[B-Greek] Thayer versus Bauer (was text questions and recommendations)
Mark Lightman
lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Sat Feb 9 23:54:40 EST 2008
Again, I only have Bauer's second edition;
I have not even seen
the third edition, but I have to say I have
never understood why people
knock Thayer and love Bauer.
I use them both and I am convinced that
Thayer is at least as good as Bauer and
probably better. Thayer is
much more concise at getting at the heart of NT
meanings; he includes
quite often the Hebrew and usually gives you the
etymology which Bauer
(again, at least in the second edition) almost never does.
If the meaning
of a word is not clear from its roots, Thayer will usually help
you, while
Bauer does not (for example, Thayer tells you AXIOS is
from AGO "prop.
drawing down the scale" I think it is true
that if you look hard enough through Bauer you will
often find solutions to
cruxes, but often I just can't get through all the verbiage.
As far as Thayer being outdated or wrong because he
did not take into
account the papyri, I seem to remember a challenge
on this list of citing
once instance where Thayer is wrong or even one actual
NT word where our
understanding of the meaning has significantly changed
due to the papyri, and
as I recall no one was able to come up with one.
I'm not really saying that Thayer is
definitley better than Bauer, but considering you can get
the former for a fraction of
the cost of the latter, I just can't see why Thayer
is almost demonized on this list.
Sarah Madden <sarah.r.madden at gmail.com> wrote:
Mark --
I have a question about Thayer's -- isn't one of its downfalls that it has mistakes in it and that it was written before the discovery of the papyrii? It still might be useful, though. I do not have it; I have the 3rd edition of BDAG, which I very much appreciate, so am only going on what others have said about Thayer's. An online Greek translation site I often reference uses Thayer's (and I'm not sure whether the mistakes are the site's or Thayer's) but I think they use its definitions because the copyright has expired.
Sarah
sarah.r.madden at gmail.com
On Feb 9, 2008 10:23 PM, Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com> wrote:
Matthew Blair wrote:
:I received the following texts from one of my priests when he discovered
that I had started the study of Koine Greek:
UBS 3rd edition of the GNT
BDAG, 2nd edition (I think - I don't see the "A" in BDAG, but it is titled:
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian
Literature, and is green and big)
The New Analytical Greek Lexicon (Perschbacher)
An Index to the Revised Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich Greek Lexicon 2nd Edition
(Alsop)
Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek (Metzger)
Since I am a beginner (I *just* started verbs in Mounce's BBG), I haven't
really used any of these yet except for the GNT when I am reading aloud for
practice.
My questions:
1) As these are all older texts, is there any value in moving to more recent
editions?
2) If I wanted to pick up the Septaguinta, which text should I buy?
3) Are there any differences between the UBS GNT and the NA(27 or 28?)?
Thanks for your help,
Matthew"
Dear Matthew:
Your Priest did you well by giving you those books.
Maybe you should find a Rabbi and tell him you are
studying Hebrew. :)
UBS 3 is BETTER than UBS 4 since it is essentially
the same text but has a better,
less italicized font. NA 27 has more variant
readings but they are abbreviated and
the critical apparatus is very hard to de-code;
your UBS 3 is more user friendly and is
fine. Metzger's book is great but is the only
one that I think you would want to update.
Get Warren Trenchard's Complete Vocabulary
Guide to the Greek New Testament, since it does
everything Metzger does but
includes the complete vocab. People rave
about Bauer's 3rd Edition; I have his
2nd and feel it is really overrated; I use my Thayer's
just as often, so I would not
spend the extra money on the 3rd edition which I''m sure is
better, but is way overpriced; It would make
more sense for you to get the Intermediate
Liddel and Scott.
I am a big believer in di-glots (not interlinears) so I would
get Brenton's LXX. The
font is really small but the book is cheap and his
literal crib translation helps you unpack the
Greek.
You now have a great Greek NT library and may God bless you in your efforts!
Mark Lightman
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