The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary Pt. 4 of 4

With all my Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary talk of late I am glad to announce a special offer for all Chrisendom readers (previously offered here). You can purchase the AYBD and download it right at a 30% discount! Simply add the coupon code YALE, and hey presto.

Actually, I am reminded of A.J. Jacobs' quest to read the whole of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, documented in his book The Know-It-All. It would be quite the New Year's Resolution to try to read the whole of the AYBD in a year or two... Dan could no doubt read it in a week or two, but the rest of us would manage it (and all its 6,000 plus articles) at just over 8 articles a day for two years!

Thanks again to the kind folk at Logos for the review copy.

The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary Pt. 3 of 4

Classic lines of wisdom from the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary:

'The real value of LXX resides not so much in its function as a corrective to some Hebrew text of which we have a copy, but rather as a record of the way in which a group of Jews in the 3d century and for some time thereafter understood their traditions. In the pre-Christian centuries, there was wide textual variety as is evidenced in the discoveries of materials both in Palestine and Egypt, and thus it is well established that the parent texts (and certainly the translators) for each book of the LXX were probably different. It is also quite clear that the revisional activity which took place after Origen was in fact taking place long before his time, both on the Hebrew and Greek texts. Thus, while it is convenient to use BHS or BHK as a starting point for understanding what undergirded the LXX translations, it is dangerous, dishonest and wrong to assume that Leningradensis B 19A (MT) lay before the pre-Christian translators (cf. Ulrich 1988). Even more reprehensible is the widespread practice of assuming that the text of one uncial represents LXX. It has been shown that the character of B, the ms most often mistaken for LXX, is by no means consistent throughout. In Daniel, for instance, it witnesses to the text of Theodotion' (Melvin K. H. Peters' article, "Septuagint" in AYBD, 5:1100)

Lines like that can forever change how we make comments on the supposed LXX reading of the MT. Reread and inoculate yourself against many a fallacious argument!

'Intelligible as the thesis might seem—a priori—that Christianity adopted the worship of Jesus to the extent that it abandoned exclusive Jewish monotheism under the influence of the pagan environment, the evidence does not bear it out. On the contrary, it indicates that from the NT period onwards Christians held to exclusive monotheism as tenaciously as they did to the worship of Jesus, because both features were already definitive of Christian worship when it emerged from its original Jewish context into the pagan world' (Richard Bauckham's article "The Worship of Jesus" in AYBD, 3:816)

Yes, Bauckham's position is disputed – by people who are more or less wrong. This classic article is compulsory reading for anyone interested in the shape of early Christology.

The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary Pt. 2 of 4

I know this all sounds like a shameless advert but my conscience is clean. So I offer today 5 more reasons to buy the Logos electronic Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary:

1. As a NT lecturer I cannot tell you how useful a good bible dictionary is for quickly acquainting oneself with a newish subject without having first to read four 300 page monographs. That may sounds lazy but I don't mean it to. Rather, I mean to say that a bible dictionary helps one enter a subject. Plus, dictionary articles are always useful to offer students to prepare for lessons.
2. One may not like to read an electronic version of a complete monograph. However, when the text is a dictionary entry it makes so much more sense to have it electronic and benefit from the obvious pluses of the latter, such as i) ability to cite without typing something all out, ii) ability to search much more easily across the whole dictionary, iii) pop-up windows for scripture citations, etc. (I'll explain the last in the next post)
3. It can be downloaded immediately. In just a few minutes, you can add the AYBD to your library.
4. This dictionary offers scholarship at its best, with the biggest names in the world contributing.
5. An electronic version saves room on your real bookshelves, and the Anchor Bible Dictionary takes up a fair bit of space!

For a few more benefits of using the electronic version see the Logos blog post, Getting the Most Out of the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary.

The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary Pt. 1 of 4

My sincere thanks to the generous folk at Logos Bible Software for a review copy of the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary.

The Anchor Bible Dictionary is simply the best Bible dictionary available, packed with the highest quality scholarship. Many of its articles are required reading in a number of areas. What is more the Logos Bible Software format is ideal for this genre of material. In the next few posts in this series I will offer short extracts from the dictionary, give reasons why I honestly think the electronic version is superior to the hard copy, link to some useful discussion about the product, tell of details for a special 30% discount (yea, baby!) and cheekily suggest that you splash out with your Christmas money and buy yourself a copy (including tips on avoiding getting caught by your spouse in the process). Seriously, this is one mightily useful resource, so I am going to shamelessly promote this one!