Any thoughts on Zondervan Encyclopedia

This set is $134 now. I think it’s been cheaper before at one point. How good/useful is it: https://www.logos.com/product/5467/zondervan-encyclopedia-of-the-bible

Thanks!

DAL

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David Taylor, Jr.

Never used it.

Dave Palmer

I personally like the Zondervan Encyclopedia set and find it to be useful. It is one of my 3 goto bible dictionaries alongside of the IVP and the Anchor Yale sets. I would then put the ISBE and the Baker Encyclopedias to be in my next tier of dictionaries.

The Zondervan Encyclopedias are not quite as academic AYBD or IVP, but the articles are nicely laid out and thorough. The Zondervan set also has more color pictures which are a perc. As far as price goes, it has been cheaper, but I am not sure if it has recently been cheaper. I purchased the set for considerably less back in 2016.

DAL

Thanks, Dave! I’ll put it in my wishlist for now 👍😁👌

Allen Browne

This set is $134 now. I think it’s been cheaper before at one point. How good/useful is it: https://www.logos.com/product/5467/zondervan-encyclopedia-of-the-bible

I used this 5-vol set (on paper) as my main Bible Dictionary for many years. Found it provided invaluable background information for preaching and Bible study. For example, the article on Exodus provided just the right amount of survey on the book's structure and background to get me reading in context.

The version Logos sells shows copyright date 2009, so they may have updated it. My old version is a bit dated now (i.e. lacking recent scholarship). So I've given the old hardback ZPEB away, and I'm using more specialized resources in Logos, turning to AYB or ISBE if I need a general purpose Bible Dictionary.

DAL

There’s an article on different ways to preserve wine. Can someone please post part of it or all of it if it’s not too long?

Thanks!

DAL

Kenneth Neighoff

There’s an article on different ways to preserve wine. Can someone please post part of it or all of it if it’s not too long?

Thanks!

DAL

I did a quick search of preserve near wine. Had two hits:

skin. Biblical references to animal skins used for clothing go back to the narrative of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21). See dress; leather. Rebekah put the skins of kids on Jacob’s hands and neck so that he would feel rough, like Esau, to his blind father (Gen. 27:16). Animal skins were used also to manufacture leather bags for wine (Josh. 9:4 et al.). Jesus, in response to complaints that his disciples were not fasting, commented that people do not “pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved” (Matt. 9:17; cf. Mk. 2:22; Lk. 5:37–38). New wine was still fermenting, and the expansion caused by the resulting gases was easily accommodated by a new stretchable bottle. As skin bottles grew old, however, they lost their elasticity, becoming hard and brittle; new wine would cause them to burst. There are some references to human diseases of the skin. That Job in his affliction suffered from smallpox is a good possibility. He was afflicted with sores from head to toe, to the extent that his friends could not recognize him (Job 2). The condition was very itchy, for he scraped himself with a piece of broken pottery. He commented, “my skin hardens, then breaks out again” (Job 7:5 NRSV). All this fits smallpox, although there are other possibilities. Israelite law addressed the problem of skin disorders (e.g., Lev. 13); see disease (sections on boil, itch, leprosy, scurvy). There are well-known proverbs concerning skin that come from the Bible. Job declared, “I have escaped by the skin of my teeth” (Job 19:20 NRSV). Jeremiah asked, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots?” (Jer. 13:23).

Moisés Silva and Merrill Chapin Tenney, The Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible, Q-Z (Grand Rapids, MI: The Zondervan Corporation, 2009) 532.

IV. Viticulture in Palestine. Viticulture and the production of wine was important in the ANE and is described in the Bible (see vine, vineyard). There are many references to the process of making wine in the Bible (Gen. 40:11; Deut. 18:4; Josh. 9:4; 1 Chr. 27:27; Ezek. 17:5–10). The vineyards were carefully cultivated and protected against vandalism by watchmen located in observation towers. No other plants were permitted to grow between the vines. An owner of a vineyard was exempt from military service at the time of the grape harvest in September, which was the season apparently for great festivity (Jer. 25:30; 48:33). The vintage is referred to in connection with the Feast of Booths (Deut. 16:13). Travelers were permitted to help themselves to the new wine and the poor could take what grapes remained on the ground, as they could with the harvest of all the crops. In the sabbatical year the vineyards, as in the case of all farmlands, were to lie fallow. The grapes were brought from the vineyards in baskets and were usually spread out for a few days in the sun, the effect of which was to increase their sugar content. The grapes were then placed in wine vats and trodden with bare feet. It seems to have been usual for several people to tread out the grapes together, which is the point of Isaiah’s statement about the Messiah treading the winepress alone (Isa. 63:3). The usual wine vat consisted of three sections, two rectangular or circular rock-hewn pits at different levels connected with a channel. The upper pit was the larger one and here the grapes were trodden, the juice accumulating in the lower vat. The upper vat was usually twice the size in area as the lower, but only about half as deep. The wine vats varied in size. Even after the appearance of mechanical winepresses, the wine from trodden grapes was preferred and continued to be produced. After the grapes were trodden, the husks that remained were pressed by means of a wooden plank, one end of which was secured to a socket in the side of the vat and the other end weighted with stones. Numbers of winepresses from Bible times have been discovered in the Holy Land and they vary in size and the number of vats. A winepress might have as many as four vats. The additional vats would allow for the settling of the must in the intermediate levels before the wine entered the final one. Usually the new wine was left in the vat to undergo the first fermentation, which took from four to seven days. It was then drawn or skimmed off (Hag. 2:16). If the vat had a spout, the wine was run off into jars or wineskins to complete the process of fermentation (Matt. 9:17). The whole period of fermentation would last from two to four months, at which time the wine would be ready for use. It would then be placed in smaller jars and skins. At this time the wine was strained through an earthenware, metal, or linen strainer to eliminate such things as grit and insects. Isaiah refers to this straining process when he mentions “wine on the lees well refined” (Isa. 25:6 KJV [Heb., šĕmārîm mĕzuqqāqîm; NRSV, “well-aged wines strained clear”]; cf. Matt. 23:24). To aid in further maturing the wine and to guard against undesirable thickening on the lees, it was periodically poured from one vessel to another. Jeremiah has an allusion to this practice, “Moab has been at rest from youth, / like wine left on its dregs, / not poured from one jar to another—/ she has not gone into exile. / So she tastes as she did, / and her aroma is unchanged” (Jer. 48:11; cf. Zeph. 1:12). When the wine was refined and ready to be stored for long periods of time, it was poured in jars lined with pitch that were sealed and placed in the “wine cellars” (1 Chr. 27:27 NRSV). There apparently were no attempts made to preserve wine in an unfermented state. The Mishnah, for example, does not refer to any such preservation. Some scholars are of the opinion that preserving unfermented grape juice was virtually impossible in ancient times in Palestine (however, see the contrary arguments by Bacchiocchi, Wine in the Bible, ch. 4).

Moisés Silva and Merrill Chapin Tenney, The Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible, Q-Z (Grand Rapids, MI: The Zondervan Corporation, 2009) 1086.

If you had a specific article in mind let me know.

DAL

One last question: Is the Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible the same as the Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible? It seems like the latter is the original one and the former just an updated version of the original; hence, the slight difference in name.

DAL