Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary

First, the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (ABD) in print is six volumes of approximately 1200 pages each, so it has far more in-depth articles than what you'll find in the other dictionaries. I would suggest you do a comparison on one entry from the ABD with the same entry from the best of your other dictionaries. I don't think it would be kosher for me to send you an entire entry for comparison, and there are no sample pages either on logos.com or amazon.com or books.google.com, so unless you have access to the print edition in a nearby library you'll have to settle for word counts. The entry for AARON, for example, is 5898 words in ABD, but only 1398 words in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia ISBE (I've only got the 1915 edition; the 1995 ed. would surely be somewhat better), 1342 in Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, etc.

Second, the ABD is an interfaith (Jewish-Christian), multicultural, and interdisciplinary effort by nearly 1000 contributors, so it's going to have a broader scholarly approach than most of the single volume dictionaries would. That's not to say you'd agree with it theologically in all cases where it's talking about something other than neutral objective information, but you might find out some things you wouldn't from a more focused dictionary.

Read the user reviews of the print edition at Amazon.com to get a feel for whether it's something you'd want to own: http://www.amazon.com/Anchor-Bible-Dictionary-Set/dp/038542583X. Also read the review of it in Recent Reference Books in Religion, entry 60, starting at the bottom of p. 98 (pp. 98-99 are available on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=Wxe3f6YkxSoC&pg=PA98&v=onepage)

It's really an excellent resource, and one that should not be lacking in anyone's library who is committed to such a full library as the Portfolio includes. But I could certainly understand not wanting to spend more money when you've already shelled out what you did for the Portfolio.

Damian McGrath said:

It would be a great suggestion for Logos to have a page on Bible Dictionaries which included several excerpts from each dictionary.

Good idea. I was all excited at first to see that there was a video describing the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary on its product page, but then I was very disappointed to see that all it did was tout what a wonderful thing it was to have a print book in Logos format. If people don't know this already by the time they are considering adding a book like ABD to their library, I'm not sure a video is going to convince them. What a wasted opportunity to talk about the unique features of the ABD as a reference work, not how the Logos version of it differs from the print version. Well, I shouldn't say the video itself is a waste -- it's a good video on why Logos electronic books are great, but it isn't all that specific to the ABD so it doesn't really belong buried on its page.

VladimirLukyanov said:

I have a value question for those who have this product: is it worth getting Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary for a person who has a Portfolio base package.  At the moment I have 12 Bible Background resources and 23 more Bible Dictionaries. Is there significant content in AYBD that is not elsewhere?

ABD?  Three words: "GET IT!"  (OK.  That was two words but I am trying to get your attention.  It is one of my very best resources.