[stephanos]

I've read somewhere (I think jesus-is-lord.com) that there are good and bad Strong's concordances. I'm curious if this is something any of you know of, and if so could you recommend a good strongs exhaustive concordance? I have the modern Strongest Strong's by zondervan but after reading that its based on the work done for the concordance of the NIV I began to wonder if I should get a decent copy. I don't use the greek and hebrew in it since it's based on the work of a bunch of NIV scholars. I use the Brown Driver Brigggs Hebrew and English lexicon (the stand for all Hebrew students) and the Thayer Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Both of those use the strongs numbering system so they work well.

Peace and Love,
Stephen

[PB1789]

Hello Stephanos. Yep! The John Kollenberger, N.I.V. and Zondervan bunch just hate and despise the venerable Authorized Version (and all the many reference books that have been keyed to it) so much that they must have sat up nights holding hands whilst reciting pagan poems and starring into bonfires...

Finally it dawned on them!; "Hey---let's pretend we are helping Prof. Strong and his excellent work...we'll call it "stronger than Strongs" ,,,but we will dummm it down by using NIV lingo and putting lies (bold ones and subtle...hint- read Genesis 3) in there. When people look up words that are in their Authorized Bibles for centuries...We'll cast doubt on them and say: ..." That is not found in the best manuscript evidence, or "Older texts don't have that verse"....blah-blah-blah. At least the NASB had the honesty to mention in the page footnotes/margin notes when or why they put brackets {} around something...The NIV bunch just leaves out portions of Holy writ at their own whim!

I was still working at a Christian book store when that edition came out---and I immediately felt the "warning buzzers" going off. Whenever I could,I'd guide the customer to a real Strong's Concordance. Also the binding/cover material is not the same quality that the real Strongs or Youngs came with. Cheap Zondervan stuff! IMO- as soon as you can afford to, shop at a used book store or an online book dealer or auction site and get yourself a tried and true Strongs concordance...with NOTHING that says N.I.V., or Kollenberger or the Zondervan bunch.

[George]

Originally Posted by stephanos

I've read somewhere (I think jesus-is-lord.com) that there are good and bad Strong's concordances. I'm curious if this is something any of you know of, and if so could you recommend a good strongs exhaustive concordance? I have the modern Strongest Strong's by zondervan but after reading that its based on the work done for the concordance of the NIV I began to wonder if I should get a decent copy. I don't use the greek and hebrew in it since it's based on the work of a bunch of NIV scholars. I use the Brown Driver Brigggs Hebrew and English lexicon (the stand for all Hebrew students) and the Thayer Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Both of those use the strongs numbering system so they work well.

Peace and Love,
Stephen

I used Strong's (never as a Lexicon - only as a Concordance) from 1968 up until Swordsearcher came along (1996?). Since then I have no need of Strong's since Swordsearcher is 100 times faster; far more convenient; and 100 times more flexible than Strong's (estimates may be on the "low side").

Try to do a "multiple" word study in Strong's - for instance: Take the words heart, mind, and conscience; (our "faculties"); and body (the flesh), soul, and spirit (our "substance") - all of which make up the "attributes" of man. Try to do a comparative study of these words in combinations of 2 or more in Strong's - why if you tried to do it in Strong's it would take years to sort through, collate, categorize, compile, and catalogue the approximately 950 occurrences in 880 verses for the word "heart"; the approximately 111 occurrences in 108 verses for the word "mind"; the approximately 32 occurrences in 30 verses for the word "conscience"; the approximately 537 occurrences in 498 verses for the word "soul"; the approximately 144 occurrences in 134 verses for the word "spirit" (of man only); and the hundred's of occurrences for body (flesh, etc.).

With Swordsearcher you not only can do all of this more quickly, but you can print everything out without any hand copying or typing. Why would anyone want to use Strong's (a horse and buggie); compared to Swordsearcher (a combination Lamborghini & Tractor Trailer)?

[Brother Tim]

Amen, George!

[stephanos]

Originally Posted by George

I used Strong's (never as a Lexicon - only as a Concordance) from 1968 up until Swordsearcher came along (1996?). Since then I have no need of Strong's since Swordsearcher is 100 times faster; far more convenient; and 100 times more flexible than Strong's (estimates may be on the "low side").

Try to do a "multiple" word study in Strong's - for instance: Take the words heart, mind, and conscience; (our "faculties"); and body (the flesh), soul, and spirit (our "substance") - all of which make up the "attributes" of man. Try to do a comparative study of these words in combinations of 2 or more in Strong's - why if you tried to do it in Strong's it would take years to sort through, collate, categorize, compile, and catalogue the approximately 950 occurrences in 880 verses for the word "heart"; the approximately 111 occurrences in 108 verses for the word "mind"; the approximately 32 occurrences in 30 verses for the word "conscience"; the approximately 537 occurrences in 498 verses for the word "soul"; the approximately 144 occurrences in 134 verses for the word "spirit" (of man only); and the hundred's of occurrences for body (flesh, etc.).

With Swordsearcher you not only can do all of this more quickly, but you can print everything out without any hand copying or typing. Why would anyone want to use Strong's (a horse and buggie); compared to Swordsearcher (a combination Lamborghini & Tractor Trailer)?

LOL, awesome. Good stuff. I might consider using Swordsearcher, however I don't use windows, and I'm not to fond of using wine to emulate windows applications on linux. To be honest, I love to have a book in my hands when I can. Perhaps it isn't the most efficient way to do things, but people did things this way for centuries before the late great Swordsearcher, lol. I'm sure Diligent has done a good job on it. Another thing I'm not fond of is running closed source applications on my computer. I have gnomesword which works just 'ok' but I still find more often than not that I would rather just grab the book that is sitting right in front of me.

I appreciate the cool response. I'm not doggin on Swordsearcher one bit, and if I could talk my mother into using the KJB (trust me I've been trying for years) I'd recommend it to her. I will however recommend it to others.

Much Love in Christ,
Stephen

[Greektim]

I have to agree with George. Strong's is only good for an English Concordance. Why waiste your time with Strong's? It is weak as far as lexicons go. It barely scratches the surface on word meanings and the semantical range. It is the tip of the iceberg. It lacks many good resource referrals too.

[Brother Tim]

I agree with GreekTim. The weakness of Strong's definition section is that it gives you a false sense of knowledge that you have enough information to develop an interpretation. Because it only uses the root word, it is very limited. The additional flaw is that one who uses it "thinks" that he has a greater insight to the "true" meaning of the text. The only value that I have for Strong's definitions is the meaning of Hebrew and Greek names of people and places. Even those are more for curiosity than deeper interpretation.

As a concordance, Strong's is useful because every word is listed. As has been pointed out, the limitation is in the search capability compared to most computerized concordances. I used it for many years, but it gathers dust now that I have SwordSearcher!

[Greektim]

Where Brother Tim and I would disagree is that I would recommend lexicons that are in depth and extremely accurate based on a careful study of etymology, philology, other semitic languages, history, and context of other ancient writings as well as Biblical ones. The 2 best lexicons are for Hebrew: Brown, Driver, & Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (aka BDB) & for Greek: Bauer, Danker, Arndt, and Gingrich A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (aka BDAG). Thayer, Moulton & MIlligan, & Liddell & Scott are some good ones too.