Thayer, Abbott-Smith vs. BAGD/BDAG

Eric S. Weiss eweiss at gte.net
Mon Jul 29 11:41:23 EDT 2002


A question re: obsolete lexicons:

Neither Thayer's lexicon nor Abbott-Smith's lexicon indicate that KUNARION
= "little dog/puppy" (a diminutive of KUWN) might NOT have retained this
diminutive sense in the Koine. Louw-Nida, I believe, says that it MAY have
meant a house dog, but both Louw-Nida and BAGD mention that this seems to
have lost its diminutive sense by NT times. The impact of this is that
Jesus's referring to the woman as a KUNARION may NOT have been an
affectionate remark, as some have said in an effort to soften his remarks.
("It is not right to give the children's bread to the dogs," etc.)

What I'm asking is: Is this an example of why Thayer's is considered to be
obsolete? I need some reasons/examples to tell people who take my "Greek
for non-Greek students" class why they cannot rely solely on Thayer's or
Vine's Expository dictionary (which also says KUNARION refers to a little
dog/puppy) when doing word searches, but must also check more recent
lexicons to substantiate their findings.



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