The Bible Encyclopedia on this website is composed from three public-domain reference works. All sources were originally written in English and have been translated into Dutch by us.
Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897)
3,802 articles — Public domain — Compact and reliable
Author
Matthew George Easton (1823–1894) was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and theologian. He studied at the University of Edinburgh and served as a minister in Darlington, England. Easton was a thorough Bible scholar who wrote his dictionary as a help for ordinary Bible readers.
Description
The Illustrated Bible Dictionary was published posthumously in 1897 by Thomas Nelson. It contains short, clear articles on biblical persons, places, concepts and customs. It is intended as a quick reference when reading God’s Word.
Theological position
Easton wrote from a conservative-evangelical conviction. He defended the historical reliability of Scripture and wrote with reverence for God’s Word. The dictionary is faithful to the Bible and takes the text seriously as God’s revelation.
Strengths
- Concise and clear — ideal as a first reference work
- Faithful to the Bible and conservative
- Good etymological information on names
- Practically useful for daily Bible reading
Limitations
- Brevity: some subjects are only briefly treated
- Dates from 1897 — 20th-century archaeological discoveries are absent
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)
~9,000 articles — Public domain — The most extensive conservative biblical encyclopedia
Editor
James Orr (1844–1913) was a Scottish Presbyterian theologian and professor at the United Free Church College in Glasgow. He was a leading defender of orthodox Christian doctrine and one of the authors of The Fundamentals (1910–1915), the publication series that laid the foundation for fundamentalism.
Under his editorship more than 200 scholars contributed to the ISBE, including John L. Nuelsen, Edgar Y. Mullins and Morris O. Evans.
Description
The ISBE is the most extensive English-language biblical encyclopedia in the public domain. The work appeared in five volumes (1915) and treats biblical persons, places, concepts, theological themes, archaeology, geography and linguistic questions. Articles range from short definitions to extensive treatises of tens of pages.
Theological position
The ISBE was written from a conservative-evangelical standpoint. The editors expressly defended:
- The inerrancy of Scripture
- The historical reliability of the biblical narratives
- The divine inspiration of the Old and New Testament
- The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ
The work takes a clear position against the biblical criticism that arose in the 19th century and defends the traditional dating and authorship of the books of the Bible.
Strengths
- Very extensive — the most complete reference work in the public domain
- Faithful to the Bible and scholarly grounded
- Excellent articles on archaeology and geography
- Thorough treatment of theological themes
Limitations
- Dates from 1915 — important archaeological finds (Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi) are missing
- Sometimes polemical against the biblical criticism of that time
- The digital extraction from the SWORD format unfortunately contains errors in some of the articles (incomplete texts, wrong article boundaries). We are working on improvement.
Note: The ISBE articles in our encyclopedia were extracted from the SWORD Project (CrossWire Bible Society). Due to limitations of the digital format, some articles may be incomplete or contain erroneous text. Easton’s and Nave’s are 100% correctly extracted.
Digital sources
- SWORD Project (CrossWire Bible Society) — open-source Bible software from which the digital texts were extracted
- Internet Archive — scanned originals of all three works
- CCEL (Christian Classics Ethereal Library) — alternative digital source
License
All three source works are public domain. The Dutch translation is likewise free of copyright. You may freely use, copy and distribute the texts.