Encyclopaedia Biblica

Abstract

IN this work we have an illustration of the fact that similar ideas spring up contemporaneously in different minds. In the same year in which Dr. Hastings' “Dictionary of the Bible” reaches its second volume extending to the letter K, we have the first volume of the work here under review issued to the public. Both have their source and publishers in Edinburgh, testifying to the high interest which Scotland has ever shown in Biblical criticism and Biblical subjects. To us it appears that both works are very much on the same lines, though the writers of the articles are for the most part different, and include those of other nationalities besides British. It would be difficult to say why one of these works takes the title of an “Encyclopædia” and the other of a “Dictionary,” as the articles in both are equally elaborate and comprehensive. Perhaps, in the case of the latter, the idea of a dictionary, as first contemplated, gradually expanded in the minds of the editors, and under force of circumstances, till it became merged in that of an encyclopædia; the more recent work has had the advantage of starting with the more ambitious title. Both works, however, have had their origin in the late Dr. Smith's invaluable “Bible Dictionary,” which for many years past has been a companion to students of Holy Scripture. But so great has been the advance in the critical study of the sacred pages, as well as in our knowledge of Bible lands, for which we are largely indebted to the labours of the committee of the “Palestine Exploration Fund,” that a new work embodying these investigations has become a necessity which the authors of both the Dictionary and Encyclopædia have endeavoured to meet. Encyclopaedia Biblica. Edited by Rev. T. K. Cheyne J. S. Black Vol. i. A to D. Pp. xxviii + 572. (London: A. and C. Black.)