Strong's, Lexicons and Greek Semantics

I enjoy my Bibloi 8, a very powerful tool. but I think now that Logos looks like a better package. For example, you can access the abridged TDNT in Bibloi, but apparently only if you bought it separately.

Thanks for the input, Rob. I think the preface fairly states the case from the TDNT side.

While I believe that in certain limited cases the NT redefines words somewhat (agapaw, ekklhsia, etc.), I think that many words thought to be special (justification, atonement, etc.) should be interpreted in their normal, 1st century secular sense. While I believe in verbal-plenary inspiration, the New Testament was not written to be a secret book not understandable in their normal, day-to-day language by the first century Greek, Roman or Jew. (And I know you're not advocating that.)

 

Hi, Hank.

I've had TDNT in the back of my mind for decades! But there's always been something more important to buy. And in recent years with the dollar being so weak against the yen, it's just been out of reach.

I love historical linguistics. I remember once copying off from TDNT the whole long article on "apostle" for research. However, for a translator what is important is not the etymology, but the 1st century usage of the koine word. The semantic development of a word is only rarely useful.

Good advice. TDNT is not for the theologically illiterate.

The only time I ever use Strong's is when there is nothing else available. I certainly don't use it for translation work or serious exegesis.

 

From a translator's viewpoint, the thing about a theological dictionary is that if the translator doesn't already know what he believes about a theological term by the time he sits down with his committee of nationals, he's in trouble! For example, after I explained justification to my partner Uncle Miya, he immediately knew which Japanese phrase (there s no one word in Japanese) was the right one.

 

I have several other helps in semantics for the translator or student of Greek that I'll briefly list.

First of all is Synonyms of the New Testament, by Richard Chenevix Trench. I have a reprint of the 9th edition which was published in London in 1880. A PDF of this can be downloaded at: http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/New_Testament_Greek/Text/Trench-Synonyms.pdf. The truth is, this work is very dated, but the further truth is that for its subject matter this book is unique, which is why it is still in print after over 130 years. Its value is not in its definitions, which lack input from the papyrii, but in its comparisons of the usages of NT synonyms. The index lists over 360 words that are discussed. As for more recent books, the well-respected Stewart Custer of Bob Jones U. has a book out, A Treasury of NT Synonyms, but I'm afraid it's out of print and I don't have it (alas).

Another valuable resource is Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek, by Bruce Metzger. This book has two parts to it: I. Words classified according to frequency and, II. according to roots. It has five appendices with charts and lists on Indo-European, "Prepositions in Composition with Verbs," and various other parts of speech compared.

Finally, I have New Testament Word Lists, by Clinton Morrison and David Barnes. This gem has lists of Greek words with English glosses for every single chapter of the NT--a valuable resource!

 

Louw-Nida​

Now we come to one of the most recent lexicons, one which has an unusual format. The Louw-Nida lexicon was edited by Johannes P Louw and Eugene Nida. Louw is a South African scholar, little known in America. Nida is of course the author of numerous books on Bible translation and the originator of the dynamic equivalence (functional equivalence) method of Bible translation. Strangely enough, though Nida is an acclaimed translation consultant, he never translated the Bible himself, though as a young man he went to the Tarahumara area of northern Mexico for the purpose of translating the Bible into a tribal language. Health problems prevented him from ever translating. He later earned a master’s degree in Greek and a PhD in linguistics. (Some sources say his master’s was in NT Greek, but I suspect it was in classical Greek, since it was from a secular university.)

The unusual setup of this lexicon is that it groups words in what is called “semantic domains” rather than alphabetically. Therefore it is a two volume work, one volume being an alphabetical index to the words of the main lexicon, in which the words are grouped according to their semantic domains. The theory of semantic domains is that words should be defined according to the words that are in the same discourse, a slightly different concept than that context rules meaning. Unfortunately, this means that one criticism of the work is that Nida did not use the first century papyri in formulating his meanings (Let the Words be Written, by Philip Stine, p. 152).

The semantic domain setup also means that this lexicon is difficult to use. There are two volumes to the lexicon, an alphabetical index and the main lexicon. If you don’t know the right semantic domain, you have to first look up the Greek index, then put down that book and look it up in the main lexicon. Fortunately, I have the lexicon in my software, which is much easier to use than the hard copy.

A more fundamental criticism I have of this lexicon is that I disagree with how the editors determined meaning and wrote their definitions. (1) As already noted, because of their emphasis on the discourse over contemporary usage, the editors did not research the first century papyri. This is a major problem in my mind. Meaning in any language should be determined by how the contemporary speakers of that language actually use the word. (2) In the process of determining meaning, Nida began with the classical Greek meanings as given in Liddell-Scott. Again, this is a major error, in my opinion. As a linguist in Japanese, I do not go to my dictionary of classical Japanese to determine meaning, but before using a word in translation I do research in Japanese literature and popular culture, and by speaking to Japanese people.

Here is what Nida himself said about his editing. “The development of a truly useful lexicon for translators of the New Testament requires a great deal of time and research if it is to be of real help to translators who must know the meaning of any one word in relation to other meaningfully related words. This requires editors with a background in Classical Greek, Hellenistic Greek, Patristic Greek, and linguistics” (Fascinated by Languages, Eugene Nida p. 110). Again, he wrote, “My task was to provide the definitions and for this I reviewed carefully the meanings of terms in the Greek-English Lexicon by Newton G. Liddell and Robert Scott (Oxford: Clarendon Press) and in many instances I traced the meanings of a term from Classical usage to Hellenistic, and even to later Patristic usage” (ibid, 112).

I find this very ironic in the light of Nida’s criticisms of the KJV in his works. He was willing to use modern meanings in a modern translation, but for his understanding of the Greek he went to documents 400 years or more before Christ! This means he was depending on historical linguistics (etymology) to determine the meanings of words, something he himself criticizes in various places in his books. (For example, see p. 158 in From One Language to Another.)

Another caveat is the doctrinal errors of Nida, which no doubt influenced his lexicon. First of all, he did not believe in verbal inspiration or in the inerrancy of Scripture (Fascinated by Languages, pp. 90-93; Stine, p. 59). In his semantics, this means that he did not believe that a word can have a core meaning, and in his syntax it means that he saw no meaning in the grammatical form of a sentence.

Again, Nida was an existentialist, praising both philosophical existentialism and neo-orthodoxy (Stine, p. 143-144; Toward a Science of Translating, by Nida, p. 7; Religion Across Cultures, by Nida, p. 73, etc.). According to Stine, Nida was influenced in his semantics by existential philosopher Wittgenstein (ibid, p. 143-144). I believe this viewpoint strongly influenced his semantics, and thus his lexicon. The idea of semantic domains goes beyond simple dependence on context for clarity of meaning, and posits meaning actually conferred (rather than determined) by context. In describing how the lexicon was edited, Stine writes, “As the group repeatedly stated, ‘Words are not meaning’ (Louw, pers. comm.) Words are tokens used by a language to express some meaning” (Stine, p. 151).

All in all, I don’t recommend this lexicon. If you want to pay the big bucks for a top notch lexicon, spend your money on A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, by Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich and Danker.

 

Your wish is my command, Bob.:wavey:

Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich and Danker (BAGD)​

I’ll only discuss one more lexicon, unless someone really wants to know about my two Greek-Japanese lexicons.

The final lexicon is A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, by Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich and Danker. I have the 2nd edition, which because of the editors is usually referred to as BAGD. The 3rd edition changes the order of the editors to BDAG. Confusing, right? I bought my BAGD in 1986 for a couple of seminary Greek classes I took on furlough so I could be ready to teach Greek here in Japan at the Grace Baptist Bible School in Tokyo. In those days we simply referred to this lexicon as “Arndt and Gingrich,” probably a carryover from the 1st edition.

BAGD is copyright 1979, so it wasn’t available when I first took a seminary Greek class in 1976. It is 900 pages in length, double column and alas, somewhat small print. All in all, this is the best Greek lexicon out there by far in any edition. Scholars agree on this: “It must be stated that this is the best specialized dictionary available for any ancient literature” (Biblical Words and Their meanings, Moises Silva, p. 171). So, this is the first lexicon I consult when I’m working on getting the meaning of a Greek word into Japanese. What makes it so good? Here are my reasons:
(1) It is complete. All words are included from any Greek NT, as far as I know.
(2) Its definitions are complete and easy to understand.
(3) It has copious references to where each word occurs in the NT.
(4) It refers to extra-Biblical literature quite often, telling where each meaning occurs in such koine works as the LXX, Philo, Josephus, etc. It also has references to classical usage, but as you’ve figured out by now that doesn’t impress me that much. The Japanese language was written in its classical form until after WW2, so there is a lot of literature in it, so it is easy for me to see how much a language changes from the classical form to the colloquial.
(5) In many cases the Greek phrase is given of a reference.
(6) Grammatical notes are also given.

It must be said, though, that no lexicon is perfect, including this one. The main criticism is that, like TDNT, it approaches semantics with a theological bent. That is, the editors had theological preconceptions when they determined meaning. Silva probably is the best source for someone wanting to read more on this. He points out that BAGD discussed sarx (“flesh”) theologically in a prejudicial way. He also says, “And in the case of amartia (“sin”—JoJ), Bauer actually gives us a miniature biblical theology” (op cit p. 174). According to Silva this practice “tends to distort the data” (p. 172).

This fault carries over into BDAG (the 3rd ed.) from what I’ve heard. I’ve not bought the third edition because I’m not yet convinced that it is better than the second, I don’t have the money (around $140) being just a poor, under-supported missionary , and because I’ve heard of some of the criticisms. The most well-known criticism of the third edition is that for pathr (“father”) it gives the possible meaning of “mother,” thus allowing for a feminist view of God! Not having the 3rd edition I can’t confirm this, but maybe one of you who has it can check on that for me. If this is true it is pretty ridiculous. No way in the world can pathr mean “mother” in any koine manuscript or document.

All things being said, if I were stranded on a desert island with nothing but my Greek NT and one lexicon, BAGD is the one I would choose!:thumbs:

 

Friends, I still plan to discuss how a translator chooses words, but I think I'll start a new thread for this in the near future rather than continue here. I promise I'll divulge every step of how I get a word into Japanese from NT Greek. :type:

 

Here is what I wrote about BDAG:

A Greek scholar friend has helped me out here:

Thanks, Doc! :wavey: