[B-Greek] Interesting Critique of BDAG

Ron Fay roncfay at hotmail.com
Wed Jan 14 16:34:53 EST 2004


The article is Vern S. Poythress, "Extended Definitions in the Third Edition 
of Bauer's Greek-English Lexicon," 45/1 (2002): 125-131.

Essentially the article has three main areas of criticism.

1.  The extended definitions are limited and seemingly random.  They are 
limited in that only some of the words have an extended definition, whereas 
many still do not.  It is random because there is no rhyme or reason as to 
the choice of words that got an extended definition and which ones were left 
out.

2.  The extended definitions tend to give a broad swath of meaning instead 
of delimiting the meaning by setting boundaries.  In other words, the 
definitions give meaning without limiting the meaning, something which 
allows for too much wiggle room.

3.  There is a confusion between some of the extended definitions and some 
of the glosses offered for the same words such that often the definition 
describes a state whereas the gloss describes an event.

It is a solid article and Dr. Poythress has a lot more to say, but those are 
the points I considered the most essential.

- Ron

________________________________________________
Ron Fay
Ph. D. student and New Testament Fellow
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Deerfield, IL.
roncfay at hotmail.com

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