[B-Greek] Thayer versus Bauer (was text questions and recommendations)

Sarah Madden sarah.r.madden at gmail.com
Sun Feb 10 16:16:41 EST 2008


Thanks, Mark, for your take on this. I have no opinion one way or the other
since I am only familiar with BDAG.

Sarah

On Feb 9, 2008 11:54 PM, Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 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 As far as Thayer being outdated or wrong because he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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> > ---
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Sarah
> sarah.r.madden at gmail.com
> work: 301.429.8189
>
>
>  ------------------------------
> Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51438/*http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs>
>
>


-- 
Sarah
sarah.r.madden at gmail.com
work: 301.429.8189



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