Glad I purchased this volume

a.k.a. “Little Kittle” or “Baby Kittle”

I had seen the full ten volume set of this resource on the bookshelves of many pastors and of most of my professors at seminary. But the 10 volume set is very expensive, so I was glad when I discovered this one volume abridgement. I purchased it when I was studying Greek at Denver Seminary, back in 1989.

I used it some during seminary and even after that in my personal Bible studies, but more so when I started working on my Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament (ALT). However, I probably turn to Colin Brown’s 4 volume New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology more than I do this “little Kittle.” I probably am influenced by my seminary professors in this regard as they seemed to prefer Brown over Kittle.

The arrangement of this volume is by Greek words, but with the letters transliterated into English letters. For each entry, the main English word is given first in bold, then in brackets is a one word definition, followed by related words with the same format.

Then the main article begins with a discussion of the use of the word(s) in classical literature. Then there’s a discussion of the usages of the word(s) in the LXX translation of the Hebrew OT, often indicating what Hebrew word the LXX was translating, the usage in latter Judaism is given, then is the discussion of the usage on the NT, followed by the usage in the Apostolic Fathers.

So lots of information is presented, and if you read through the entire article for a word, you will definitely gain full knowledge of the history and usage of the word. However, the thoroughness of this volume can sometimes be a drawback. It is just too much information and takes too long to read through. Most of the time when studying a word, you don’t need that much background, so standard lexicons, like the ones on the BibleWorks software program, provide sufficient info.

But that said, I am glad I purchased this volume when I did. I didn’t refer to it that often in my translation work, but on the occasions that I did, it helped to clarify how to translate a particular word.