[B-Greek] TDNT: Cautionary Notes?

Carlton Winbery winberycl at earthlink.net
Thu Jan 5 11:12:15 EST 2006


>Bob Fuller wrote:
>
>>   Jim,
>>
>>  Where can I find Barr's treatment of "the whole enterprise."
>
>I believe its in his book _The Semantics of Biblical Language_.  What he
>criticizes is the word/concept (words contain concepts) fallacy that seems to
>imbue a great deal of the TDNT.
>
>Jeffrey
>--
Barr's "Semantics of Biblical Language" and also Caird's book on 
semantics are both good reads for students who would move on to 
serious study of Biblical languages. I was fortunate to sit in on 
Barr's lectures on biblical theological (really the posibility of 
"biblical" theology) in 1983. He fielded a question about Kittel and 
admitted that with so many examples of words in context his work did 
not ignore contextual studies as contributory to understanding. What 
Barr criticized most heavily was a misuse of Kittel and the over-all 
impression that the bulk of meaning is gained from etymology.

I would also point out that most of the editorial work on the 10 
volumes was done by Gerhardt Friedriks (sic) after Kittel's death. He 
was much more aware of the need for studying words in context. I 
never write or make presentations on Scripture without consulting 
Kittel (and several others).
-- 
Carlton L. Winbery
Retired Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
318-448-6103
winberycl at earthlink.net
winbery at lacollege.edu



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