is Unger’s. To illustrate its coverage, we will show the topics treated in a sample of pages chosen at random: Sabbath, Covert for the Sabbath, Morrow after the Sabbath, Second Sabbath after the First, Sabbath Day’s Journey, Sabbatical Year, Sabeans, Sabta, Sabtecha, Sackbut, Sackcloth, Sacrament, Sacrifice, Human Sacrifice, Mosaic Sacrifices, Sacrificial Offerings, etc. The aim of the dictionary is to summarize all we know about everything in the Bible that might be unfamiliar to a modern reader—about every person, group, place, custom, religious practice, theological concept, item of material culture, species of flora or fauna, etc.
An even more exhaustive treatment of such topics is found in a Bible encyclopedia. The classic is The International Standard Bible Enclyclopaedia (better known as ISBE), originally published in 1929 and revised in 1939. All of its authors are authorities in their field, but some are not fully conservative in orientation, and some of their discussions are not abreast of latest discoveries. Toward the end of my father’s life, his habit in the evening was to take out a volume of ISBE and sit with it on his lap. I do not say “read it” because he was never sitting long before he fell asleep. Then when some internal alarm told him that it was bedtime, he suddenly woke up and said, “That was sure interesting.” I tell this story because it captures exactly what ISBE is like.
4. Commentaries. Commentaries come in two types, devotional and technical. Technical commentaries, assembling the results of latest scholarship on the meaning and background of the text, tend to be quickly dated, and many fall into some species of unbelief. Much better for the layman are devotional commentaries, if he can find some of the older writers who were outstanding both for wisdom and holiness of life. The best-known devotional commentary is Matthew Henry's, completed in about 1721 but still popular today. It sets the standard for godly reflection on God's Word, giving insights that are deep but not dense, wise but not proud, fervent in spirit but not reckless in conclusions. Another important author is Charles Spurgeon. Apart from The Treasury of David (a commentary on the Psalms) and The Gospel of the Kingdom (a commentary on Matthew), he did not write books in the form of ordinary commentaries. Nevertheless, his sermons may be viewed as the best devotional commentaries from the nineteenth century.
The twentieth century did not produce a large number of commentaries outstanding for spiritual depth. The best perhaps are those of Arthur W. Pink.
Some people imagine that the use of commentaries is somehow disrespectful to the supreme authority of Scripture alone. Yet a good commentary has the same value as a good sermon. In fact, most (but not all) good commentaries were written by preachers and began as sermons. The commentaries that many generations of Christians have revered as superior represent the best insights of the best preachers—insights resting on a lifetime of study and Christian experience. Thus, although a good commentary is not infallible, it is useful as a source of godly instruction on what the Bible means and how it should be applied to our lives.
Besides the commentators I have already mentioned, I can recommend many others. Among the more scholarly I would list Leon Wood, Charles L. Feinberg, and Joseph Alexander for the Old Testament; Frederic Godet, F. F. Bruce, and D. Edmund Hiebert for the New Testament. Especially outstanding among the commentators taking a more popular approach are H. A. Ironside, F. B. Meyer and Henry Morris.
5. Computer software. The day of bound books is rapidly drawing to a close. They are being replaced by e-books and other computer software. On my own computer I have two powerful Bible-study tools. One is a package of helps provided free by Online Bible. The Web address is onlinebible.net. I have only downloaded a small portion of resources available, but from this supplier I have obtained the whole Bible in several translations (KJV, Darby’s, and Weymouth’s, besides the Byzantine Greek text of the New Testament), Strong’s Concordance, a Greek lexicon (Thayer’s), a Hebrew lexicon (Brown-Driver-Briggs), Robertson’s Word Pictures of the New Testament, and Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge.
I also have on my computer the huge collection of books called Master Christian Library from Ages Software. It includes the complete church fathers as well as a generous sampling of commentaries, historical works, theological works (among them Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas), and biographies. It is incredible that so much writing can be squeezed onto a few small disks. Unfortunately, the producer has apparently gone out of business, although its software can still be obtained from www.discountbible.com/bible-study-software/age.html.
Probably the software that people have found most helpful is e-sword, an amazing compilation of resources available free to users of Windows. To download it, you need only go to e-sword.net and click a button on the home page. I have never obtained this software package myself because I am a Mac user, and the Mac version is not free.
Cautionary Note
One place that will offer very few resources for serious Bible study is a modern Christian bookstore. Let me explain why.
A few years ago I tried to get a publisher for my Daniel commentary. I decided the best way to go about it was to obtain a literary agent. A legitimate agent requires no money up front, but takes a percentage if he can sell the book. So, he accepts as clients only a small percentage of writers who apply. I found a successful agent, a lady, who thought she might sell my book if she could get an editor to read the first chapter. But she had little experience in dealing with Christian non-fiction and did not realize that my book is unpublishable—a conclusion she reached after sending my proposal to about ten major Christian publishers. Her final advice to me was that I should write a novel.
The rejection letters she received are very enlightening. Since they were sent to an agent rather than to an author, they are unusually candid. Let me read you the rejection letter from a publisher that used to be a dependable source of good Christian literature. Many excellent books in my library were issued by this publisher back when it was still a bastion of sound Bible teaching. The rejection letter came from the acquisitions editor, a lady who wrote in schoolgirl prose, a probable sign that she was young and not well educated.
She said, “So you know: our greatest challenge in non-fiction acquisitions these days is finding the tightly focused book.” She meant they want single-idea books in an attempt to reproduce the huge success of such best-sellers as Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez and Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life. It doesn’t matter if you repeat essentially the same idea in every chapter. Publishers assume that today’s reader prefers a book that doesn’t confuse him by presenting two ideas. My commentary fails the test because it is brimming with ideas.
The editor said they want a book “appealing to the largest (never too niched) audience.” Other spokesmen for the same publisher have said clearly that they want ecumenical books. They prefer something that can be read by both conservative and liberal Protestants, as well as by Catholics and perhaps even such cultists as Mormons. Since my commentary is forthright in endorsing inerrancy and espouses a dispensational view of prophecy, it is out of the question. It would not be welcomed by anyone outside the niched audience of Bible-believing dispensationalists.
Continuing, the editor said the book should have “an author with a helpful platform to help promote and publicize the book.” In other words, the author must be a prominent figure whose name sells books. If you’re Billy Graham, they’ll publish anything you write, good or bad. If you’re a nobody, they’ll publish nothing you write, however good it may be.
The editor advised, “I’m looking mostly for creative non-fiction”—in other words, something different from what Christian publishers put out in the past.
Then also, she desired “topics of interest to women.” How shameful to this generation of men that it is taken for granted that they do not read! Moreover, she wanted books written on a “popular level.” The trouble with my commentary is that it makes people think.
Another feature of a publishable book is that it offers “deep insights to Christian living”—a worthy goal indeed for Christian literature. But how strange that after setting this requirement, the editor adds, ”Unfortunately, we’re not publishing much in the Bible study or devotional category these days.” How exactly do you arrive at deep insights to Christian living without Bible study or devotional meditation on the Bible?
But the red flag for advanced apostasy appears in the editor’s requirement that a book should be “not too churchy of language.” In other words, it can’t contain any doctrinal language or Biblical language that would diminish its ecumenical appeal. It must offer vague religiosity rather than crystal-clear Bible-believing fundamentalism.
The editor concludes, “I hope this helps give a clearer picture of where we’re heading.” Yes, it certainly does, and it’s a sad picture indeed. It’s obvious that Christian publishing by-and-large no longer deserves to be called Christian. It is just another branch of the modern entertainment industry, specializing in products that help people feel religious but that avoid any Biblical demand that would make people feel uncomfortable.