Words Classified By Roots
Rodney J. Decker
rdecker at bbc.edu
Thu Sep 7 08:06:04 EDT 2000
At 06:14 PM 9/7/00 +1000, you wrote:
>As a more general comment, the English word 'dog' doesn't come from a root
>of 'do', so just how far can we take root studies, and how certain can we
>be about them?
There is some, albeit limited, value from a diachronic study of Greek.
Unfortunately, it has been severely misused in the past (& still is in some
instances). Your example illustrates well the flawed approach to semantics.
I highly recommend that you spend some time reading Moises Silva. His
introductory vol. is *God, Language and Scripture: Reading the Bible in
Light of General Linguistics* (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), now also
available in a combined series vol., *Foundations of Contemporary
Interpretation* (ed. Silva). His more advanced volume deals explicitly with
this issue: *Biblical Words and Their Meanings: An Introduction to Lexical
Semantics* (2d ed., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994). There are other vols.
as well (Louw, Cotterrell & Turner, etc.).
Rod
****************************************************
Rodney J. Decker, Th.D. Baptist Bible Seminary
Assoc. Prof./NT PO Box 800, Clarks Summit, PA 18411
rdecker at bbc.edu http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/
The *Resources for NT Study* site is accessible at:
http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/rd_rsrc.htm
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