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All the Men of the Bible/All the Women of the Bible Compilation

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The Life and Times of All the Men and Women of the Bible Bringing together two books in one convenient volume, All the Men/All the Women of the Bible is a portrait gallery and reference library of over 3,400 named biblical characters. Taken from the time-honored “All” series by Dr. Herbert Lockyer, this book mines the wealth of Scripture to give you characters you can learn from, teachings you can apply, and promises you can stand on. All the Men This monumental book puts comprehensive information on the men of the Bible at your fingertips, including a list of major characters. Besides named individuals, it also classifies the thousands upon thousands of unnamed men. It includes a guide to the often complex pronunciations of biblical names. And it explores the attributes of Jesus, God’s model for biblical manhood. All the Women From Abi to Zipporah, discover how the lives and character of different biblical women, named and unnamed, mirror the situations of women today. More than 400 profiles offer fascinating insights into the Bible’s multidimensional women. Wives, mothers, single women, prophetesses, queens, leaders, villainesses, and heroines—all are portrayed in rich, thought-provoking detail.

687 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1996

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About the author

Herbert Lockyer

226 books28 followers
Dr. Herbert Lockyer was born in London in 1886, and held pastorates in Scotland and England for 25 years before coming to the United States in 1935. In 1937 he received the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Northwestern Evangelical Seminary. In 1955 he returned to England where he lived for many years. He then returned to the United States where he continued to devote time to the writing ministry until his death in November of 1984.

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Profile Image for Nathan Albright.
4,488 reviews165 followers
January 11, 2017
All The Men Of The Bible, by Herbert Lockyer

I read this book as part of an omnibus collection with its companion volume All The Women Of The Bible, and this book does a good at aiming to be as inclusive as possible concerning the people that are mentioned in the Bible. In fact, having read this book, I would say that this is the sort of book that is made for those who are talking about the Bible and want to do justice to some of the more obscure people of the Bible. A common concern among those who preach from the Bible is that people can become bored or indifferent to hearing about the same few incidents from the same famous people over and over again, and it is therefore worthwhile to examine some of the more obscure people who are nonetheless important within the pages of scripture. It should go without saying that I am someone who has a great love of writing about fellow obscure people [1], and on those grounds alone I find this to be quite a worthwhile and interesting book from someone who certainly aims at completeness.

This book is more like a one-volume biographical dictionary of the people of the Bible, and in almost 400 pages it manages to be an encouragement to more in-depth Bible study and the source of material for a host of biographical articles, sermonettes, and longer messages. Any book that can help someone write and speak better about the people of the Bible is one that deserves a considerable amount of praise. As far as its contents are concerned, most of them are somewhat straightforward, in that the book begins with a short discussion from the author about the romantic history of Bible names and how some of them have endured to the present day as personal names, including my own first name and that of many members of my family. The author then spends more than 300 pages discussing all of the men named in the Bible, some of them briefly and some in considerably more detail of the kind that would serve as the outline for an essay or sermon message. In the process more than 3000 named men are discussed, sometimes only with a single line detailing their bare mention in a genealogical or prosographic passage within scripture. After this the author discusses some of the unnamed people within scripture, giving the reader the following warm praise at the end of this section: "For ourselves, it is sufficient to know that, whether our names are blazoned abroad or unknown, easy or difficult to pronounce, short or long, full of meaning or unattractive, they are written upon God's palms and in heaven every child of His is to have a new name (Isaiah 49:16, Revelation 2:17) (360)." After this the author has a short discussion of the name that is above all, namely our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Despite the fact that this book is very excellent and a worthwhile resource for anyone who reads or speaks on scriptural matters and is looking for relatively fresh and reasonably obscure material that may not be familiar to many people and therefore might provide an entrance into getting someone to think about a biblical matter rather than simply brush it off as being too similar to what they have read or heard so many times before, there are at least a few areas where this book is worthy of some criticism. Most seriously, the author separates out as different people those who are almost certainly the same people. Sometimes the author makes a note that one listing may be the same as another person, but sometimes he does not, as he when he separates out four listings for what is likely the same Obed-Edom, Korahite gatekeeper. There are also times where it is obvious that the author wishes to draw some larger theological point out of what are at times rather slender bits of biblical evidence, leaving the author to speculate and occasionally grasp at straws. These are, however, minor quibbles as the book is an immensely worthwhile reference material that is likely to be appreciated by a wide variety of speakers and writers.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

All The Women Of The Bible, by Herbert Lockyer

As the obvious and inevitable companion volume to the author's previous work All The Men Of The Bible [1], it is easy to wonder how this book compares. Fortunately, although the author has a certain approach in desiring for completeness as much as possible, making this book a somewhat bulky 300 page book like its companion volume, it has its own charm and can be read profitably apart from the other, as it is written with a slightly different audience in mind. Being as far as I can to the author, I can reasonably say that Mr. Lockyer ends up being one of those men who can be seen as particularly sympathetic to the plight of women, and someone who respects and enjoys women, even if his views were old fashioned at his own time and are very old fashioned in our own--he is no cave-dwelling sexist, but rather someone who has a fairly obvious high degree of moral standards that he holds both men and women to, and an appreciation for women not merely for external beauty but also for wisdom and courage. This is a book that I could see being of particular appeal to high-minded women who want a thoughtful account of the biblical presentation of women.

In terms of its contents, this is a book of considerable complexity. Aside from the issue of its 300 page length, which will be a bit daunting for some readers, this is a book that is front-loaded in terms of the heaviness of its contents. The book opens with a short chapter on the life and lot of biblical women, showing the author to be immensely sympathetic to the plight of women in ancient history and showing as well the high-mindedness of the Bible when compared with the heathen nations around. After this there is about 150 pages on an alphabetical exposition of named Bible women from Abi (the mother of Hezekiah) to Zipporah (the wife of Moses) that takes up about half the book, including a lot of biographical essays that could likely serve as inspiration for writing on important biblical women [2]. After this there is a chapter of almost 80 pages on the nameless women of the Bible in order of their appearance in Protestant bibles, and another chapter of a bit more than 20 pages on symbolic and representative women also in biblical order of appearance. At this point there are three relatively short chapters that follow where the author gives aids to women's groups and meetings, sample biographical studies of biblical women (and notable women from history), and some uncomfortably sappy messages for Mother's Day, followed by a short bibliography and two indices.

Although this is a very good book, it is not a perfect book. Some criticism can be made for the credulity in which the author holds certain nonbiblical historical accounts, especially from the Talmud, which expands the material in length but does not usually offer a great deal of improvement in terms of the content. Additionally, and perhaps more troubling, is the way that the author on at least a couple of occasions (namely with Dinah and Tamar, daughter of David) seems to blame the rape victim for having been seduced. As a rape survivor myself, I tend to find the author's attitude towards the women described as rape victims here to be highly troubling in the way it goes out of its way to attack the character of the women rather than to place the responsibility where it belongs. Aside from this, the book ought to be of interest to those who wish to know more about what the Bible says about women, and how a knowledge of the biblical view of women can be a corrective to our own misconceptions and prejudices. Despite its imperfections, this is a book that in many ways is worthy of appreciation and appropriation as a reference book.

[1] See, for example:

http://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017/...

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...
171 reviews1 follower
November 11, 2023
A better resource than a good reaf, but an excellent resource indeed. A first stop for all character study. Just like all of the rest of the series excellent and impressively exhaustive.
Profile Image for Nicole.
276 reviews1 follower
October 13, 2014
I find this book to be an excellent source for reference to obtaining a better in-depth look at the lives, traditions, and circumstances to the men and women of the bible.
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