Customer Reviews

Kregel Dictionary of the Bible and Theology: Over 500 Key Theological Words and

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This is an excellent resource if you want a brief yet comprehensive treatment of topics in the Bible and theology. The author, Dr. Holloman, is one of the Theology professors at Talbot School of Theology, and he writes from an evangelical viewpoint, embracing the full inerrancy of Scripture and the premillennial, pretribulational viewpoint of the end-times.

For each topic, Holloman gives you a brief definition, then the key words in Hebrew and Greek along with a generous list of Bible cross-references, along with a brief explanation of each term, and its significance. It is more of an outline approach and so he gives very concise explanations. He also includes a brief bibliography if you want to do further reading. Dr. Holloman approaches the theological topics more from a biblical theology approach rather than a systematic theology approach.

I find this resource to be very helpful when I want a brief yet comprehensive treatment on a theological topic. Often I go to this book for an introductory treatment, and then I would read Elwell's Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, which is an excellent dictionary of systematic theology written by evangelical scholars.

This is an excellent dictionary of "over 500 key theological words and concepts" (subtitle). The articles are generally detailed with several articles over two pages in length. Many but not all entries have an introductory bibliography. The beginning of the work has a set of abbreviations, which is more important than normal as the author acknowledges that they are not the "designations normal to biblical scholarship" (5). The articles have the useful feature of offering the biblical terms in separate sections at the end of the articles. The Hebrew and Greek words are given along with transliterations and the word meanings are detailed. All the articles have extensive biblical references. Within the articles, The author is very even-handed in presenting the differing interpretations (e.g., millennial and rapture views, classic vs. progressive dispenationalism) and practices (e.g., baptism and communion). The articles are clear and engaging, and have a generous use of "see also" references to point the reader to additional information.