My Essential Biblical Research Books--part one
I sit here surrounded by books. I have to wonder why I have so many. Truth be told, I should be a member of RBA (Research Books Anonymous). At different times over the years I have gone on buying binges where I order and end up with more research and reference books than I could use in ten years. I have had to simply throw the endless promotional catalogs away lest I be tempted to buy yet another book or Bible.
As I sit here at my computer, to my left is a wing of my desk with a book rack on it. These books are my essential ones that I use most often when either reading or working the Bible. With time, there have been a few changes to these books, but not many. They represent my "ready reference library" that I can turn to find an answer in a hurry. These books are my trusted friends and are worth their weight in gold to me. Here they are:
Webster's College Dictionary
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
"The Word"-The Bible from 26 translations
The NIV Study Bible
Comparative Study Bible (NIV, Amplified, KJV and NASB)
The New King James Version Study Bible (My everyday Bible)
The Complete Word Study New Testament with Greek Parallel-Zodhiates
The Complete Word Study Dictionary New Testament-Zodhiates
The Complete Word Study Old Testament-Zodhiates
The Four Translation New Testament (KJV, NASB, Williams, Beck)
The Scriptures-published by The Institute for Scripture Research
The New English Bible-published by Oxford and Cambridge Universities
The Englishman's Greek New Testament
The New Testament with Brief Notes (A Handy Commentary with notes by Clark and Pendleton)
A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament by E.W. Bullinger
For what it is worth, these are my "first line of defense" books, so to speak, when it comes to working the Word of God and striving to understand its meaning. Some may wonder why I have three reference books by Spiros Zodhiates. The answer is that after using various lexicons and dictionaries over the years, I find no one any more accurate and simple to understand than Mr. Zodhiates. Also, he is Greek and I believe he understands the language better than many.
The simplest way to do a word study is to get the two books by Zodhiates (Word Study N.T. with Greek Parallel and Word Study Dictionary of N.T.). The first book is the King James Version with each and every word numbered to Strong's concordance. The second book has the words for each number with a comprehensive study of the origin of the word and where it is used etc. There are many other books which do the same basic thing, but I personally think this is the easiest and most accurate.
The first book in this rack is the dictionary for I find myself constantly having to look up words to make sure I understand their correct meaning. So many times I thought I knew what a word meant only to find out I was either only part right or thinking of another word. I strongly suggest any student of the Bible have a good quality and fairly up to date English dictionary handy.
Let me say now that many people have done away with books altogether and do all of their research on line or using downloaded programs in their computer. I tried this and did not like it at all. When it comes to Biblical research, I like doing it the old fashioned way with big books, a legal pad of paper and a pen with much ink in it. I literally have more boxes and filing cabinets than I can count full of pads full of various and sundry word studies and other research. The amazing thing is that the lion's share of all this is from the past 5 years. I threw away everything I had worked on before the year 2000 a few years ago.
I do enjoy and occasionally use the study notes from various Bibles. The NIV Study Bible has some absolutely brilliant notes, especially on many Old Testament verses and subjects. The "Open Bible" which is my Nelson New King James Version Bible, is a study Bible with many valuable notes.
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I am still deciding what I think about "The Word, The Bible From 26 Translations". This very expensive Bible gives various version's readings to various verses, but there is no continuity to their method of choosing versions. Also, I question some of the choices for the 26 Translations. I did use this book the other day when I gave various readings of Hebrews 11:1 in a post.
To me, the most used and most valuable Bible I own is the Comparative Study Bible with the four translations in it. This used to be my "everyday" Bible, but it is quite thick and difficult to carry around. Still, I cherish the ability to quickly see a verse side by side in 4 columns from 4 versions I trust. Anyone wanting one Bible that would give them the ability to see 4 of the top versions at once should consider this Bible. It is an excellent way to do simple research into a verse or chapter.
I could go on and on regarding each book or Bible but I believe this is enough for this posting. I am no expert on these matters in that I did not learn which books and Bibles are best by going to seminary. Back when I was in Bible School we used the King James Version and Bullinger's Lexicon and not much else. Back then, there were nowhere near as many versions of the Bible as there are now, and most people used the King James Version. I prefer the New King James over the King James because it is much easier and clearer to read plus it cleaned up some sloppy mistakes found in the King James.
There are some other vital books and Bibles I would love to share with you, but I will wait to see if there is any interest. I don't want to just throw around names of books if there is no profit.
In conclusion, let me share this with you. When I was traveling extensively a couple of years ago, my little van could not accommodate my big collection of books. I had to whittle it down to only a few. The basic books I chose to travel with are the basic books needed to read and work a verse or a word within a verse. Start there and then if interested move up to bigger and more technical books would be my advice. Here were the books who were my traveling companions:
Comparative Study Bible and New King James Bible
The 2 New Testament Zodhiates books
Either the NIV Study Bible or Holman Study Bible
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Author: blessings2you
Location: Warrenton Missouri USA
Gender: Male
Age: 57
Blog Entries: 821 (archive)
Blog Comments: 7
god called me to serve him when i was 16 years old while on a church work trip in new mexico in 1969. in the 40 years since; i attended bible school/leadership training, been ordained to the christian ministry and worked full time for a non-denominational ministry for nearly ten...
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in 1969 god stepped in and transformed my life as a sixteen year old teenager. after a couple of years of intense emotional ups and downs, i decided i needed a firm foundation in my life that went beyond emotional experiences. it was the decision to become involved with a...
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