I’ve never been a huge fan of BDB’s organization; I much prefer Holladay’s Concise or HALOT for more pressing issues. (Of course, my BW8 is a great, quick lexicon when needed!!).

As to your question . . . . does BDB NEED revision? A resounding yes. There is Qumran material and Ugaritic texts that can now figure into the discussion. Plus, I think many of us learned on BDB and not HALOT . . . . it is a very fine volume for what it is. I think a revision is in order. Now, the impact of that revision, we shall see. I trust it will be well-received, pending price.

Charles –

This is a great question. Besides the price of BDB, are not the numerous entries which contain every occurence in the HB an advantage over HALOT? Anderson brings up a good point about the deficient evidence in BDB due to its age, but BDB is still the resource I go to for evidence in the HB. It’s true that concordances contains this information as well, but BDB will often show all of the examples of a particular idiom or phrase in one place, which HALOT does not do.

Unfortunately, the student of the HB needs both KB and BDB for sound study based on the lexica.

I agree with what you said about middle Liddel. I own the little Liddel and Big Liddel, but not middle Liddel. Ok.

Though I tend to agree with John that a revision should be done for BDB. BDB is more in-depth than middle Liddel and I think more useful, while at the same time still manageable in one volume. I know it’s comparing apples and oranges.

I do doubt that a revised BDB will be as inexpensive as the Hendrickson reprint, but I still hope that it will be under the $100 range.

A one volume version is nice, but HALOT study edition is two volumes which is fine and the electronic version is even handier. The cognate languages certainly need an update but generally this can be found already in HALOT. I confess that I don’t use lexicons all that much anymore but when I do I very occasionally look at BDB just to see a different interpretation on what a word means–to me this is the primary benefit of BDB: another take on a word.

For all the frustrations that using BDB causes, it is still worth it–while endlessly flipping pages to find the root, the beginning student is actually acquiring the principles of Hebrew morphology.

Plus the advantages mentioned above–reasonable price, and large number of passages cited.

A revised BDB would be nice. After all, that’s what Meyer & Donner have done to its German relative, the Gesenius-Buhl lexicon!

I am very curious about when they are planning to have this project done. They gave a paper on this at SBL Philly in 2005, as Brandon has pointed out, which is almost 4 years ago. They do, however, have a wealth of information to go through: Ugaritic texts and the DSS, among others.

Maybe we can get some blogger reviews . . . . . how would you review a lexicon?!

I do look forward to the revision. Sure, BDB is not ideal for me, but a student of Hebrew needs, as the other John points out above, needs a variety of resources. If I am doing simple translation (and don’t want to cheat and use BW), I would likely use Holladay’s Concise . . . . . But if I am making a lexical argument (as I do in part in my upcoming SBL paper this year) I default to BDB. Seldom have I used KB. Too expensive. And even with it being only 60-75 bucks at SBL this past year, I couldn’t rationalize spending that on a lexicon when I already have others.

BDB has held up well for its age. Though, as I say above, I have some misgivings about its organization. And the inclusion of subsequent textual materials can only strengthen what is already a seminal resource for any student of the Hebrew Bible.

[...] Charles Halton asks whether a revision of BDB is even necessary. Jim West chimes in as [...]

I suppose for me the real question is what will happen with the etymological data. Scholars often decry the BDB’s use of Arabic here, and I suspect that the temptation would be great to do away with this. But is it not possible that, at times, the intuition of these older scholars was heading in the right direction? Will this revision end up trying to emulate the lexicography of KB, thus dismissing other options from the discussion? After all, it is not as if KB/HALOT is perfect – it has defunct etymologies and explanations as well. While we all may want our lexica to be more univocal, there is no denying the fact that some vocables can be tricky to pin down.

Carl, here’s what Hackett & Huehnergard say about Arabic in their article about BDB’s revision:

“Arabic remains problematic, as it was for Brown, Driver, and Briggs. For the classical language, the careful Wörterbuch der klassischen arabischen Sprache, after several decades, has still produced only the volumes for kaf and lam; so one must continue to use the older dictionaries, but always with caution, always asking one’s Arabist colleagues whether such and such a word really exists and really means what the old dictionaries—which all seem to be based on one another—say it means. For the modern Arabic dialects, which must also be consulted, there is a range of dictionaries, which exhibit a range of quality and reliability” (229-30).

Hackett, Jo Ann and John Huehnergard. “On Revising and Updating BDB.” Pages 227-33 in Foundations for Syriac Lexicography III: Colloquia of the International Syriac Language Project. Ed. by Janet Dyk and W. Th. van Peursen. PSL 4. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2009.

I have posted more on BDB’s revision here:

http://sitzimleben.com/2009/07/09/more-on-the-revision-of-brown-driver-briggs/

I believe John Kaltner is revising the Arabic for HALOT.

[...] Getz and Brandon Wason (twice) are among those noting and commenting on the proposed revision of the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon. I found Jim and Barndon’s [...]

I use HALOT more than BDB, in part because HALOT is the required lexicon at DTS. However, I still encourage my students to acquire BDB and actually use it. There are several reasons, mostly stemming from my methodological problems with HALOT. First, HALOT often breaks words into multiple roots when a simple expansion the categories of one root by metonymy (or in some cases metaphor) sufficiently accounts for the differing glosses. Unless one is aware of the mistake in HALOT, he/she would not consult the “second root,” which actually is part of the lexical data belonging to the first root. Second, HALOT often gives a gloss based upon meager evidence in usage—one example in some cases—and the driving force behind the odd gloss sometimes looks to me more theologically driven than informed by usage. In contrast, BDB offers quite “conservative” glosses—-by which I mean the editors strove to not “over interpret” the evidence (I don’t mean “conservative” in the theological sense, but “conservative” in the sense that they give basic data that put responsibility on the exegete to fine tune meaning). In addition, there is one significant advantage to BDB’s arrangement by hypothetical lexical root: all Hebrew words etymologically related (verb, noun, adjective, preposition, adverb) are grouped together. This is extremely helpful in a lexical survey or more in depth study. For example, for the word *hnn/hn* (grace), the adverb usage is quite important in a word study, however, few would even consider looking at the adverb. BDB facilitates this more readily. I would love to see BDB updated, with one line alphabetic entries cross referencing a word to the supposed verbal root entry. If the methodology for doing lexicography in BDB is maintained for the updated version (in contrast to the often overinterpreted and misinterpreted HALOT) it would be a superior lexicon.

Hi John, I agree with the benefits that you list with BDB. One thing I didn’t mention is that I like the graphic arrangement of HALOT better than BDB–it is far easier to find what I’m looking for in HALOT. If they would improve the design and fully update the glosses I would be a very happy BDB user.

If the price of HALOT is a deterrent, you’ll be glad to know that I just placed mine on the Amazon Marketplace (CD-ROM edition) with a price reduction that should make things a lot less painful.