DICTIONARIES, AND DESCRIPTIVE WORKS
So far, none of the advice given has touched at all on the writings of men. The Bible Companion is merely a systematic device for reading the Word of God, and a Concordance is only a classification of its words for ready use. This approach has been deliberate and the reason for it already given. Evidently, however, there will come a time when, still without asking for men's opinions as to Bible teaching, we need to ask more than the record gives us about the setting of Scriptural episodes. Facts, historical, topographical, geographical; facts of natural history; facts of Eastern and ancient custom. In the nature of the case, we could not know most of these for ourselves, and we need to be grateful for the records which others have made of them. Dictionaries present the information in the form most closely related to the texts we are concerned with, and in general, we have no hesitation in recommending those which show the greatest reverence to the Bible text. This means suggesting the now unfashionable works of men such as Smith and Kitto rather than more modern literature; but the extent of their information is very wide, as wide as we are likely to want so long as we need other people's advice as to how to acquire it. The field of descriptive works is so large that it is not possible to select any single work or small group for comment here; and their subjects are in general so specialized that they hardly come under the general headings so treated. The Bibliography at the end will refer to some of them.