Even though my birthday was waaayyy back on 11 January, I was only able today to go spend the money I received on my birthday. I buy almost all my physical, paper books from Augustine Bookroom, and that is where I bought these books today.
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| My Birthday Books |
I haven't read anything of Spurgeon's for some time, so I decided to include at least something of Spurgy's today (Satan a Defeated Foe).
The next book I bought is Anthony Hoekema's The Bible and the Future, a book on eschatology from an amillennial perspective.
The last book I bought is AMG's Comprehensive Dictionary of New Testament Words.This book is of great help to those who do not know any New Testament Greek. It is a book of 1364 pages. Of course, this is not the kind of book you would read from cover to cover. It is a reference work.
The blurb on the back cover explains:
"As a premier provider of Christian books and Bibles that help the average person understand the Bible in its original languages, AMG Publishers is proud to present this important reference tool. This volume will help you discover the rich meaning of the words in the Greek New Testament."PART ONE contains defintions (sic) or cross-references for more than 8,000 English terms, definitions that are based on the meaning of the more than 5,500 Greek words in the Greek New Testament. Unlike some other tools, where you have to know the Greek alphabet or must first look up a Strong’s number before you get to the real meaning of things, this dictionary is organized alphabetically by the English words. It covers all the common words and all the names of people and places found in the New Testament, and most often lists all the Scripture references where each English word is used. The primary entries also list the Greek words and Strong’s numbers so that you have them as a reference to other works."PART TWO is a simple lexicon of the Greek New Testament words, organized by Strong’s numbers, defined by terms found in Part One. Most lexicon entries list the other English New Testament words that translators used for that Greek word. To dig deeper, look up those other English words in Part One."
To help the user find the correct words in this reference tool, the vocabulary of seven (7) translations was used to build the dictionary. These translations are: J. N. Darby, KJV, NKJV, NASB, NIV (1984), NIV (2011), and ESV.
In order for you to understand how this tool works, have a look at these images:
- Why was J. N. Darby's vocabulary included in this book? Who uses this translation?
- The possibility exists for someone who does not know Greek, in using this book, such a person could start thinking that they know enough about a word or words in the New Testament to proclaim that "knowledge" far and wide as set in stone. The same problem exists with Strong's Concordance. These types of tools give just enough information to make people dangerous in their knowledge. Please understand that I am not shooting this book down for the "Greekless" user. All I am trying to do is to warn "Greekless" users not to push their knowledge picked from these tools too far.
However, this book can help many in their own Bible Studies.
