Key Bible and Theological Reference Tools: Interlinears

This post is a re-blog of my post at Rolfing Unshelved.

This post is part of a series entitled Key Bible and Theological Reference Tools. This series seeks to provide one with an introduction to some key Biblical and theological reference tools. In this series one will find basic explanations, significant examples, and other information about these reference tools.

Basic Description of Interlinear

English interlinear Bibles present the Biblical text in its original language along with a more literal English translation immediately below each word. Some English interlinears are formatted reversely, i.e., they present an English translation with the corresponding original language immediately underneath.

Helpful Interlinears

Bible Hub’s online interlinear – This interlinear will prove especially helpful for those who do not know the Biblical languages because it provides “Strong’s numbers” above each word. Clicking on a “Strong’s number” provides one with helpful concordance and lexical information about that specific word (e.g., see רֵאשִׁית 7225).

The NIV Interlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament – John R. Kohlenberger

The Parallel New Testament in Greek and English with Interlinear Translation – Alfred Marshall

Use of Interlinears

Interlinears are helpful tools for those who do not know the Biblical languages (or whose skills are rusty) but would like to involve the original languages in their studies.

For those who know the Biblical languages, interlinears are helpful when one would like to involve and interact with the Biblical languages in his or her study, but not to the extent of a raw exegesis of the original languages “from scratch.”

Interlinear Samples

The NIV Interlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament, Vol. 1, edited by John R. Kohlenberger (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979), 50-51.

The NRSV-NIV Parallel New Testament in Greek and English with Interlinear Translation, edited by Alfred Marshall (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990), 266-267. * Click on photo for larger image.