Customer Reviews

Strongest Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible Larger Print Edition, The

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

BOOK REVIEW:

A concordance is like an index; you look up a word, and it will tell you where that word can be found. For example, if you were to look up Jesus in a biblical concordance, the concordance will give you the passages (e.g. Mt 1:1) where the word can be found.

"The Strongest Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible" is a really great concordance! In the concordance, you will find many neat things; some of them include

- "A Brief History of the Strongest Strong's Exhaustive Concordance Project" in the preface
- An introduction that talks about James Strong and concordances in general; improvements made in this concordance from the previous concordance; and the features of this concordance; and a separate, but with more details than the one included in the features of the concordance included in the introduction, page on the "Features of the Main Concordance".

The book is thick and there are many passages included in the concordance. What I really like about this concordance is that the passages that contain the words of Jesus Christ are highlighted in gray. Also, the concordance has "Nave's Topical Bible Reference System" (without the biblical text).

Other features include:

- "Weights, Lengths adn Measures of the Bible"
- Hebrew-Armaic to English and Greek to English dictionaries
- "Chronology of the Bible"
- Maps
- Indexes to "Major Social Concerns of the Mosaic Covenant", "Old Testament Sacrifices", "Hebrew Calendar", "Hebrew Feasts and Holy Days", "Kings of the Bible", "Harmony of the Gospels", "Prophecies of the Messiah Fulfilled in Jesus", "Parables of Jesus", and "Miracles of Jesus".

The only thing I don't like about the concordance is the pages. The pages are very thin--it seems like they can be wrinkled very easily and the printing from the previous/following pages shows through the page.

Overall, the concordance is very good.

The Strongest Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001. ISBN 0310259088. Please note: the ISBN given is for the REGULAR PRINT version, not the large print.

The concordance is the most basic tool of Bible study, aside from the Bible itself. It has two primary uses: finding verses and doing word studies.

The first use is pretty simple: you know a word or two of a verse but you can't remember where to find it. So you look up the word in the concordance, which lists the most common verses in the Bible which contain that word, and choose the right one. (A concordance which calls itself "exhaustive" lists every single verse in the Bible containing a particular word.)

The second use is more complicated. Let's say you want to know about how the Bible uses the word "song." First, take the concordance and look up the English. Under the headword "song" are three columns: the first with the book and verse number, the second with a brief excerpt from the verse, the third with a four-digit number. It looks something like this:

Ex 15:1 the children of Israel this s unto 7892
Ex 15:2 The Lord is my strength and s, and he is 2176
~
Rev 5:9 And they sung a new s, saying, Thou art 5603

And the list goes on. The number stands for the Hebrew or Greek word which was translated by the English word "song." In the back of your concordance are very short Hebrew and Greek dictionaries; if the verse is in the Old Testament, look it up in the Hebrew dictionary; if the verse is in the New Testament, look it up in the Greek one. Using the list above, we find that 7892 is the Hebrew word "shir"; 2176 is the Hebrew word "zimrat"; and 5603 is the Greek word "ode." After you read the definitions, you'll know more about the word "song" as used in the Bible.

Now for this particular concordance, which Zondervan somewhat pompously calls "The Strongest Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible," by James Strong, LL.D., S.T.D.; Fully Revised and Corrected by John R. Kohlenberger III and James A. Swanson." The windiness of the title and the deplorable pun, however, do not detract from its immense usefulness it includes not only the exhaustive concordance itself, but revised Hebrew and Greek dictionaries, Nave's Topical Bible, and "Additional Features," which include a Hebrew calendar, a Harmony of the Gospels, Messianic Prophecies, a chart of Jesus' parables, and a chronology of Bible events.

The cover says that this concordance is "The only Strong's compiled and verified by computer technology." That's nice, but it probably won't make that much difference to the average user. Be warned: it means what it says about "exhaustive." The "Index of Articles, Conjunctions, Particles, Prepositions, and Pronouns," which immediately follows the main body of the concordance, informs us that the conjunction "and" appears exactly 51,713 times in the KJV. Every single word of the Bible is in this concordance.

A typical entry looks like this:

YOKED (1) [YOKE]
2Co 6:14 Be ye not unequally y together with 2086

YOKED is the headword. (1) means that YOKED occurs only one time in the entire KJV. [YOKE] means that the word YOKE is a good word to look up if you're interested in YOKED. Unfortunately I cannot represent in plain text that "unequally y together" is in bold, meaning that a single Greek word (No. 2086) stands for what the KJV renders "unequally yoked together." This excellent practice is followed throughout the concordance: whenever one Greek word is translated by multiple English words, the English words are in bold font. Whenever one English word stands for multiple Greek words, the entry looks like this:

YESTERDAY (9) [DAY]
Ps 90:4 thy sight are but as y when it is past, 865+3117

This Strong's is based on the KJV, or the Authorised Version. Most of the time that won't be a drawback, but every now and then you won't be able to find a verse because the KJV uses some English word common in the seventeenth century but has since passed out of common usage, such as "bullock." The editors of this concordance judiciously preserved the italics with which the KJV translators signified words they inserted which were not in the Greek or Hebrew.

Many reviewers have mentioned the light print and the thin pages. I haven't found it a problem, but my eyes are only about eighteen years old, so I'm probably not the best judge. Incontrovertibly, the print quality is light-years superior to other editions of Strong's which have been photographically reproduced from editions published early in the last century; and so look rather messy. Avoid them! This Strong's is completely new, and so the printing technology is modern. But if the type really is too small for you, I believe there's a large-print edition available. As one reviewer said, the lay-flat binding is exquisite. Zondervan did a great job producing such a bulky book.

This concordance uses James Strong's numbering system, which is over a hundred years old and somewhat obsolete. I really don't think most users will find this a problem. The only people who might find it annoying are those who have studied Hebrew and Greek; and those people use BDB and BDAG (the standard Hebrew and Greek lexicons), not the dictionaries in a concordance!

For those who have no or little knowledge of the Biblical languages, I think this is the best concordance on the market. If you don't like using the KJV, get Zondervan's The Strongest NIV Exhaustive Concordance or The Strongest NASB Exhaustive Concordance; I believe they're very similar to the Strongest Strong's.

I purchased this book when it first hit the bookstores and I must say that it is easier to use than the previous Strong's Concordances. The definitions are much easier to understand than the the "New Strong's Exahustive Concordance." I love it. I am purchasing one for a Pastor friend of mine. I must admit that the book seems more fragile than the previous version and it is smaller. Every Christian should have one of these.

This Strongest Strongs Exhaustive Concordance Of The Bible is the TOP NOTCH concordance available in the free world today! This concordance is actually computer-verified for accuracy. For the first time in the history of the world, cutting-edge computer analysis provides unparalleled, pinpoint accuracy! Strong's numbering system speeds you through word studies, and
gives you clear insights into Greek and Hebrew words. The inclusion of the Goodrick-Kohlenberger numbers in the
dictionaries and indices truly gives you access to the growing library of reference tools that use these numbers.

The most up-to-date Hebrew and Greek dictionaries ensure
precise meaning in your word studies and cross-references to places and names used in Bible translations BESIDES just theKing James Translation. Word counts furnish a complete accounting of every word in the Bible and RED, Fast-Tab locators help you find your place quickly and easily. Speaking of RED, the words of Christ are displayed in RED. This is the LARGER TYPE VERSION, so you don't have to get out your magnifying glass to use. It has very clear, easy-to-read type.

A couple of MORE extras are a comprehensive guide for using your New Strongest Strong's Concordance. The binding is quite above average for a book this size as it weighs in at over 6 lbs. It has a "lay flat" Smythe sewn in binding so you aren't fighting to keep this beast of a book open. This item is superb and I just can't say enough about it! Essential for Bible studies! Get one today!

How do you improve on the most exhaustive King James concordance in existence? John R. Kohlenberger III and James A. Swanson took on this task and have made several improvements. The first thing they did was to fix several minor errors in previous versions. Then they included words that were italicized in the Cambridge King James Version. This is important because these represent words that were not in the original text but were supplied in translation to help the reader understand the text. Finally, they computer verified the accuracy of the text. Because of this they state that this is the most accurate Strong's concordance to ever be published.

Really nice features include sensitivity to translational problems such as the need to sometimes use multiple words to translate a single word because the destination language doesn't contain a similar word. Because of this problem these multiple words are included as a set and matched against the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek word.

The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek dictionaries have also been updated from previous editions to reflect current Biblical scholarship. At the back of the book are some additional reference materials that are pretty unusual for a concordance. These materials include things like a Hebrew calendar, sacred days listing, weights and measures information, and a harmony of the gospels.

Still the best King James concordance available and the best value for your money The Strongest Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible is highly recommended.

I've read some of the reviews here that indicate problems with this concordance including the one that complains that it does not have the reference to Luke in Philemon 1:24. Please take the time to note that this is a concordance of the King James Version and so it says Lucas and not Luke in that passage, etc.

I received this concordance on 7/5/06 and I found it to be very informative. My true gripe with this edition is that it is very hard on the eyes. People with less than 20/20 vision will probably have a hard time viewing it. I plan to wait until they come out with a larger letter edition and repurchase it at that time.

I actually bought this concordance for some friends, yet had a chance to look it over before giving it to them, and was impressed with all its features...yet I found one drawback (hence the 4 stars instead of 5): it does not have the "....." between the KJV translation of the Hebrew/Greek word and the Strong's number.
For example, using "Angel" as the translated word, this is what I mean by the "....":
Ge. 16:7 the a of the Lord found her by a..................4397

This is a minor inconvenience until one attempts to do massive word-studies, then it becomes nearly impossible to "trace" the word to the number (at times I've had to count up or down whole collumns to make sure I have the right number - very time consuming). Thomas Nelson publishers do this in their versions, so I recomend you look at their versions if you want the "...". Other than that, I think this is a great resource.

In my opinion "The "Strong's Concordance" is the best concordance on the market. It works best with either the "King James" or "New King James" Versions of the Bible. Loving to stday Scripture and write I have many referance books. I use my "Strong's Concordance" and my "American Dictionary of the Enligh Language: Noah Webster's 1828 Edition" more than all the rest of my referance books put together. The Concordance's Greek and Hebrew Dictionary's are a faantastic aid to Scripture study. Along with my 1928 Webster's Dictionary, I use them constantly.The "Strongest Strongs" is the edition I own and highly recommend.

This is a great reference tool with its Greek and Hebrew dictionaries and its topical reference system, but mine is missing pages. With 1853 pages, it's hard to tell exactly how many are missing, but I recently discovered pages 623-638 are not there. And, of course, those pages contained the information I was seeking. I've had the book too long to return it now. Sorry to throw a negative note in with all the positive reviews, but, hey, the book is missing some pages.

I thought this was a good Strong's until I went to look up a word and knew immediately that Mr. R. Kohlenberger and James Swanson had changed the number for a word that needed not be changed. So having one word that referred me to the wrong number in the Hebrew there is no way I would trust using this Strong's to do my studies. I have been a Bible student for many years, so I knew better when I saw this BIG mistake, but for a new student, they would never know the difference. So this is why I do not recommend this book. Get a different Strong's, preferable one that is unabridged and complete. If you can get the older ones, do so. Now I did like haveing the Nave's in this book and the other features, but you can get them seperatly.