One Question

Jonathan Robie jwrobie at mindspring.com
Mon Sep 6 14:05:42 EDT 1999


At 01:54 AM 9/6/99 -0700, C. E. Core wrote:

>Can someone tell me if Zodhiates parsing is reliable in his Complete
>Word Study New Testament.

I can not tell you. I *can* tell you that coming up with reliable parse 
codes is extremely time consuming, detailed work, and that the Gramcord 
Institute, with whom I am not affiliated, has put a lot of time into 
maintaining their parsing database. James Tauber compared Friberg's parse 
codes with the CCAT parse codes for the GNT by writing a program to compare 
them, and made a number of corrections as a result. So it would not be at 
all surprising to find errors in *anybody's* parse codes, especially if 
they have not been compared to the work of others using some automated means.

I looked at Zodhiates about 1 1/2 years ago, and I found his lexicon and 
his grammar notes to be unreliable. For instance, I was disturbed by his 
description of the Greek tenses, which seem pretty basic, and when I looked 
up a few words that I had studied at the time, he did not bring out some of 
the important meanings found in BAGD, Louw and Nida, or even Vine's. This 
is not completely surprising - he is, after all, only one man, and I can 
not imagine that any one individual would be able to produce an analytical 
New Testament, a lexicon, and a grammar that are all of quality comparable 
to the best of each category. He is going for a different audience - 
chiefly for those who do not know Greek but wish to be able to cite it with 
authority. I would think that beginners would be much better served by some 
of the software that gives accurate parsings keyed to grammatical notes and 
a lexicon, since the grammatical notes and lexicons found in these programs 
are generally of high quality, and the software makes these tools much more 
accessible than they would be in their paper form.

Are there particular places where you are unsure of his parsing?

Jonathan



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