Who's Who in the Bible: An Illustrated Biographical Dictionary

by Reader's Digest Association

The pages of the Bible are filled with fascinating men and women - literally thousands of them: saints and sinners, the faithful and the foolish, lovers and liars, giants and generals, priests and prophets, the brave and the cowardly, heathens and healers, the pious and the pitiful. Sorting them out has too often been the task of scholars - until the publication of this beautifully illustrated, clearly written, easy-to-use book from Reader's Digest.

Genres: Reference, Religion, Christian, Nonfiction, History, Christianity, Faith

480 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1994

About the author

The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. is a global media and direct marketing company based in Chappaqua, New York, best known for its flagship publication founded in 1922, Reader's Digest. The company's headquarters are in New York City, where it moved from Pleasantville, New York.

The company was founded by DeWitt and Lila Wallace in 1922 with the first publication of Reader's Digest magazine, but has grown to include a diverse range of magazines, books, music, DVDs and online content.

Reviews

[Margitte]

Read it long ago. Just want to list it. Used it as a cross reference for my review of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan

[Nicole Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a huge book, but it's one of the first ones I pull out when I'm asked a questions. For major characters, there are a few pages of information (heavy on the history which is great in my books!), but even figures of "extreme insignificance" are given their due. Need to read up on Herodias? She's the one who had John the Baptist beheaded. There's a whole three paragraphs on here in here! And what about Jochebed? She was married to her nephew (admittedly, not a great start), but she raised some pretty famous kids - Moses, Aaron and Miriam. Totally just learned that a minute go. For what it is, this book is a trove. If you can find one, pick it up. And use it over Google sometimes.

[Zeeshan Mahmud · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most brutal gangster drops ever in history. Imagine you always wanted to read about welding and metallurgy for kicks and along came a hardcover which had illustrated history of such absurd and obscure subject! Yup. That's exactly how I felt. If you wanna see Old Testament and Jesus stories come alive with various angles from paintings across the centuries - with perfect concoction of coffee table browsing and info-bytes- then this is the sure thing.

Reader's Digest hit it out of the park. Cold. I can read 200 gazillion of pages of these easily.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very wordy, but a worthwhile edition to your spiritual library.

[Vincenzo Ridente · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent reference book if you want to know all the characters in the Bible

[Eric Stutzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite being neither a pastor nor the owner of a Christian bookstore, my parents just so happened to own this book. It has been on one of the shelves in our house for years, and I decided to pick it up and read it. While this has absolutely no story structure (shocking I know), it was very informative and would pair nicely with someone reading through the Bible for the first time. Being as long as it is, the Bible has an extraordinarily high count of names and many of them are markedly similar. This book is the answer to the problems which arise when attempting to figure our the titular question: "Who's Who in the Bible?" This book has the name, description and often picture (painting or other such rendering) for each person mentioned in the Bible, from Adam to Mephibosheth. While I would not recommend reading this book in sessions, like I did, I would recommend having a copy at hand when reading extensively through the Bible itself. In total, the true value of this book lies not in its 'readability', but in its worth as a referential guide.

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not an LDS publication, and therefore some of the entries fail to correspond with what we know from revealed doctrine, but I nevertheless found it an enjoyable reading companion to my latest read-through of the Bible, and the artwork and pictures were beautiful!

[Eve Lumerto · Rating 2 out of 5]

Useful for remembering names when reading for a test about Bible but it doesn't have all the facts right....