The Lexham Bible Dictionary

John D. Barry

Editor

David Bomar, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, Douglas Mangum, Carrie Sinclair Wolcott, and Lazarus Wentz

Associate Editors

Elliot Ritzema and Wendy Widder

Contributing Editors

Rebecca Brant, Claire Brubaker, Lynnea Fraser, Britt Rogers, Abigail Stocker, Jessi Strong, Rebecca Van Noord, Elizabeth Vince, and Joel Wilcox

Assistant Editors

T. Michael W. Halcomb and Micah Wierenga

Major Contributors

The Lexham Bible Dictionary

Copyright 2016 Lexham Press

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

LexhamPress.com

All rights reserved. You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at permissions@lexhampress.com.

First published digitally in 2011.

Revised and expanded in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016.

Current edition published digitally in 2016.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are the authors’ own translation or are from the Lexham English Bible (leb), copyright 2013 by Lexham Press. Lexham is a registered trademark of Faithlife Corporation. Other Scripture translations are used with permission and are abbreviated with each publisher’s preferred acronym; for copyright information, see each individual translation.

Acquisitions and Production: Scott Hausman, Rebekah Hurst, Jake Mailhot, Justin Marr, and Abby Salinger
Cover Design: Christine Gerhart
Interaction Design: Jahan Afshari

Preface

Lexham Bible Dictionary (LBD) was crafted for a broad audience: the pastor, the scholar, and the curious explorer. LBD is an academic-level resource, but entries always start by laying the foundation for understanding. A curious explorer might need only the initial definition of an article, while a pastor might read half the entry and an academic might mull over the entire article. LBD is designed to help you interact with the biblical text no matter what level of knowledge you have when you start. And as you grow in your study of Scripture, there will always be something new to discover.

Vision

Lexham Bible Dictionary is engaged with the best and most recent scholarship and committed to the authority of the Bible. This is a key tenet of the project: to learn from and wrestle with the full breadth of biblical scholarship, while standing in the rich tradition of the faith summarized by the ancient Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds.

Scope

The Lexham Bible Dictionary includes:

• exhaustive coverage of biblical people, places, and events in their cultural contexts;

• detailed coverage of ancient texts and documents that influenced the Bible’s context;

• clear identification of every person, place, and ancient document related to the Bible—resulting in one article per person, for example, rather than one article on multiple people who share the same name;

• deep exploration of the Bible’s context, textual development, and the process of canonization;

• academic-level content that is written ...