[B-Greek] Lexica, Dictionaries, Glossaries and Worth/Utility (long ...)
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jul 18 09:28:36 EDT 2008
I've had my "ad nauseam" say on the use of lexical resources in the
process of reading Biblical and other ancient Greek texts; what I have
particularly emphasized is the importance of STUDYING an entry for a
word that is clearly important in what you're reading -- ascertaining
how the lexicographer has understood the radical meaning(s) of a word
and related the extended or metaphorical senses to the radical
meaning(s), and noting the examples of usage cited for the meanings
offered with a critical eye -- STUDYING an entry rather than doing a
cursory search for a gloss that will work in the text one is currently
reading and moving straight on to the next word that one will need a
gloss for. That second process of quick-gloss-search is one that is
facilitated especially in the new "reader's edition" GNTs, e.g. The
UBS Greek New Testament: A Reader's Edition edited by none other than
Barclay Newman (who in 1971 published the "Concise Greek-English
Dictionary of the NT that is available as a separate little volume or
bound together with the UBS GNT); the Review of Biblical Literature
has just put up a review page of this with a review that can be
downloaded as a PDF or read on line at http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6215
-- I haven't pursued the matter closely, but it looks like the
glosses accessible in the footnotes of this "reader's edition" are
pretty much the same as what's to be found in the "Concise
Dictionary"). Eddie Mishoe and Wieland Willker from their vantage
points miles apart from each other have both informed us in this forum
that this "reader's edition" is good bedtime reading and will quickly
bring on drowsiness.
At any rate, since much has been said -- from widely variant
viewpoints -- about the worth of accessible lexical resources for
study of the GNT, I thought it might be helpful to clarify some points
of difference between these resources.
"Worth" is a somewhat ambivalent term (TIMH in Greek may mean a number
of things -- depending on which lexical resource you consult --
including "price," "value," "honor," and even "punishment." Socrates
was asked in his trial for impiety, to propose an alternative TIMH to
the prosecutor's demand for his execution by hemlock poisoning for his
"impiety" and suggested that the TIMH he deserved was maintenance in
the prytaneion with meals at public expense as a citizen providing the
most valuable service to the polis).
Some might suppose that a lexical resource is worth the most if you
have to use it least: if you can quickly glean from a short-list the
right gloss for the word in the context in which you've confronted it
just now (e.g. "head" for KEFALH). Or it might also be a matter of
price of a printed edition -- the best is the cheapest: there's a
considerable difference between a Thayer that can be gotten for less
than $15 and a BDAG for which you are urged by some to sell your first-
born child to acquire. Moreover, although it's nice to have a print
edition, many of us find a digitized resource far easier to consult,
especially if it is properly hyper-texted. BDAG is available in
commercial Bible software programs, but it's not really cheaper than
the print edition. LSJ is available in some commercial software
programs but it's also (the 1940 edition) accessible online and can
even be downloaded to one's own hard drive in the free Diogenes
program (for all platforms).
My own criterion for usefulness/value of a lexical resource -- and I
hardly expect perfection in any one of them -- has more to do with the
care with which the semantic range of meanings is expounded, the
extent of coverage of data for the period with which one is concerned
and with the documentation for the lexical entries: citation of
sources, not just by reference but by significant textual snippets
that one can check at the source if one chooses to do so. Novelty is
hardly a desideratum: if a lexical work is based upon the work of many
generations of earlier scholars, I hardly see that as a reason for
complaint -- provided that errors of previous scholars have been
corrected where they can be shown to be errors. Does anyone honestly
think we should chuck all our lexica and embark upon a new process
like the monumental effort that went into the preparation of the
Oxford English Dictionary? I don't -- but I do think that whatever new
information can be brought to bear upon our understanding of Greek
word-usage from the study of papyri and the coming to light of "new"--
hitherto unknown or uncataloged -- inscriptions should be weighed in
an ongoing process of revision. I know that Fred Danker sought out
resources: I met him once by appointment at the Washington University
library where he persuaded me to urge the library to acquire a missing
volume of Greek inscriptions from Pergamum that he wanted to check.
That's also why I think it's worth having the latest print edition of
LSJ (A Greek-English Lexicon, Ninth Edition with a Revised Supplement
by Roderick McKenzie, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, and Henry
Stuart Jones (Hardcover - Dec 7, 1995) -- this has the supplement
prepared by Glare, offering additional information and corrections to
entries in the main body).
The utility of the "middle Liddell" has been defended on grounds that
it is more manageable (undeniable!) and that the arrangement of
entries by lemmata inclusive of irregular forms such as GEGAA from
GI(G)NOMAI is perspicuous -- you don't have to hunt through a dozen or
more words in a single paragraph covering words beginning with, e.g.,
KAQUPER-. That's true, certainly, of the 1995 9th edition, but think
how many more hundreds of pages the print edition would have to
include and how much more costly the volume (or multiple volumes)
would have to be. BUT: the online LSJ, does have the lemmata separated
out -- it's the 1940 Jones revision of L&S -- and, like the "middle
Liddell," shows those irregular forms such as GEGAA and EMOLON (from
BLWSKW). The online LSJ: Henry George Liddell. Robert Scott. A Greek-
English Lexicon. revised and augmented throughout by. Sir Henry Stuart
Jones. with the assistance of. Roderick McKenzie. Oxford. Clarendon
Press. 1940. ISBN: 0198642261
The Perseus LSJ is now best accessible at:
http://archimedes.fas.harvard.edu/pollux/
(this site will also display entries from several other important
dictionaries and lexica)
The real problem with the "Middle Liddell" is that, although published
more recently (1945) than the 1940 LSJ, it is based on the 1889 7th
edition of L&S. So it's not so much that it is not a "useful" lexicon
or a "bad" lexicon -- I used it myself as an undergraduate in the
early 1950's; it's just that one can do so much BETTER.
And that's the problem with Thayer's lexicon as well; although re-
issued by Hendrickson in 1996 and coded with Strong's Concordance
numbers, it is nevertheless the same work that was originally
published in 1886 and revised in 1889. Inexpensive it is - I found it
on sale at one source for $13.36 (not including shipping, of course).
The Wikipedia article on Thayer 1828-1901 (pooh-pooh it if you will)
notes: "Thayer's translation of Grimm's Wilke's Clavis Novi Testamenti
(1886; revised 1889) as A Greek-English Lexicon of the New
Testament ... Rather unfortunately, Thayer's Lexicon became obsolete
quickly as Gustav Adolf Deissmann's work with the Egyptian papyri was
soon to revolutionize New Testament and Koine Greek Lexicography with
the publication of his Bible Studies: Contributions Chiefly from
Papyri and Inscriptions to the History of the Language, the
Literature, and the Religion of Hellenistic Judaism and Primitive
Christianity, published in 1901 (2nd edition 1909) and also Light from
the Ancient East the New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered
Texts of the Graeco-Roman World London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910.
These books and similar ones that followed helped confirm and
sometimes correct inadequate definitions of many words in the Greek
New Testament. With this new and valuable information for studying the
Greek of the New Testament, Thayer's Lexicon became a victim of
history, being published less than a decade before this papyri
revolution.
Over the "Middle Liddell" as a concise but really useful ancient Greek
lexicon I would recommend seeking out (I don't think it's in print,
but there are lots of used copies around): the Langenscheidt Pocket
Dictionary Greek\English (Classical) (Paperback)ISBN:
9780887290817Publisher: Langenscheidt Publishers Publish Date: 6/1/1985
Regarding BDAG, I VERY HIGHLY recommend Rod Decker’s very thorough
page on BDAG at his NT Resources site:
http://www.ntresources.com/bdag.html — it references all reviews and
provides a wealth of material on the history of the successive
editions of Bauer’s Griechisch-deutsches Worterbuch zu den Schriften
des Neuen Testaments und der fruhchristlichen Literatur, even a page
listing BDAG Errata.
To illustrate the difference between these resources, let me cite
entries for a relatively simple word, TECNH:
UBS Dictionary (Barclay Newman): τέχνη, ης f craft, trade;
artistic ability, craftsmanship
BDAG: τέχνη, ης, ἡ (Hom.+; loanw. in rabb.) skill, trade Ac
17:29; Rv 18:22. Pl. Dg 2:3. σκηνοποιὸς τῇ τ. α σκ.
by trade Ac 18:3. τέχνην ἔχειν have and practice a skill
or trade (Eur., Suppl. 381; X., Mem. 3, 10, 1 al.) Hs 9, 9, 2; D 12:4.
—JKube, ΤΕΧΝΗ und ΑΡΕΤΗ ’69.—DELG. M-M. Sv.
LSJ: techn-ê, hê, (tektôn) art, skill, cunning of hand, esp. in
metalworking, Od.3.433, 6.234, 11.614; also of a shipwright, Il.3.61;
of a soothsayer, A.Ag.249 (pl., lyr.), Eu.17, S.OT389, etc.; technai
heterôn heterai Pi.N.1.25; ôpase t. pasan Id.O.7.50.
2. craft, cunning, in bad sense, doliê t. Od.4.455, Hes.Th.160: pl.,
arts, wiles, Od.8.327.332, Hes.Th.496,929; doliais technaisi
chrêsamenos Pi.N.4.58; technais tinos by his arts (or simply by his
agency), Id.O.9.52, P.3.11; technên kakên echei he has a bad trick,
Hes.Th.770, cf. Pi.I.4(3).35(53), S Ph.88, etc.
3. way, manner, or means whereby a thing is gained, without any
definite sense of art or craft, mêdemiêi t. in no wise, Hdt.1.112;
itheêi t. straightway, Id.9.57; pasêi t. by all means, Ar.Nu.1323, Th.
65, Ec.366; pantoiai t. S.Aj.752, etc.; ouk apostêsomai ..oute t. oute
mêchanêi oudemiai IG12.39.22; pasêi t. kai mêchanêi X.An.4.5.16;
mête t. mête mêchanêi mêdemiai Lys.13.95.
II. an art, craft, pasai technai brotoisin ek Promêtheôs A.Pr. 506,
cf. IG12.678; tên t. epistasthai to know the craft, Hdt.3.130;
phlaurôs echein tên t. ibid.; tês t. empeiros Ar.Ra.811; tautên
technên echei he makes this his trade, Lys.1.16, cf. 6.7; en têi t.
einai practise it, S.OT562, Pl.Prt.317c; epi technêi mathein ti to
learn a thing professionally, opp. epi paideiai, ib.312b, cf. 315a;
technai kai ergasiai X.Mem.3.10.1; technên to pragma pepoiêmenoi
having made a trade of it, D.37.53; technas askein, meletan,
ergazesthai, to practise them,X. Cyr.1.6.26,41 (Pass.), Oec.4.3;
patrôian technan ergazesthai halieuesthai Praktika Arch. Het.1932.52
(Dodona, iv B.C.); iatros tên t. POxy. 40.5 (ii A.D.); tetherapeukôs
anenklêtôs têi t., of a barber, PEnteux. 47.3 (iii B.C.); paramenô
pros hupêresian tês t. (viz. weaving) Sammelb. 7358.20 (iii A.D.);
apo technôn trephesthai live by them, X.Lac. 7.1.
III. an art or craft, i.e. a set of rules, system or method of making
or doing, whether of the useful arts, or of the fine arts, Epich.
171.11, Pl.Phdr.245a, Arist.Rh.1354a11, EN1140a8; hê empeiria technên
epoiêsen, hê d' apeiria tuchên Polus ap. eund.Metaph. 981a4; hê
peri tous logous t. the Art of Rhetoric, Pl.Phd.90b; hoi tas t. tôn
logôn suntithentes systems of rhetoric, Arist.Rh.1354a12, cf. Isoc.
13.19, Pl.Phdr.271c, Phld.Rh.2.50 S., al.; hence title of various
treatises on Rhetoric (v. VI; but rather tricks of Rhetoric, in
Aeschin. 1.117); technêi by rules of art, Pl.Euthd.282d; ê phusei ê
technêi Id.R. 381b; technêi kai epistêmêi Id.Ion532c; aneu
technês, meta technês, Id.Phd.89e: t. defined as hexis
hodopoiêtikê, Zeno Stoic.1.20, cf. Cleanth. ib.1.110.
IV. = technêma, work of art, handiwork, kratêres .., andros
eucheiros technê S.OC472; hoplois .., Hêphaistou technêi Id.Fr. 156,
cf. Str.14.1.14, PLond.3.854.4 (ii A.D.), Paus.6.25.1, al.
V. = suntechnia, hê t. tôn lithourgôn, tôn sakkophorôn, Dumont-
Homolle Mélanges d' archéol. et d' épigr.p.378 No.65,66 (Perinthus);
t. burseôn, suropoiôn, IGRom.1.717,1482 (both Philippopolis); tous
kataleipomenous apo têis t. BGU1572.12 (ii A.D.); ho chalkeus apo tês
t. SIG 1140 (Amphipolis).
VI. treatise on Grammar, D.T. tit., or on Rhetoric, Anaximenes
Lampsacenus tit.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Ret)
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