[B-Greek] Lexicographical question

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Nov 27 06:25:38 EST 2007


A new blog entry worth noting is at Wayne Leman's "Better Bibles Blog"  
site (http://englishbibles.blogspot.com/). This one by Richard Rhodes  
is entitled, "The Value of Dictionaries":
http://englishbibles.blogspot.com/2007/11/value-of-dictionaries.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/2339b9

There's a nice point made about the difference between "primary" and  
"secondary" sources: that the lexicographers who give us glosses for  
original-language words are "secondary sources," while the more  
significant "primary sources" to which they refer are the ancient  
authors or papyri (it's not really "papyrii" -- the original Latin  
word is "papyrus" rather than "papyrius"). This point is worth driving  
home, even if the blog is muddied (as well as obfuscated) by a  
discussion (one seen all too often in this forum, i.e. B-Greek) of the  
range of usage and proper translation in any particular context of  
Greek ἄνθρωπος (ANQRWPOS).

The ultimate value of a lexicon lies in the evidence from original  
sources for the usages and meanings which it catalogs and categorizes;  
provided that one has access to the documents referenced, one is (at  
least theoretically) able to resolve questions of lexical meaning for  
oneself and not merely rely upon the judgment of the lexicographer. On  
the other hand, even the particular documents referenced constitute  
only a partial listing, and there may very well be a difference of  
opinion over any particular instance cited for a usage or meaning. The  
point here, I guess, is that it's good, from time to time, to be  
honest about the degree of relativity in our "knowledge" of an ancient  
language.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Ret)




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