How to Use a Concordance

Posted by Anonymous , 9/4/2007 Tags:UseConcordance
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How to Use a Concordance

Introduction

A concordance is an alphabetical list of words that appear throughout a text. It gives a list of passages where the word appears so you can see it in context. They're commonly created for major works like the Bible and Shakespeare's writings. They're used in studies of use of a word or phrase in the text. Follow these steps to make the most of a concordance.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Steps

1

Step One

Think of some of your favorite passages from the Bible or Shakespeare's plays (see Resources for links). Experiment with online concordances by searching for a key word from the passage. Choose the word you think will have the least hits.
2

Step Two

Pick a topic you're interested in and search the concordance for it. Some are arranged by topics rather than words that appear in the text. This means you can choose a subject the text discusses but doesn't specifically name.
3

Step Three

Look up a word or subject to see how it appears across versions of a text. The Bible Gateway lets you search words in 21 English versions. A search for Jezebel, for instance, can show you how each version tells the story.
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Step Four

Study the way a certain word is used across passages according to the context given in the concordance. For example, it will show you if the creators of the Old Testament used the word "righteousness" differently from the writers of the New Testament.
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Step Five

Compare passages from different sections of a text or different works by the same author. See how Shakespeare handled relationships in his comedies versus his tragedies by looking up the word "love" in "Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Romeo and Juliet."
6

Step Six

Count the frequency of a word or subject across portions of the text. For instance, "evil" occurs nearly twice as often in the King James Bible as "wicked." A close study of the context these words are used in can give a clue as to why.

Tips & Warnings

  • For scholarly Bible studies, it's useful to pick a concordance that shows you the origins of the word you're looking up.
  • Note you can only search by one keyword in most online concordances.
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