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
****************************************************




More information about the B-Greek mailing list