This reference work explores the images, symbols, motifs, metaphors, figures of speech, and literary patterns found in the Bible. With over 800 articles by over 100 expert contributors, this is an inviting, enlightening and indispensable companion to the reading, study, contemplation and enjoyment of the Bible.

This reference work explores the images, symbols, motifs, metaphors, figures of speech, and literary patterns found in the Bible. With over 800 articles by over 100 expert contributors, this is an inviting, enlightening and indispensable companion to the reading, study, contemplation and enjoyment of the Bible.

Learning the meaning and significance of biblical images will revolutionize your grasp of the Bible as a whole. Scripture is packed with symbolic imagery and metaphors: looms, donkeys, water cisterns, grapes, sackcloth—all carry symbolic or emotional weight that sharpens the broader picture of the passage. The biblical authors used their reality to enhance the impact of their message on the audience around them, and the language they used is rich with meaning. The words might be familiar today, but the cultural connotations of things like manna, millstones, or myrrh might be missed by contemporary Christians and might cause us to lose the fullest significance of the Bible passage. The Zondervan Dictionary of Biblical Imagery surveys the use and connotations of familiar images in the Bible to illustrate the intricate and subtle ways they're put to work in the text. The types of entries include: Cultural artifacts from the biblical world (such as arrow or sandal) Components of natural history (such as fox or fig tree) Named places (such as Mount Sinai or Nazareth) Components of Israel's physical geography (such as mountain or wilderness) Each entry describes an image's characteristics, appearance, intended use, and cultural connotations, as well as the rhetorical impact of its use in the Bible. As you read, you'll begin to understand things like why Jesus called for us to become the salt of the earth, why dew was a controversial topic in Bible times, and why a roof might be mentioned to draw attention to a violation of expected norms. With accessible, well-illustrated entries and numerous black & white visuals, The Zondervan Dictionary of Biblical Imagery is an inspiring portal into the biblical world for any student of the Bible.

This updated reference guide directs students to over five hundred significant theological resources across a wide area of theological research. It details bibliographic sources for encyclopedias, dictionaries, and electronic resources in biblical studies, historical studies, theology, and practical theology.

Not an ordinary dictionary-loaded with divine wisdom! The most comprehensive, illustrated Bible-based dictionary of prophetic and dream symbols ever compiled is contained in this one authoritative book! Revelations from God are more common than most people would dare to believewhat is scarce is godly understanding of what is revealed. The Bible-Based Dictionary of Prophetic Symbols is a masterpiece that intelligently and understandably bridges the gap between prophetic revelation and applicationPLUS it includes the expanded version of the best selling Illustrated Bible-Based Dictionary of Dream Symbols. Expertly designed, researched, and Holy Spirit inspired to provide you an extensive wealth of revelation knowledge about symbols and symbolic actions, this book is divided into four parts that go way beyond listing and defining words. Rhema word and divine prompting lift off every page! Biblically sound and supported, best-selling author and pastor Dr. Joe Ibojie discusses in detail topics including: God speaks to everyone, but not in the same way. God speaks in dreams and visions. God speaks in clear language. God speaks in riddles or parables. God speaks in dark speeches Everyone should strive to sharpen all the methods by which God communicates, while mastering the dominant way of receiving from God. When you avoid stereotyping Gods avenues of communication, you open great potentials to hear from Him. -Dr. Joe Ibojie

"Reading the Bible as Literature provides the ideal entry-point to the process of reading, understanding, and assessing what many recognize to be the important and powerful literature of the Bible. Such reading holds potential for helping students understand literature generally and the Bible in itself. The book introduces the tools of literary analysis, including: language and style, the formal structures of genre (narrative, drama, and poetry), character study, and thematic analysis. The book emphasizes the act of reading itself, focusing upon the whole text as it exists in its current form. It invites an experiential entering into and reliving of the Bible's stories, encourages analytical and holistic reading, explores multiple interpretations, and embraces a power of language originating in the mythological, metaphorical, and symbolic. Above all, the book seeks to return the Bible to the common reader and to build in that reader an appreciation for a collection of ancient, literary texts often trivialized by competing theologies or marginalized by a relentless insistence upon fact, science, and history." -- Back cover.

The symbolism of Revelation has puzzled readers for centuries. Every generation falls prey to extreme views of interpretation. Even worse, they minimize the importance of John's Apocalypse by not teaching or preaching from it. Yet Revelation is a profound work of New Testament theology and warrants a close study. John expects and prepares believers to follow the Lamb through suffering and possible martyrdom. The problem is centered on what the symbols mean. Are they literal? Are they symbolic? Do the images refer to events and people in the first century, or to the last days of planet earth? Moreover, how is the book structured? Is it one vision, four visions, or more? Are the visions linear or recapped? Lions, Locusts, and the Lamb: Interpreting Key Images in the Book of Revelation demonstrates a way to unlock John's structure and unravel his symbols. The key is to follow a logical step-by-step interpretive approach that accents the historical, cultural, intertextual, extratextual, and particularly intratextual allusions and connections. The result is a book that delivers the basic meaning of three hundred images and categorizes them into an accessible guide for teachers, preachers, and readers of Revelation.

Have you ever wondered why you exist? Does your child ever ask, “Why aren’t other kids like me?” This book touches on historical issues that will affect us even to this very day. It involves a journey that so many have never thought of taking. Yet, Beezar Bush had no other options. Beezar Bush also pondered those questions above. His plant life reveals the tough road he will venture into. When Beezar was at the lowest point in his plant life, something happened to him. He did not understand the ultimate value of his existence and this chance meeting in the desert of Mt. Sinai. This meeting not only affected Beezar and every offspring of plants he could ever put forth, but it also had a redemptive outcome for the people of Israel. Of course, this viewpoint is from Beezar’s experience of it. Beezar was invited into a redemptive factor for a future event, in which his bush offspring will be used again in a redemptive and selfless act of a very brave and holy man approximately 1,500 years later.

The Bible is clear that the Holy Spirit is a person. But how can human beings understand who he is? Scripture helps us by giving us strong word pictures of the Spirit as wind, fire, a counselor, anointing oil and more. In eight-session LifeGuide® Bible Study, Dale and Sandy Larsen explore images and representations of the Holy Spirit in Scripture.

Postcolonial biblical criticism took shape, largely, by critiquing the book of Exodus. Because of the eventual dispossession of Canaanites in the conquest narratives, so goes the thinking, the Hebrews’ God amounts to little more than a dangerous, destructive, and ethnocentric figure. In Hyphenating Moses Federico Alfredo Roth challenges this consensus by providing an alternative reading of its early narratives (1:1-3:15). Redeploying postcolonial theory and themes, Roth presents a reading of these well-known scenes as orbiting around the topic of identity formation, climaxing in the burning bush episode. In the giving of the name, YHWH promotes the virtue of conceiving identity as a malleable reality to be sought after by all parties caught in the dehumanizing discourse of colonial subjugation.