Lexham Bible Dictionary Is Complete

Logos Bible Software has completed their Lexham Bible Dictionary. The LBD weighs in at over 4.5 million words in more than 7,000 articles. It took about five years for the 700 contributors from to complete the work. The Dictionary is completely integrated into the Logos system from the beginning. Some articles were written top-notch scholars, for example: Mark Goodacre, “Gospels;” Andreas J. Köstenberger, “New Testament Use Of The Old Testament, Survey;” Michael Bird, “Justification;” Nijay Gupta, “Ethics, New Testament,” “Law in the New Testament,” and “Paul, New Perspective on.”  The LBD used many other less-well-known scholars, but as far as I have seen they are all experts in their field. Some authors are borderline obscure: I have 19 very short articles in the LBD!

When this resource was originally announced several years ago, Logos did some promotion at a national ETS. I recall at the time liking the idea of an online Bible Dictionary, but I was skeptical the articles would be the same quality as the Anchor Bible Dictionary, for example. But as it turns out, the LBD is in fact a worthy competitor to the ABD, and has several advantages over any print dictionary. The Lexham Bible Dictionary was able to assign longer articles for topics a print Dictionary could not devote much space, a clear advantage of an online format. Another advantage is the ability to change and update articles on a regular basis. With a print dictionary, the only way to update is through a supplement volume. Another advantage for Logos users is the Lexham Bible Dictionary is already part of most base packages, making the cost to the average using negligible.

I look forward to seeing if the LBD can gain stature in the academic world. I expect there will be some resistance to citing the LBD, but most of the articles are on a par with the Anchor Bible Dictionary, the resource I would consider the standard reference work for biblical studies for the last 20 years. The Lexham Bible Dictionary represents a new way of presenting scholarly material outside of the confines of a physical book. To have a 6-volume, 7000 page resource on my iPad and with me where ever I happen to be is exciting! While I will always prefer a book to an electronic resource, the LBD is a worthy contribution to the study of the Bible.