[B-Greek] Greek Lexicon 1st century Eng-Greek
Randall Buth
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Sat Sep 2 08:30:07 EDT 2006
George egrapsen
>>If you really want this, it is doable with the electronic tools
now available. Simply acquire a copy of BDAG from Logos and enter
the English gloss you wish to find and BDAG as the target of the
search.>>
>Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com> wrote:
I'd love to see a fairly comprehensive English-Greek lexicon/glossary
for
first century usage. BDAG gives zero, but might be reverse-engineerable
somewhere, and Louw-Nida is woefully inadequate.
Anyone there with time, background, and interest to do something usable?
ERRWSO>
Unfortunately, current electronic tools are not adequate.
Perhaps some expansion is necessary in order to grasp the scope of
what is necessary.
The reason why LouwNida is inadequate is the same reason why BDAG is
inadequate. Both lexica are artificially limited to a small
crosssection of the living language. Because of that, they do not
adequately represent the choices of words that were available to
first century authors at different registers of writing. Even in the
fields of theology, ethics, and human behavior the two mentioned
lexica do not provide a wide-enough scope. A back-engineered access
to the english glosses of BDAG would be downright dangerous for
students if they thought that they were seeing a picture of the
options available. That is exactly the problem with Louw-Nida, which
already provides its own inadequate English-Greek index (if one goes
to the trouble of looking up the reference numbers to the English
index). For example, would the student be aware that the choice
between PRAUS 'modest', EULABHS 'cautious', EUSEBHS 'reverent'
overlaps with a word like AIDHMWN 'modest, reverent'?
There are several directions and implications for this. first, the
dictionary should cover the language attested for the first century.
this is quite large, and a rough and ready cut for this could be
culled from the electronic tools, including TLG. Josephus, Philo,
Epictetus, Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch must needs be included, for
starts. some of this (Josephus/Philo) is already accesible in reverse-
format. An attempt must be made to include all of the common and
generic words, especially. Many of these are missing from the NT or
early christian vocabulary, by accident, of course, not by design.
XANQOS and KUANOUS/KUANEOS are basic colors that every four-year old
Greek kid would have within his repertoire and which would form part
of the matrix for evaluating any color-word. Not having them in
NouwLida skews the ability of the tool to provide the proper
framework for interpretation. The meaning of a word in any language
is not only itself, but also NOT being the other available options.
One method of lexicography that FORCES this issue is to require that
the dictionary use the target language as the language of definition.
Take the first century words and define them with first century
words. The end result is a much more integrated knowledge base. It
more closely approximates linguistic competence in a language user.
Incidentally, this is taken for granted in most other fields of
literature. French lit students have French-French dictionaries, but
students of first century Greek have neither Greek-Greek
dictionaries, nor even English-Greek dictionaries that even try to
cover the reasonable bases. I would call these two items (Greek-Greek
and English-Greek) major desiderata for the field. Their lack leaves
the field stunted and dwarfed. The lack of recognition of the lack is
almost scary in its implications. The ability of the field to make
progress is a tribute to the adaptability of the human spirit.
Mountain-climbing with a leg in a cast, racing in a wheelchair,
Agassi in the third-round after a cortisone shot: these are a tribute
to what people can do. We can add NT studies without adequate lexica
and language control to this list. AND we should choose to move ahead
and plan for a new field with new skills.
ERRWSQE
Randall Buth
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