Excerpt from The Illustrated Bible Dictionary

Modern scholarship, research, and discovery have thrown a flood of new light upon the Bible during recent years; especially in regard to textual criticism, comparative religion, the knowledge of Oriental languages and dialects, the deciphering of inscriptions, archaeology, geography, etc.

It has been felt, therefore, that the time was ripe for putting such results before the general public in a compact and accessible form, such as would be best found in a Bible Dictionary in one volume; and a very large number of bishops, scholars, teachers, archaeologists, linguists, and divines were consulted, with the result that their replies showed a general consensus Of Opinion as to the need Of such an enterprise, and to them the Editor 13 indebted for their warm approval and encouragement and for much valuable advice. The spirit in which the endeavour has been made to produce a volume worthy of such commendations of the scheme is best expressed by a quotation from our prospectus The defence of Holy Scripture is a sacred duty of the Church of God and the present work has been carried out in the faith that it will be a contribution to a deeper knowledge of, and therefore greater reverence for, the word of God and it is the earnest desire Of the Editor and contributors that this aspiration may be realized.

While this Dictionary is frankly conservative in the right sense of that much misunderstood term, none Of the additions of value made to our knowledge by criticism, which are within the scope of a volume of this size, have been neglected. On this point the definition Of the word conservative, given in our instructions to writers, may help to avoid misinterpretation Of our purpose By 'conservative is meant that atti tude of mind which, while welcoming all ascertained results of investigation, declines to accept any mere conjectures or theories as final conclusions, and believes that the Old Testament will emerge with reinforced authority from the ordeal of criticism as the New Testament did in the last genera tion. In short, the aim of the writers has been, to quote our prospectus again, to combine modern research with ancient faith. The need of this was excellently expressed, many years ago, by Bishop Lightfoot, and his words remain equally true to-day In criticism as in politics, the voice of the innovators, even though they may not be numerous, cries aloud, and thus gives the impression of numbers; while the conservative Opinion of the majority is unheard and unnoticed.

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