[B-Greek] On Thayer and BDAG
Kevin W. Woodruff
cierpke at prodigy.net
Sun Jul 20 13:10:15 EDT 2008
I think that the point is being missed that Thayer was the TRANSLATOR of the lexicon that bears his name. The actual book was Christian Gottlieb Wilke's Clavis Novi Testamenti Philologica which was revised by Carl Ludwig Wilibald Grimm. Thayer in the introduction did admit to revising and enlarging the lexicon, (and his additions are always in brackets to identify that which is his contributions), but the majority of the work is by Grimm and Wilke.
I think Thayer serves as a good supplement to BDAG as he discusses synonyms but BDAG is still the best lexicon IMHO.
Kevin
knpraise at comcast.net wrote:
If I might add a comment regarding Thayer from a profoundly layman point of view: his definition of "baptizo" could not have been written differently by those who believe that water baptism is for the remission of sins, yet he, himself, did not believe in the "necessity of baptism for salvation's sake." I believe he was a Congregationalist (?) I came out of the Restoration Movement and I am certain he was not from that tradition. It was obvious to me, that the work of defining and the work of theology were two very different endeavors, for Thayer, and I like that. I have A & G as well as Thayer. As a layman student of Greek, I find that Thayer often gives me more definitive information than A & G or L & S. Your recent discussions have increased my confidence in the older lexicon. Thank you.
Pastor John Smithson (ret)
jsjohnnt at aol.com
-------------- Original message --------------
From: "James Ernest"
> On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 11:55 PM, Jeffrey B. Gibson
> wrote:
>
> > Perhaps because Danker knows -- as you do as well -- that "head" is not
> > an adequate translation of KEFALH when KEFALH is being used with
> > reference to a Pater Familias or the source of a river, etc.
> >
> >
> Well, of course Thayer knew that also, as you can see if you look up the
> word in Thayer. Thayer is a learned book. It represents the state of the art
> in NT Greek lexicography in its day. Its entries are not one-word glosses.
> So with respect to Mark's (completely reasonable) question:
>
> > Can anyone show me one clear thing wrong in
> > Thayer that BDAG corrects?
>
> You're not likely to find cases where Thayer thought a word meant "house"
> and BDAG shows that it really means "gastroenteritis." The definitions and
> glosses in Thayer are well supported in the Greek literature that was known
> prior to the 20th century, which is of course nearly all of Greek
> literature. What BDAG adds is a concise summation, word by word, of the
> results of twentieth-century discoveries in the inscriptions and papyri,
> together with a remarkable amount of bibliographic info. It no doubts
> refines and corrects Thayer in hundreds of cases (like the PHRA example),
> but I doubt there are many cases where Thayer is just plain wrong.
>
> And with regard to bare glosses: my own experience makes it impossible for
> me to line up among the despisers of Barclay Newman's little dictionary, or
> Bruce Metzger's Lexical Aids, or Autenrieth's similar guide for Homeric
> vocabulary. Memorizing glosses, or consulting cribs, can grease the skids
> when you're trying to get from the point where OUDEN ARA NUN KATAKRIMA might
> as well be "Twas brillig and the slithy toves" to reading with (imperfect)
> understanding, especially if some of your available learning time is on the
> T between Government Center and Boston College, where you're not likely to
> be carrying BDAG or LSJ. It would be lovely, but is not necessary, to leap
> from utter ignorance to refined lexicographic omniscience in one swell foop.
> If you learn this year to stumble through a sentence (looking up every other
> word in Barclay Newman, or recalling one-word glosses that you memorized
> from Metzger) telling you that Jesus told his disciples not to take a
> "wallet" or "knapsack" with them, and don't learn until next year or the
> year after that the possibility that he meant a beggar's bag . . . well,
> that's OK. You're making progress. If you can look words up in BDAG rather
> than Barclay Newman, or better just memorize BDAG (as Walter Elwell
> memorized Thayer in his students days--no kidding--he was one credit short
> of graduating, and the dean told him if he memorized Thayer he could have
> the credit, so he did), maybe you'll make even faster progress.
>
> Barclay Newman, Thayer, whatever . . . it's all good when used to help you
> progress along the path, all bad if mistaken for the last word. For now,
> BDAG is the last word, but of course eventually it too will be outdated.
>
> James Ernest
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
---
B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
B-Greek mailing list
B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
Prof. Kevin W. Woodruff, M.Div., M.S.I.S.
Library Director/Reference Librarian, Assistant Professor of Bible, Greek, Theological Bibliography and Research
Tennessee Temple University/Temple Baptist Seminary, 1815 Union Ave.
Chattanooga, Tennessee 37404, United States of America
423/493-4252 (office) 423/698-9447 (home) 423/493-4497 (FAX)
Cierpke at prodigy.net http://pages.prodigy.net/cierpke/woodruff.htm
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list