Using the Dictionary Of New Testament Theology in Real Research
The Dictionary Of New Testament Theology is a four-volume reference work edited by Colin Brown, originally published between 1975 and 1978. It covers theological terms and concepts found in the New Testament with contributions from various scholars. If you're doing any serious exegetical work, you will end up at this thing eventually. Colin Brown was the general editor. He brought together contributors who wrote individual articles on specific Greek terms and theological topics. The work is organized alphabetically by headword, with most entries covering a particular Greek word or cluster of related words and their theological significance across the New Testament. Volume 1 runs through entries starting with A to H, volume 2 picks up with I through M, volume 3 covers N through P, and volume 4 starts with Q and goes to the end. It is intentionally theological rather than purely lexical, which distinguishes it from something like BDAG or the TDNT. There is also the updated four-volume Dictionary Of New Testament Theology that some people reference, though you need to be careful not to conflate it with the later New Dictionary of Biblical Theology edited by Scot McKnight and Joseph B. Grigg, which is a different project entirely with different scope and different contributors. They are not interchangeable.
How to actually use it without wasting half your evening
Most people approach DNTT the wrong way. They grab the volume they need, flip to the entry, read it straight through, and close the book. That works fine for a quick look-up but it wastes a lot of time because the entries are not self-contained essays written for linear reading. They are densely packed argumentative pieces that assume you already know the basic linguistic terrain. The method that actually works is to cross-reference within the entry itself first. Each article in DNTT cites other entries and often references specific passages in the New Testament. When you land on an entry for a word like or , note every other headword it mentions, then pull those entries too. Read the cross-referenced entries before you return to the original one. This takes longer upfront but usually cuts your total research time in half compared to reading each entry in isolation. Another practical thing: the indices at the back of each volume are underused. There is a subject index and a biblical references index in volume 4 that can point you to entries you would never think to look up directly. If you are researching a concept like covenant or adoption and you search only by the English term, you will miss entries organized under different headwords. Check the biblical references index for specific book and chapter combinations first.
A specific problem I ran into and how I solved it
I was working on a paper about the use of in Paul and needed to understand how the term functioned theologically beyond the Roman legal background that everyone assumes. I pulled the entry from DNTT and found that Brown's handling of the term was decent but somewhat compressed for a subject this contested. The entry referenced several other articles but did not engage with the most current scholarly debate around the term's background, particularly the discussion about whether it reflects Roman adoption practice or Jewish filial language traditions or both. Here is what I did instead of just accepting the entry at face value. I used the biblical references index to locate every occurrence of the word in the New Testament, then I pulled the actual Greek text for each passage and read the surrounding context. I cross-referenced with the relevant sections in TDNT for the fuller historical development of the term. I also checked the citations at the end of the DNTT entry and tracked down three or four of the key secondary sources it mentioned. This gave me a much more textured understanding than the dictionary entry alone ever could. The workaround is basically this: treat DNTT as a starting point and a finding aid, not as a final authority on any given term. It is excellent for orientation and for getting you into the conversation, but it was published decades ago and scholarship has moved on considerably since then.
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Counter-intuitive things about this reference work that beginners miss
First, the theological focus means that some entries will push a particular interpretive agenda. Colin Brown and several of the contributors were firmly within the evangelical tradition, and that shapes how certain passages are handled. This is not necessarily a flaw, but it means you should be aware of it. When you encounter an entry on a contentious term like justification or grace, note whether the author is arguing a particular position or merely surveying options. The entry on justification by Colin Brown himself, for example, presents a fairly traditional Reformed reading without giving equal weight to recent N.T. Wright-style proposals that were already circulating when the work was published. Second, the alphabetical organization creates artificial boundaries. Some theological concepts span multiple headwords and the entries do not always coordinate with each other. You might read the entry for and then separately read the entry for and find that both are discussing overlapping material without acknowledging the other. Always check whether a concept you are studying appears under more than one headword.
Where to get it and what alternatives exist
The Dictionary Of New Testament Theology is out of print in most physical formats but you can find it through academic libraries, interlibrary loan, or secondhand booksellers like AbeBooks and ThriftBooks. Some university libraries have digitized versions available through their databases. If you are a student without library access, searching for it on eBay or Amazon Marketplace will usually turn up a used set, though you may pay more for the complete four-volume set than the original retail price. For alternatives, BDAG remains the standard lexical resource and it is more up to date on the linguistic side. For theological breadth, the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology edited by Colin Brown is actually the same work, just with a slightly different title depending on which edition you are looking at. The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary and the Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus are useful supplements when you need historical context that DNTT does not emphasize. If you want something more contemporary, the Oxford Studies in Biblical Theology series publishes individual monographs that go deeper than any dictionary entry ever can. One honest limitation worth stating plainly: DNTT is showing its age. The bibliography in each entry reflects scholarship up to roughly the mid-1970s, sometimes early 1980s. If you are writing a dissertation or a peer-reviewed article, relying on DNTT as your primary source for any term will raise eyebrows. Use it for the historical survey and the consensus positions it captures, then supplement with recent journal articles and commentaries for the current state of the discussion.
