DOXA renders kabod
Jonathan Burke
jburke at sprint.com.au
Wed Apr 24 21:57:09 EDT 2002
Hi Carl,
>
Regarding the worth of lexica, I think I've said my say on this before, but
I'll repeat: I don't believe that ANY reference work can be trusted to be
right in EVERY assertion or definition. LSJ can be wrong, L&N can be wrong,
BDAG can be wrong. Smyth and Robertson can be wrong. Wallace can be wrong. I
think some of these are more trustworthy than others, but it's surely a
mistake to accept at face-value ANY and EVERY assertion of any particular
reference work. We can't attribute divine or even semi-divine authority to
any work produced by human beings and all reference works are produced by
human beings.
>
Yep, I agree entirely. The issue for me is the evidence any lexicon brings
to support their definition. To my mind, LSJ supports its definition with
substantial evidence.
It never once defines MORFH as 'essential nature', nor does it provide any
evidence whatever that 'essential nature' is within the semantic range of
the word.
One of the issues in the discussion was that the gentleman with whom I was
having this discussion actually argued that LSJ *did* give the meaning
'essential nature' to MORFH, and that this was expressed as 'kind or sort'.
If LSJ had meant to say 'essential nature', then surely it would have said
'essential nature'.
He also argued that both of these examples following were examples of the
word MORFH being used to express the concept of 'essential nature':
Euripedes, Ion 382:
Choros:
POLLAI GE POLLOIS EISI SUMPHORAI BROTON, MORPHAI DE DIAPHEROUSIN: HEN D' AN
EUTUCHES MOLIS POT' EXEUROI TIS ANTHROPON BIOI.
Plato, Republic 397c:
TI DE TO TOU HETEROU EIDOS; OU TON ENANTION DEIAI, PASON MEN HARMONION,
PANTON DE RHUTHMON, EI MELLEI AU OIKEIOS LEGESTHAI, DIA TO PANTODAPAS
MORPHAS TON METABOLON ECHAIN; KAI SPHODRA GE HOUTOS ECHEI.
Now stop me if I'm wrong, but I cannot see that either of these examples
refer to 'essential nature'.
>
Nevertheless, over the course of time one comes to have a sense of which
works are more consistently useful and helpful. As a general rule (and one
so obvious that I'm almost ashamed of putting it in writing), I believe that
a reference work is the more useful and valuable to the extent that it cites
as fully as possible the evidence upon which its assertion is based; that
allows the user to judge whether s/he thinks the assertion is more or less
likely to be valid.
>
That was very well expressed. It is, I believe, the key to evaluating and
using such reference sources.
Jonathan Burke.
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