Semiotics and Word Studies

Steven Craig Miller scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Thu Dec 30 08:32:49 EST 1999


To: Clayton Stirling Bartholomew,

<< All are good if used intelligently. The one most likely not to be used 
intelligently is TDNT. I would also include C. Spicq and NIDTT and EDNT and 
Cremer (kind of old) as works worth looking at. The danger with 
"theological dictionaries" like TDNT, NIDTT is that they tend to reinforce 
the idea that individual words carry around a massive quantity of 
theological baggage. However, the problem, as I have already said, isn't so 
much the works as the logic of the user. To use these books intelligently 
means to have read a number of works on lexical semantics by authors like 
JP Louw, EA Nida, M Silva, J Barr and several others. >>

I would concur with most everything you have said on this topic throughout 
your many messages. And my reply here is not meant to take exception with 
anything you have said. I would only add that despite the flaw of TDNT, it 
can at times be a wealth of information. It varies from entry to entry, but 
some entries offer a vast history of certain ideas which can be found 
across a large number of ancient works. I remember, as a Classics student, 
using the TDNT often to supplement my knowledge of ancient Greek literature.

There is perhaps one sad note. It was the linguistic flaw which you and 
others (rightly) attack in the TDNT (and other works) which was the driving 
force behind creating the TDNT in the first place (such as the notion of an 
"internal lexicography"; see the preface to TDNT). Now that this linguistic 
flaw has been exposed, the chances are that there will be little desire to 
replace the TDNT by revising and updating it. It should be painfully clear 
to anyone who has used the two works that the EDNT doesn't come anywhere 
near the scope of the TDNT.

-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Disclaimer: "I'm just a simple house-husband (with no post-grad degree), 
what do I know?"




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