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Mark Allan Powell
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HarperCollins Bible Dictionary 3rd Revised, Updated ed. Edition, Kindle Edition

by Mark Allan Powell (Author, Editor) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 195 ratings
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The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, revised and updated edition, is the most complete, up-to-date, and accessible guide for the study of the Bible available today. With more than 4,000 lively, informative, and reader-friendly entries, this essential reference book provides all the information you need to understand the Bible.

Whether you are a pastor, layperson, or a student of scripture, you will find every important name, place, and subject that makes Bible study come to life. From Aaron to Zurishaddai, here are all the people, events, and ideas of biblical times.

This third edition continues in the rich tradition of its predecessors but has been thoroughly updated and revised by a new editorial team under the direction of the premier international scholarly body, the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). More than half the articles in this book are new, and several dozen charts and tables have also been added as well as updates on recent archaeological discoveries.

Over 200 contributors to the HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, from a diverse group of authorities, represent an ecumenical and non-biased viewpoint of scripture from different positions—Roman Catholic, Jewish, mainline Protestant, and evangelical. Filled with explanations of biblical beliefs, language, and insights into the culture and customs of the people who lived in biblical times, this resource will help anyone interested in scripture to more fully appreciate the meaning and message of the Bible.

Previous page
  1. ISBN-13
    978-0061469060
  2. Edition
    3rd Revised, Updated ed.
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    HarperOne
  5. Publication date
    October 25, 2011
  6. Language
    English
  7. File size
    17952 KB
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“We are fortunate indeed to have this fresh resource available in its accessible format.”

About the Author

Mark Allan Powell (general editor) is the Robert and Phyllis Leatherman Professor of New Testament Studies at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. He is the author of nearly twenty books, including Fortress Introduction to the New Testament.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004IWR36A
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperOne; 3rd Revised, Updated ed. edition (October 25, 2011)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 25, 2011
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 17952 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 1189 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 195 ratings

About the author

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Mark Allan Powell

Mark Allan Powell

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
195 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Norman L. Martin
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful Kindle edition that can be read by those with compromised eyesight
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2014
Verified Purchase
The third book I purchased for my pastoral library, while a seminary student, was the Harper Bible Dictionary (1967). I sorrowfully gave it away last year for the print was too small for my aging eyes. Being able to purchase the Kindle edition of the revised and updated edition is a great blessing to me.

It took a while to learn to use the kindle addition, the key is to click the contents page and scroll down to the first letter of the word you are looking for. Don't click on the letter itself, click on the arrow to turn the page. You can quickly find the word you are looking for from the list.

The dictionary has a great many helps and the articles on each subject is detailed and has scripture references. The articles on Pentecost/Shavuot were especially helpful for post Easter teaching. I have found that reading one definition/article leads to another and its easy to just keep reading.

I have owned several Bible dictionaries; they do not compare to the Harper-Collins Bible Dictionary.
24 people found this helpful
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John
5.0 out of 5 stars expect to learn more from this book
Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2011
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At a lot of time, people wander why BIBLE is so hard to understand. One reason may be the different background between now and 2000 years ago. Through the help of BIBLE dictionaries, we can know more about the situation at that time, and know now about what people's word,dicision and know more about the LORD's commands by which we can live.
Though, I haven't read it thoroughly yet, at first grance, This dictionary contains a lot pictures: photographs and drawings, maps, charts, graphs and timelines, and its entry explanation is short. Comparing with another famous dictionary:Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. HarperCollins is more simple and more easily to be understanded, therefore suitable for the beginning biblical student, the seasoned scholar and the layperson.(Biblical Archaeological Review) Eerdmans is deeper and more rigorous, therefore Eerdmans is even suitable for strict study.
But this two is the same spiritual and constructive.
5 people found this helpful
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Jalder
4.0 out of 5 stars Don't bother buying the ebook edition
Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2019
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I believe this would have been an excellent Bible dictionary if I had wanted it in hard cover or paperback. How ever I wanted it as an ebook because I thought (hoped) it would be easier to navigate and therefore more useful in Bible study class. However, I found it VERY difficult if not impossible to navigate. Links are poor or nonexistant and forget it if you want to go from one place to another without going through tens or hundreds of pages to find what your looking for. A waste of money and time.

Addendum- I don’t actually remember writing the above review, however, times change, and apparently I returned the original book that I received, and was able to have to obtain a new book. I find the e-book very easy to navigate, and I use it frequently. It provides a lot of excellent information and I have no regrets about switching over to the e-book.
3 people found this helpful
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B. Marold
5.0 out of 5 stars A Genuine Improvement. Find a good home for the old edition.
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2011
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This is the Third Edition (2011) of the HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, developed in cooperation with the Society of Biblical Literature and with a new editor, Lutheran professor of Theology, Mark Allan Powell. The editor has promised several important changes. Since most people who are reading this review may already own a copy of the Second Edition, the question is whether the new edition is worth the $30 bucks. This is especially true since the older version was often considered the best single volume Encyclopedic reference to the Bible.

The first thing I checked was that all biblical quotes are from the NRSV (1989), while the 2nd edition quotes were from the RSV (1946 - 1952). Score points there. Next, all Associate Editors are new, including Amy-Jill Levine. But there are no OT specialists to replace Michael Fishbane. Editor Powell states that there are more references to scripture in the articles. For that and for other matters, I compared the old and new articles on Pontius Pilate, who appears in all four Gospels. The old version was written by Francisco O. Garcia-Treto. The new version retains the original author's credit, with credit to Powell for revising the article. It is plain that Powell kept much of the original text, however the original article was two columns long and the revised version was about three columns long. The first difference I spot is that the new edition cites exact references to Pilate in the works of Philo and Josephus. The older edition simply mentions those references. Most of the additional length is in the section titled "In the Gospel Accounts". In the original version, the author seems more careful than in Powell's revision in summarizing the differences in the way Pilate is treated in the Gospels, but Powell makes up for it by providing lots of detail about the differences between the Synoptics and John. Powell also does not make the mistake of saying that Pilate appears to be a pawn in the hands of the Jews in John. One can interpret Pilate's "business" to be more judicious than the Jews, at the same time respectful of their customs in addition to the rights of the prisoner. (Pilate does show some anxiety near the end, but he gets his pound of flesh from the Jews, when they swear allegiance to Caesar.) Powell's additions certainly have more passage citations than the original.

Dear to my heart is Bibliographies. Here, the new edition is a clear winner. In the article on "Romans", the new edition has four new sources, all of which are considered leading contributions on the letter, including James Dunn's 2 volume commentary (1988), which was oddly excluded from the second edition (1996). The story with the Gospel of John is similar, with seven references (six new references) compared to five references in the second edition. The earlier article was written by Dwight Moody. The later article was rewritten by Powell, adding a table comparing John to the Synoptics (from Powell's NT book). Powell's version, including new table, is longer than Moody's article. So why does John begin on page 533 in the old edition, and on 479 in the new edition?

Comparing the beginning of "A", I found some reasons. First, the entries for the letters, such as "A" are removed. This is not trivial, since "A" and "B" are abbreviations for identifying two major codices of the Greek Bible. I also notice several lesser articles, especially on OT and geography, to be unchanged from the older edition. I also noticed additional cross-reference entries in the new edition, not in the old. However, some cross references in the old, such as "sergeants" was missing from the new. In the newer edition, articles with numbered sections are typeset so it is much easier to see the numbers, as they each begin a new paragraph, and numbers are in bold. At page 15, I found what may be the principle reason for the shrinkage. A three column article on "African Americans and the Bible" was deleted. I have mixed feelings about this. My first thought is that the article was out of place in a reference book about the Bible itself. But when I read the second edition article, I discovered one could say that black contextual theologizing began in the late 18th century, and not in the 1960s, when James Cone wrote his first book. In the end, I suspect that the editors thought the subject had expanded so much in the last 16 years that it outgrew its relevance to straight biblical interpretation. A less controversial deletion would be the long articles (12+ pages) on Sociology in the OT and NT. A fair trade for that deletion would be the expansion of the article on "The Sermon on the Mount" from one column to three pages, a six-fold increase, written by Powell, with a Bibliography, missing from the original.

In the article on "agape" by Powell, I find a major improvement over the earlier anonymous article. Powell states the best modern interpretation of the Greek word as a synonym for "philos" and other Greek words for love. The small article on "agora" shows some of the added biblical citations. Older version had one, the newer version had four. I have not found any evidence of a large number of added maps. However, there are numerous added tables. For example the new edition adds a full page table to the article on "Jerusalem" on the centrality of Jerusalem in Luke-Acts (also from Powell's book, but he did not write the "Jerusalem" article.) The old article on "homosexuality" was edited and enlarged by Powell, ending in a far more balanced view of Paul's references to the subject than was in the original. Some OT articles are a bit shorter, such as the article on "copper". Very small articles, such as one for "cor" lost a line by omitting the pronunciation and replacing words for numbers, such as "60" for "sixty".

The glossy colored illustration sections in the middle and the colored map sections at the end are identical. (Other reviewsers neglected to actually look at the color sections and count pages.)

If the volume is to be used by children, especially if there are few other biblical reference books around, I suggest replacing the old with the new. If you don't have the old, get the new instead of the less expensive older edition. If you have several biblical reference books, the old will probably do fine, until it falls apart from use.
62 people found this helpful
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Will H.
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Bible Dictionary
Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2013
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This bible dictionary will become the foundation for all that use the bible daily for work, private reading or for just general information. This is a good way for any reader of the bible to learn about people, places and events in the bible that are familiar to most but do not have the background information to make the connection to other parts of the bible. This book is a must have for anyone who studies the bible or for the student in the seminary. Mark Allan Powell does a fine job of simplifying information that will help the reader better understand biblical material.
5 people found this helpful
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Sandra Blosser
5.0 out of 5 stars Harper Collins Bible Dictionary
Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2018
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The best Bible dictionary I have used. Love the digital edition. So easy to use. Very detailed descriptions of people and locations. The only Bible dictionary I will use.
3 people found this helpful
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Russ Hickman
5.0 out of 5 stars Put it on your Kindle for iPad
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2014
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Works great on Kindle for iPad. I have multiple 5 and 6 volume Bible Dictionaries along with a half dozen single volumes and this one is the best single volume available. AND so handy I can easily read it daily on my iPad.
7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

gblaquiere
5.0 out of 5 stars Great for research and reading
Reviewed in Canada on April 27, 2019
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Harper Collins commentaries etc are respected in the Mainline traditions and provide good scholarship for the critical scholar or student. Well recommended
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bowshie
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 26, 2012
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If you read The Bible then this is an ideal book to have by your side. It details all those people, facts and places that can sometimes leave you wondering.
3 people found this helpful
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PUPSQUEAK
5.0 out of 5 stars Great reference Book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 8, 2013
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Exactly as it says. If you want a Bible dictionary this is well laid out and great to use. Thoroughly recommended.
2 people found this helpful
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Joan Pennal
5.0 out of 5 stars An essential reference book for Bible studies
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 1, 2013
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A valuable, dependable, reference resource, the first I reach for when I need background or specific information for my studies
2 people found this helpful
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Ernest Gray
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 27, 2016
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An excellent resource
One person found this helpful
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