Christian Message Boards: Study Tools

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Posted by MIGUEL ANGEL CHAPARRO (Member # 47) on :

Top 10 Bible Study Tools ...Even for People Who Don't Have a Seminary Education

User-friendly books to exponentially enlarge your understanding of the Bible:

Bivin, David and Roy Blizzard. Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus: New Insights from A Hebraic Perspective. (Dayton, OH: Center for Judaic-Christian Studies, 1994) Even if teh New Testament was not written in Hebrew, its writers thought in Hebrew. The authors give many examples of Hebrew idioms that make perfect sense of the more obscure statements of Jesus.

Bullinger, E.W. Figures of Speech Used in the Bible. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1968) This 19th-century author lists more idiomatic styles than you ever knew existed, and just about every time they appear in the Bible.

Edersheim, Alfred. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993). Written by a descendant of Abraham who uses ancient Jewish writings to throw light on the many biblical allusions to the culture of Biblical characters.

Good, Joseph. Rosh haShanah and the Messianic Kingdom to Come. (Nederland, TX: HaTikvah Ministries, 1989). How the ancient Jews interpreted the Bible's revelation of God's plan for history and how the Festivals that God gave them a framework for the understanding of all Biblical prophecy as well as many events in Jesus' life.

Haley, John W. Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977). An extensive refutation of many particular claims that certain ideas in the Bible contradict one another.

McQuilkin, J. Robertson. Understanding and Applying the Bible: An Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1983) The former president of Columbia Biblical Seminary explains the most basic guidelines to help you avoid off-the-wall interpretations of Scripture--and how to get the point God intended to make.

Scofield, C.I. Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth. (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell). A tiny book but full of keys and outlines that will help you know where to fit different parts of the Bible into a clearer framework.

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers) or New American Standard Concordance: A book that lists where every word is found in the Bible so you can locate that verse you memorized once in Sunday School. It has a number key to the root word in Greek or Hebrew so you can look up other ways the word was translated and see where else it appears in the Bible.

Tyndale's Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Long out of print, but now published again by Inter-Varsity Press, Downer's Grove, IL). A 3-volume set culled from many of the top biblical and archaeological scholars, easy to read, and lavishly and colorfully supplemented with excellent photographs of biblical sites and the finds that have over and over proven the biblical record to be true and precise.

Whiston, William, trans. The Works of Josephus, Complete and Unabridged. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987) Just after the lifetime of Yeshua (Jesus) and just before the destruction of the Second Temple, this Jewish general who defected to Romans wrote an account of his people's history to make it understandable to the Gentile world. His accounts often give more details and the contemporary understandings of countless events referred to in the Bible.

Top 5 Bibles to Have in Your Library:

Brenton, Sir Lancelot. The Septuagint with Apocrypha. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1986). This is the Greek translation of the Tanach (Old Testament) . It shows you how the Hebrew words were translated by Jews in the centuries preceding the Messiah's arrival. (Don't worry, there's an English version in a parallel column!) Though the Apocrypha is not on the same level as Scripture, it does have value in its record of Israel's history.

Green, Jay P., Sr. The Interlinear Bible. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1986) The actual original languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) with a word-for-word match in English, keyed to the Strong's Concordance numbering system for easy reference of the root words. A smoother gloss of the English is in the side column.

Lamsa, George. The New Testament from the Ancient Eastern Text. English rendering of the first translation of the New Testament--into Aramaic, the lingua franca in the Middle East in the first century A.D. (C.E.) by a native speaker of Aramaic. This is the New Testament as understood by the Apostles' contemporaries.

Stern, David H. The Jewish New Testament and Commentary. Jewish New Testament Publications, P.O. Box 1313, Clarksville, MD 21029. Get it straight from the Chosen People--and right from a resident of Jerusalem! Stern brings out important Jewish ideas and terminology in the New Testament that go right by us Gentiles. Invaluable in getting a feel for the real context in which the New Covenant was written.

Zodhiates, Spiros. Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible. You don't need to know the original languages to use this Bible. It links key words to the Strong's Concordance, using the same numbering system. The author is a native speaker of Greek.

Most of these and many more are available at discount prices through Christian Book Distributors, P.O. Box 7000, Peabody, MA 01961. [cool hat]

Posted by Amber (Member # 41) on :

Thanks for all the info! It sounds like you've done your homework on this. I just want to remind you though that the Bible is written in language that is a grade five reading level, and God will guide you to understand it through the Holy Spirit. Don't take a person's word over the Bible, but it is interesting none the less to read what others have to say.