Catholic Bible Dictionary

general editor, scott hahn

doubleday

Copyright © 2009 by Scott W. Hahn

All Rights Reserved

Published in the United States by Doubleday Religion, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www​.doubleday​.com

doubleday is a registered trademark and the DD colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Nihil Obstat: Monsignor Michael F. Hull, STD, Censor Librorum.

Imprimatur: Most Reverend Dennis J. Sullivan, Auxiliary Bishop and Vicar General, Archdiocese of New York.

The Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat and the Imprimatur agree with the content, opinions, or statements expressed.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hahn, Scott.

Catholic Bible dictionary / general editor, Scott Hahn.—1st ed.

p. cm.

1. Bible—Dictionaries. 2. Catholic Church—Doctrines. I. Title.

BS440.H23 2008

220.3—dc22

2008020687

ISBN 978-0-385-51229-9

First Edition

TO MIKE AQUILINA

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

A to Z

Appendix I: Chronology of the Old Testament

Appendix II: Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah

Index to the Maps

PREFACE

A dictionary is, by definition, a reference book listing terms important to a particular subject along with a discussion of their meanings and applications.

If the Bible is what Christians say it is, can there be any task more daunting than the compiling of a Bible dictionary? For we believe that the Bible is the written Word of God. We believe it is “inspired by God” (2 Tim 3:16). We believe it is not a dead letter, but “living and active” (Heb 4:12). We believe it “must be fulfilled” (Luke 22:37) and “cannot be broken” (John 10:35). What’s more, it is not subject merely to private interpretation (2 Pet 1:20), but to the discernment of the Church. For people can easily “twist” Scripture “to their own destruction” (2 Pet 3:16).

The Bible is as sharp as any two-edged sword (Heb 4:12), and thus it should be handled with care.

Yet it should indeed be handled. The Bible itself exhorts us to attend to its study (1 Tim 4:13) and praises those who “examine the Scriptures daily” (Acts 17:11).

We live in a time of unprecedented opportunities for Bible study. In the 1970s the Catholic Church revised its lectionary—the order of scriptural readings for the Mass. The readings now unfold in a three-year cycle and include all the books of both testaments of the Bible. The schema proved so effective in communicating the Word of God that it has been adopted and adapted by many Protestant bodies as well. Historians may one day judge the new lectionary to be the most significant ecumenical advance of the twentieth century.

The Mass is the one thing that Catholics experience on a weekly basis all their lives, and the Bible is the one book that they will ...