Fundamentals of New Testament Criticism
theWord Features
- Verse popups
- Footnote popups
- Terms explained popups
- Fully searchable text
- Easy navigation via topics tree display.
- Special Text Colors
- Normal: Text
- Hyperlink: Nom | Rev. 7:12
- Page Number: [pg 21>
- Latin: exempli gratia
- Transliteration: ang-gelos
- Greek: σωμάτων
- Hebrew: א
A Primer of Biblical Greek
Download student resources
Request instructor resources
Though there are currently a number of texts for teaching biblical Greek, most of them are plagued by various deficiencies. Written with these flaws in mind, this new primer by N. Clayton Croy offers an effective, single-volume introduction to biblical Greek that has proven successful in classrooms around the country.
This volume takes a primarily deductive approach to teaching biblical Greek and assumes that students have no prior knowledge of the language. Divided into 32 separate lessons, each containing a generous number of exercises, the text leads students from the Greek alphabet to a working understanding of the language of the Septuagint and the New Testament.
Special features of A Primer of Biblical Greek:
- An abundance of exercises Each lesson includes practice sentences taken from the Septuagint and the New Testament as well as Greek sentences composed by the author. Exercises in English-to-Greek translation are also included.
- Concise but accurate grammatical explanations Great care has been taken to insure that grammatical explanations are clear, correct, and succinct. In particular, the Greek participle receives a fuller-than-usual treatment.
- A natural order of presentation Material is presented according to the natural structure of Greek and the traditional terminology of grammarians. Declensions and principal parts, for example, are presented in numerical order.
- Inclusive language The book uses inclusive language for human beings throughout.
- Helpful appendixes for quick reference Included at the back of the book are the Greek paradigms, Greek-to-English vocabulary, English-to-Greek vocabulary, and a bibliography for further study.
theWord Features
- Verse popups
- Terms explained popups
- Footnote popups
- Fully searchable text
- Easy navigation via topics tree display.
- Greek Lemmas
- Special Text Colors
- Normal: Text
- Hyperlink: LXX| Luke 20:21
- Page Number: [pg 21>
- Latin: septuaginta
- Transliteration: Gamma
- Greek: Καλλίμαχος
Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible
Nearly 5,000 articles written by 600 first-rate Bible authorities thoroughly explaining books, persons, places and significant terms of the Bible. The Dictionary also explores the background of each biblical book and related writings and discusses cultural, natural, geographical, and literary phenomena–matters that Bible students at all levels may encounter in reading or discussion.
The Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible gathers nearly 5,000 alphabetically ordered articles that thoroughly yet clearly explain all the books, persons, places, and significant terms found in the Bible. The Dictionary also explores the background of each biblical book and related writings and discusses cultural, natural, geographical, and literary phenomena—matters that Bible students at all levels may encounter in reading or discussion.
For actual samples of articles in the dictionary, click on the image at left (a popup viewer should open) and then use the left-right arrow keys on the keyboard, or click on the far left or far right arrows on the image itself.
The samples are:
abraham
Agriculture
alpha and omega
amos, book of
anathema
apostle
The Text of the Old Testament, An Introduction to the Biblia Hebraica, THIRD EDITION
Major revision of a landmark work in Old Testament scholarship
Ernst Würthwein’s introduction to the Biblia Hebraica has long served as a textbook for generations of students interested in the history of the Old Testament text and the problems of textual criticism. From its first appearance in 1952 to the fifth German edition in 1988, the book was faithfully updated by Würthwein himself in light of new research. But now a new edition of “Würthwein” is due.
While staying true to the original structure and character of Würthwein’s classic work, Alexander Fischer has rewritten the text completely to bring it up to date with the new Quinta edition of Biblia Hebraica. Besides updating information throughout, this edition includes a new chapter on the texts from the Qumran. This third edition of The Text of the Old Testament will be an indispensable resource for serious students of the Biblia Hebraica and Old Testament exegesis.
theWord Features:
- Verse popups
- Abbreviation popups
- Fully searchable text
- Easy navigation of topics via topics tree display.
- Images
- Special Text Colors
- Normal: Text
- Hyperlink: BHS | Deut 34:10-12BHS
- Page Number: pg 21
- Latin: supra
- Transliteration: qādēs̆: ṭāhēr
- Greek: σωμάτων
- Hebrew: מִשְׁפָּט
- Aramaic: כְּתִיב
Fundamentals of New Testament Greek
Request instructor resources
Get the workbook
“We know that this book works and will take students to a level not often achieved through other beginning textbooks.” So say Stanley Porter and his coauthors in the preface to their Fundamentals of New Testament Greek — an ambitious, comprehensive introduction to the grammar and vocabulary of the Greek New Testament.
This first-year Greek textbook discusses all the forms and basic syntax of Koine Greek, complete with extensive paradigms, examples, and explanations. Porter, Reed, and O’Donnell’s Fundamentals of New Testament Greek features pedagogically sound and linguistically informed techniques of language instruction. The volume introduces the individual words and grammatical details of Greek, sensitive to their frequency of use in the New Testament, reinforcing for students the elements that they will most often encounter. Grammatical forms, including the less common ones, are analyzed and explained in detail, often with illustrative examples from the Greek New Testament. The authors include complete paradigms and give numerous examples; the vocabulary list includes nearly one thousand words, which are introduced throughout the book’s thirty chapters.
Students who complete this text will be able to move directly into Greek exegesis courses and more advanced Greek-language courses. Fundamentals of New Testament Greek will prove invaluable for gaining a thorough foundational understanding of New Testament Greek, including full exposure to the formation, accenting, and semantics of its complex verbal system.
Read more about the book in a blog post by its editor, Craig Noll, on EerdWord.
theWord Features
- Verse popups
- Footnote popups
- Terms explained popups
- Fully searchable text
- Easy navigation via topics tree display.
- Lemmas (which can be used with Bibles that have Lemmas)
- Special Text Colors
- Normal: Text
- Hyperlink: Nom | Rev. 7:12
- Page Number: [pg 21>
- Latin: exempli gratia
- Transliteration: ang-gelos
- Greek: σωμάτων
New International Commentary: The First Epistle of Peter
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS:
- Verse-by-verse commentary
- In-depth discussion of textual and critical matters
- Introductions to each book’s authorship, date, purpose, structure, and theology
- Detailed bibliography
DESCRIPTION
The First Epistle of Peter constitutes an important work of New Testament theology and pastoral care, serves as an example of how the early church applied Jesus’ sayings and the Old Testament writings to contemporary concerns, and presents some extremely useful perspectives on living the Christian life today. This commentary by Peter Davids does an excellent job of mining the rich wealth of instruction to be found in this very significant section of Scripture.
Davids’s commentary contains several notable features: a unique grasp of 1 Peter’s structure, a systematically arranged introduction that summarizes the commentary proper, a perceptive excursus on suffering in 1 Peter and the New Testament, Davids’s own study translation, thorough and incisive comments on each verse of the text, frequent parallels to ancient literature, an exceptionally clear and lively writing style, and one of the most comprehensive bibliographies on 1 Peter available anywhere.
….
New International Commentary: The Epistles of John
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS:
- Verse-by-verse commentary
- In-depth discussion of textual and critical matters
- Introductions to each book’s authorship, date, purpose, structure, and theology
- Detailed bibliography
DESCRIPTION
The three Epistles of John, according to I. Howard Marshall, are concerned with the fundamentals of Christian belief and life—faith and love. The reader who grasps the message of these short but essential letters will have a sound basis in Christian doctrine. This group of Epistles, says Marshall, is also a good starting point for the study of the Gospel of John. This important commentary, then, was written not only so that students of the Bible might master the content of John’s Epistles, but that they might come to a proper understanding of Johannine theology as a whole.
This volume includes an “invitation” to general readers and an “introduction” addressed to students and specialists. Another fresh feature is a rearrangement of the traditional order of the three letters: 2 John and 3 John are studied before 1 John. This structure assures that the two shorter letters are not relegated to the position of appendices but are treated as important documents of early Christianity in their own right.
See excerpt of NIC Epistles of John
….
The New Testament: An Expanded Translation (Commentary style)
theWord Features:
- Expanded Translation in Commentary format
- Verse popups
- Fully searchable text
- Footnotes
- Easy navigation of topics via topics tree display.
- Linked to Bible View
- Special Text Colors
- Normal: Text
- Hyperlink: Luke 20:21
- Greek: χρησις
- Transliterated Greek: euaggelion
New International Commentary: The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS:
- Verse-by-verse commentary
- In-depth discussion of textual and critical matters
- Introductions to each book’s authorship, date, purpose, structure, and theology
- Detailed bibliography
DESCRIPTION
In this commentary Gordon Fee aims first and foremost to offer a fresh exposition of the text of 1 and 2 Thessalonians. He shows the reader what is in the biblical text, what the text meant in the first century, and what it means now. Fee reveals the logic of each argument or narrative before moving on to the details of each verse, and he concludes each section with a theological-practical reflection on the meaning of the text today. Among other things, Fee explores the occasion for writing for each epistle, restoring 2 Thessalonians to the place it deserves as a full companion to the first letter, rather than merely a tagalong to 1 Thessalonians.
….
New International Commentary: Song of Songs
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS:
- Verse-by-verse commentary
- In-depth discussion of textual and critical matters
- Introductions to each book’s authorship, date, purpose, structure, and theology
- Detailed bibliography
DESCRIPTION
Relationships are a wonderful, mysterious, often elusive, sometimes painful part of the human experience. The most intimate of all human relationships, according to the Bible, is that between a husband and a wife. It is no surprise, therefore, that there is a book of the Bible, the Song of Songs, that focuses on this relationship. What is surprising is how little attention is given to the Song of Songs by scholars, by the church, and by readers of the Bible. With this volume Tremper Longman III unpacks for modern people what this ancient love poem says about the male-female relationship—and, by analogy, about God’s love for his people.
Longman’s superb study begins with a thorough introduction to the Song of Songs and its background. Longman discusses the book’s title, authorship, date, literary style, language, structure, cultural milieu, and theological content. He also canvasses the long history of interpretation of the Song of Songs, a history too often characterized by repression of the text. In the commentary itself, Longman structures the Song of Songs according to its twenty-three poetic units and explains its message verse by verse. The exposition is made clearer by Longman’s adoption of an anthropological approach to the text and by his frequent comparisons of the Song of Songs with other ancient Near Eastern literature.
Learned yet highly accessible, innovative yet fully informed by past scholarship, this commentary shows the beautiful Song of Songs to be a timeless celebration of human love and sexuality.
….
New International Commentary: The Book of Ecclesiastes
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS:
- Verse-by-verse commentary
- In-depth discussion of textual and critical matters
- Introductions to each book’s authorship, date, purpose, structure, and theology
- Detailed bibliography
DESCRIPTION
Ecclesiastes is one of the most fascinating—and hauntingly familiar—books of the Old Testament. The sentiments of the main speaker of the book, a person given the name Qohelet, sound incredibly modern. Expressing the uncertainty and anxieties of our own age, he is driven by the question, “Where can we find meaning in the world?”
But while Qohelet’s question resonates with readers today, his answer is shocking. “Meaningless,” says Qohelet, “everything is meaningless.” How does this pessimistic perspective fit into the rest of biblical revelation? In this commentary Tremper Longman III addresses this question by taking a canonical-Christocentric approach to the meaning of Ecclesiastes.
Longman first provides an extensive introduction to Ecclesiastes, exploring such background matters as authorship, language, genre, structure, literary style, and the book’s theological message. He argues that the author of Ecclesiastes is not Solomon, as has been traditionally thought, but a writer who adopts a Solomonic persona. In the verse-by-verse commentary that follows, Longman helps clarify the confusing, sometimes contradictory message of Ecclesiastes by showing that the book should be divided into three sections—a prologue (1:1–11), Qohelet’s autobiographical speech (1:12–12:7), and an epilogue (12:8–14)—and that the frame narrative provided by prologue and epilogue is the key to understanding the message of the book as a whole.
Recommendations:
On John Pipers recommended commentaries list.
….
New International Commentary: The Book of Ruth
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS:
- Verse-by-verse commentary
- In-depth discussion of textual and critical matters
- Introductions to each book’s authorship, date, purpose, structure, and theology
- Detailed bibliography
DESCRIPTION
The Book of Ruth contains one of the Bible’s best-known and most-loved stories. This major commentary by Robert L. Hubbard shows how the author of Ruth used, with great literary artistry, the story of Ruth and Naomi to convey important theological themes.
In his introduction, Hubbard discusses the issues of text, canonicity, literary criticism, authorship and date, purpose, setting, genre, legal background, and themes and theology, and concludes with an outline of the book and a thorough bibliography. The commentary proper is based on Hubbard’s own fresh translation and is accented by copious footnotes on textual, philological, and literary matters.
Gleaning the best from recent research on Ruth, Hubbard gives the story’s rich literary, grammatical, and theological dimensions a careful, rigorous treatment. He allows for the possibility that the anonymous author was a woman and argues that the narrative itself aims to counter opposition to the Davidic monarchy in Israel and Judah during Solomon’s reign. Throughout, Hubbard’s sensitivity to the literary genius of Ruth’s author and his coherent explication of the outworking of the book’s theological themes make this volume an invaluable tool for anyone desiring to explore the beautiful story of Ruth in depth.
….
New International Commentary: The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS:
- Verse-by-verse commentary
- In-depth discussion of textual and critical matters
- Introductions to each book’s authorship, date, purpose, structure, and theology
- Detailed bibliography
DESCRIPTION
Providing clear exposition based on solid contemporary scholarship, this commentary by F. Charles Fensham examines the books of Ezra and Nehemiah—two books of Scripture that are especially important for understanding the last century of Old Testament Jewish history and for marking the beginnings of Judaism.
A biblical scholar well known for his expertise in ancient Near Eastern studies, especially Ugaritic, Fensham places Ezra and Nehemiah against the ancient Near Eastern environment. In his introduction Fensham discusses the original unity of the books as well as the problems of authorship. He then treats the historical and religious background of the books, taking special note of the development of a Jewish religious society in postexilic times. Text and language are examined next, followed by a thorough bibliography.
The commentary proper, based on Fensham’s own fresh translation of the biblical texts, is richly documented and displays cautious good judgment, willingness to consider different options, a sensible approach, and keen insight into the religious meaning of these key Hebrew texts.
….
New International Commentary: Paul’s Letter to the Philippians
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS:
- Verse-by-verse commentary
- In-depth discussion of textual and critical matters
- Introductions to each book’s authorship, date, purpose, structure, and theology
- Detailed bibliography
DESCRIPTION
This commentary by respected New Testament scholar Gordon D. Fee is a scholarly yet thoroughly readable study of Paul’s letter to the suffering community of believers in Philippi.
Working directly from the Greek text but basing his comments on the New International Version, Fee sets Paul’s letter to the Philippians squarely within the context of first-century “friendship” and “moral exhortation” to a church facing opposition because of its loyalty to Jesus Christ. At the same time Fee gives equal concern to the letter’s theological and spiritual relevance.
Important features of this commentary include a remarkable comparison of Philippians to two well-known types of letters in the Greco-Roman world: the letter of friendship and the letter of moral exhortation; an introduction that discusses the occasion, authenticity, and theological contributions of Philippians; and scholarly insights that resolve many of the formal and structural issues that have long puzzled New Testament scholars.
….
New International Commentary: The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon and to the Ephesians
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS:
- Verse-by-verse commentary
- In-depth discussion of textual and critical matters
- Introductions to each book’s authorship, date, purpose, structure, and theology
- Detailed bibliography
DESCRIPTION
This collection of three commentaries in one volume completes F. F. Bruce’s lifelong study of Paul’s writings. With the publication of this volume, Bruce—one of the most respected New Testament scholars in the world—finished writing commentaries on all the Pauline epistles except the Pastorals.
According to Bruce, there are important reasons for linking Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians together in one work. The study of both Ephesians and Colossians, says Bruce, confirms his belief that Ephesians continues the line of thought followed in Colossians—in particular because it draws out the implications of Christ’s cosmic role (set forth in Colossians) for the church, which is his body. At the same time Ephesians constitutes the crown of Paulinism, gathering up the main themes of the apostle’s teaching into a unified presentation sub specie aeternitatis. The letter to Philemon, too, has a close association to Colossians, and is appropriately included in this volume.
….
Theological Dictionary of the NT: Abridged in One Volume (TDNTa)
This dictionary is a landmark Greek dictionary which has come to us through a lot of people and years of scholarship dedicated to making this scholarly work available. One of the neat features about this work is that it has Strongs numbers, so those who are not proficient in the Greek language can still use the work, working off of the Strong’s Greek Numbers.
Note that there is a foundational work back to Gerhard Kittel, and thus that work is called “Big Kittels” or just “Kittel”, and there is the present work we are offering which is abridged, and called “Little Kittels”. The unabridged Kittel is very large, and has very long and detailed studies on each word, including a lot of linguistics, Greek, German, Latin, Hebrew, etc. It is a very scholarly work, and understood best “by scholars” (very educated scholars at that). Little Kittel though has been edited so as to delete most of that, and leave a simple work that most laymen could understand (and most Bible students with normal Greek abilities, or no Greek abilities at all, in the style of Strong’s Lexicon perhaps).
For actual samples of articles in the dictionary, click on the image at left (a popup viewer should open) and then use the left-right arrow keys on the keyboard, or click on the far left or far right arrows on the image itself.
The samples are:
ábyssos/άβυσσος [abyss]
agathós/αγαθός [good],
ángelos/άγγελος [messenger, angel],
kýrios/κύριος [Lord, lord], -searching dictionary for a word
kýrios/κύριος [Lord, lord], – searching using Strongs Number
mágos/μάγος [magician, Magus],
méli/μέλι [honey]
New International Commentary: The Book of the Acts
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS:
- Verse-by-verse commentary
- In-depth discussion of textual and critical matters
- Introductions to each book’s authorship, date, purpose, structure, and theology
- Detailed bibliography
DESCRIPTION
First published in 1954, F.F. Bruce’s volume on the Book of Acts in the NICNT series has stood for more than fifty years as a standard commentary on Acts. In keeping with the effort to be faithful to the description “new” in the series title, however, Bruce undertook a thorough revision of this commentary before his death in 1990.
Expanded and fully updated, this volume now reflects the best elements of recent notable contributions to the study of Luke-Acts as well as the author’s own deepened understanding gained from years of further reflection on the text. Whereas the first edition used the text of the American Standard Version of 1901, this revision is based on Bruce’s own fresh translation of the Greek text. The result is a work that makes transparent the walls between the first and the twentieth centuries and enables readers to hear not only the voice of Luke but the Word of God.
….
New International Commentary: The Epistle to the Galatians
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS:
DESCRIPTION
This commentary by Ronald Y.K. Fung has been added to the NICNT series to address significant new questions regarding the study of Galatians that have arisen since the publication of Herman N. Ridderbos’s commentary—the original NICNT volume on Galatians—in 1953.
Begun under the mentorship of F.F. Bruce at the University of Manchester, England, Fung’s work on Galatians offers solid, reliable exposition of the text while also providing a fresh assessment of the large number of interpretive questions—past and present—raised by Paul’s letter. This work also examines Galatians specifically as Paul’s most direct defense and exposition of justification by faith, which Fung says is the central motif of Paul’s understanding of the Gospel.
….