Smith's Bible Dictionary


Smith's Bible Dictionary, originally named A Dictionary of the Bible, is a 19th-century Bible dictionary containing upwards of four thousand entries that became named after its editor, William [Smith (lexicographer)|William Smith]. Its popularity was such that condensed dictionaries appropriated the title, "Smith's Bible Dictionary".

Overview

The original dictionary was published as a three-volume set in 1857 in London by J. Murray, followed by a second edition in 1863, in London and Boston, USA. This was followed by A Concise Dictionary of the Bible, intended for the general reader and students, and A Smaller Dictionary of the Bible, for use in schools. A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Bible, was published simultaneously in London and New York, and a four-volume Dictionary of the Bible, was published in Boston, amongst other things incorporating the appendices of the first edition into the main body of the text.
In the UK, a corresponding second edition of the first volume in two parts, edited by Smith and J. M. Fuller, was published in 1893.
The original publications are now in the public domain; some derivative, commercial versions are still in copyright.
Noted contributors to the dictionary include Harold Browne, bishop of Ely; Charles J. Ellicott, bishop of Gloucester and Bristol; and the Cambridge scholars J. B. Lightfoot, William W. Selwyn, and Brooke Foss Westcott, who would later become bishop of Durham.
One of the American contributors was George Edward Post, a medical doctor and botanist.

Editions

  • A Dictionary of the Bible, edited by William Smith.
  • A Concise Dictionary of the Bible, edited by William Smith.
  • A Smaller Dictionary of the Bible, edited by William Smith.
  • A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Bible, edited by Samuel Barnum.
  • A Dictionary of the Bible, edited by H. B. Hackett.
  • A Dictionary of the Bible, edited by William Smith and J. M. Fuller, 2nd edition.
  • A Dictionary of the Bible, revised and edited by Rev. F. N. Peloubet and M. A. Peloubet, "with the latest researches and references to the Revised Version of the New Testament".