International Standard Bible Encyclopedia 1915 with references to Bible verses Containing more than 9 300 entries, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, also known as the ISBE, is an exhaustive Biblical encyclopedia that explains in detail every significant word in the Bible, and also includes historical information from the Apocrypha. It provides detailed information on the language and literature of the Bible world, their cultures and the historical and religious environments of the people of the Bible in articles by nearly 200 scholars.