Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon | Francis Brown, S. Driver, ...

Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon | Francis Brown, S. Driver, ... | A hardcover must-have

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Brown-Driver-Brigg...

	Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon Francis Brown, S. Driver, ... Hendrickson Publishers, 1996 - 1216 pages average customer review:based on 36 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Not only for biblical scholars...

As other reviewers have commented, this is an essential book for study of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) in the English-speaking world. However, I'd add that it's also perhaps overlooked as a useful tool for anyone seriously engaged with later/modern Hebrew, simply because (unlike the majority of other dictionaries) words are listed by shoresh (root) rather than purely in alphabetical order, and in each case the full range of biblical usages is listed. I live in Israel, and it's unbelievable the number of times that my BDB has been fetched mid-conversation to check the meaning of the root of a word. Geeky, maybe, but nonetheless extremely worthwhile.

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A hardcover must-have

The BDB is a must-have for lay-person and scholar who wants to explore translation options and other aspects on the area of lexicology.

It is one of the greatest books that aids in defining translation-options. Its' list of occurrences often is sufficient to replace Hebrew concordances. In some cases it even identifies Aramaisms and the like. It has been around for quite a while as authoritative work.

Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon

This is a fantastic reference book for scholarly study of the Bible. Whenever I am unsure of a root word, the BDB is where I look to find the answer.

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A Classic and Great Value for Money

The Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) Hebrew and English Lexicon is a very special dictionary for Biblical Hebrew (and there's a little section at the end for Biblical Aramaic). This is how it works, or at least how I use it. When there is a (Hebrew) word in the Tanakh you don't know or you're not clear about, you page through to it in the BDB. The BDB tells you what type of word it is, whether it's a proper name, noun, verb, etc; it may give you the root in cognate languages such as Akkadian, Arabic, Ethiopic, etc.; and it gives you the various meanings of the word in some of the contexts it is used (with sources and biblical references; it often gives you all the references for the word so that you can use it as a sort-of concordance).
The book was first published in 1906 so it is a classic. It seems that there are more modern lexicons available. If I'm not mistaken (and I stand to be corrected), one modern version I considered seemed very expensive. But the BDB is great value for money. It has about 1200 pages, (mine) is hard-cover (and the cover is nice-looking). It is detailed and clear, and I find it very easy to use. It is also coded with Strong's Concordance Numbers (which I don't use).
It's a pity that the great scholars that gave us this Lexicon devoted so much of their keen minds to the unfortunate documentary hypothesis of higher criticism, whose J's, E's, D's, and P's show their ugly faces in this book, albeit rarely; fortunately, they also gave us BDB, and it is no surprise that it has come to be an essential book for the study of the Tanakh for so many.

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an oldy, but a goodie

This is one of the foremost English-Hebrew lexicons available, but has come under scrutiny in recent years because it is quite dated (about 100 years old). It has been updated to include Strong's concordance numbers, which is quite silly to me because if one is utilizing the BDB regularly, then one's skills are probably far beyond the need for Strong's reference numbers. Despite updates like the inclusion of Strong's reference numbers, BDB, because of its advanced age, does not take into consideration insights which scholars have gleaned from Ugaritic findings and other extra-biblical texts (like the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.). One example is the lack of a "Hishtaphel" stem in the BDB, but which has been attested in Ugaritic literature-scholarship now believes the stem to exist in the Hebrew OT. Another problem beginners may have with this book is that each entry is arranged by its triumvirate root-a skill most beginners won't have until they reach the intermediate reading level. Again, a useful lexicon for age-old comprehensive analysis, but certain compunctions should be considered when in use.

I would recommend the 2-volume "student edition" of HALOT (Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament) instead of BDB.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7, 8

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