Hitchcock's compendium of Bible names and their definitions demystifies the meanings of every Bible name from A to Z - thus, it is a superb reference manual for spiritual study. A good supplement to Biblical studies, Hitchcock's book lists the meanings behind the various names. This allows readers to discover the etymological origins of the most famous figures in the Bible, place these names in their proper context, and thus perform readings of the holy scripture from a more informed perspective. Many of the names pertain directly to the qualities of their holders. For example the name Behemoth from the Book of Job simply means 'monstrous', while the name 'Iscariot' (as in Judas Iscariot) means 'a man of murder; a hireling'. Other names are however more nuanced - the name 'Baal' means 'master, or lord', contrasting the demonic connotations applied by 17th century Gothic fiction.

A concise, compact dictionary with thousands of Biblical references. It lists and identifies all proper names, gives data on places and events of the scriptures, pronounciations, definitions and textual references.

In the transmission we encounter various transformations of biblical proper names. The basic phonetic relationship between Semitic languages on the one hand and non-Semitic languages, like Greek and Latin, on the other hand, is so complex that it was hardly possible to establish a unified tradition in writing biblical proper names within the Greek and Latin cultures. Since the Greek and Latin alphabets are inadequate for transliteration of Semitic languages, authors of Greek and Latin Bibles were utter grammatical and cultural innovators. In Greek and Latin Bibles we note an almost embarrassing number of phonetic variants of proper names. A survey of ancient Greek and Latin Bible translations allows one to trace the boundary between the phonetic transliterations that are justified within Semitic, Greek, and Latin linguistic rules, and those forms that transgress linguistic rules. The forms of biblical proper names are much more stable and consistent in the Hebrew Bible than in Greek, Latin and other ancient Bible translations. The inexhaustible wealth of variant pronunciations of the same proper names in Greek and Latin translations indicate that Greek and Latin translators and copyists were in general not fluent in Hebrew and did therefore not have sufficient support in a living Hebrew phonetic context. This state affects personal names of rare use to a far greater extent than the geographical names, whose forms are expressed in the oral tradition by a larger circle of the population.

Who should use this guide? Anyone who desires to pronounce the names of people and places in the Bible with confidence. Do you read passages of the Bible in public? This book is for you. In private devotions, do you gloss over the difficult names? This book is for you. This book was originally begun as a pronunciation guide for myself as I was recording the Douay-Rheims Audio Bible. When I was commissioned to do that work, I was surprised to find that there was apparently nothing currently in print specifically for the Douay-Rheims version that could help me to properly pronounce names of people and places. In order to expedite the narration, I began to compile a list of names and carefully researched pronunciations, and that list became the book that you now hold in your hands. Somewhere along the way, I decided to include the spellings and pronunciations of all the English translations I could find. As far as I know, every spelling of every name in every English translation of the Bible is included in this guide. Since the the genesis of this guide was for the Douay-Rheims Audio Bible, which is a Catholic Bible, names included in the Apocrypha appear here as well. Great effort has been made to include every English Bible translation’s names and places in this work. If the reader would be so kind as to write to me at [email protected] if the reader is aware of omissions, I will include additions in subsequent editions of this guide. It is important to note that in my research, I became aware of the fact that there are differing opinions on the correct pronunciations of many of the names contained in the Bible. Often there really is no one “correct” way to pronounce a specific name. Languages do morph over time, and pronunciations can change. This guide includes the generally accepted pronunciations in the United States in the year 2012.