Spiros Zodhiates

David A Bielby dbielby at juno.com
Wed Dec 29 17:55:18 EST 1999


Dear Clay,

I would like to see a typical example of what has driven you to this 
conclusion.  

Thanks.

Dave Bielby
dbielby at juno.com

On 12/29/99, ""clayton stirling bartholomew" 
<c.s.bartholomew at worldnet.att.net>" wrote:
> ----------
> >From: Paul Sue <biblia99 at yahoo.com>
>  
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Has anyone any experience with Dr. Zodhiates' books?
> > (e.g. The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible).  Would
> > they be helpful to people who aren't fluent in the
> > original languages?
> >
> > How about Robertson's and Vincent's word studies
> > books?
> >
> 
> Paul,
> 
> How helpful these books are depends on how you use them. If you use them
> the way that most people do my answer would be NO.
> 
> The whole notion that we can understand an ancient text (or any text) by
> focusing on WORDS as the basic unit of meaning is highly suspect. These
> books are generally used by folks who assume that to understand a text
> you need to take a close look at each word or key words.
> 
> After thinking about this issue for nearly a decade I have formed  a
> tentative conclusion that it is nearly impossible to train a
> non-linguist to perform a valid word study. What we have for the most
> part in the popular** and even in some of the professional exegetical
> literature is a lot of misinformation about WORDs.
> 
> A sentence which takes the form: "What this word really means in the
> Greek/Hebrew is . . ." will very rarely stand up to scrutiny.
> 
> Rather than try and train every pastor or bible teacher in lexical
> semantics, which is an impossible task, it is more practical to just
> shun word study books all together.
> 
> For this reason, I would not recommend the use of these books.
> 
> Please note I am not attacking the authors of these books. I will leave
> that task  for someone else. It is the misuse of the information in
> these books which is my focus in these comments. However I think that
> this misuse is to some extend built into the books themselves but that
> issue I will leave for someone with more time
> 
> **The "popular exegetical works" which I have sampled are not works done
> by ignorant people. They are books by mainstream Pastors/Professors with
> real Phd's and lots of other credentials.
> 
> Clay
> 
> 
> --
> Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
> Three Tree Point
> P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062



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