drowning in new vocabulary?

A word of advice for students of biblical studies—

If the words you come across in your reading are missing from Dictionary.com and nowhere to be found in Webster's New World College Dictionary, try this slim volume co-authored by Richard and Kendall Soulen: Handbook of Biblical Criticism. 

It will orient you to all those words you've never needed to know . . . until now.

Words from halakah and hapaxlegomenon 
to paraenesis and Tannaim. 
As a special bonus, Soulen and Soulen include German terms common to biblical studies and even (drum roll, please!) names of people you'll want to know going forward.

Really. Don't throw in the towel just yet. Everybody starts out clueless in this field and gradually gets acclimated. This is my tenth year in graduate school, and I just consulted Soulen and Soulen this morning for clarification on a term I thought I knew but wanted to be sure. Enjoy the adventure!