[B-Greek] On Thayer and BDAG
Mark Lightman
lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Sun Jul 20 15:15:03 EDT 2008
Actually, I think it was 1964, not 1968 when the Golderwater slogan was
"In your heart, you know he's right." I was only one at the time, but my
mother said one wag offered the revision: "In your heart, you know he's
a nut."
The Russell quote on the Golden Rule is great, had not heard that one before.
--- On Sun, 7/20/08, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:
From: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] On Thayer and BDAG
To: lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Sunday, July 20, 2008, 5:24 AM
On Jul 20, 2008, at 5:00 AM, Carl Conrad wrote:
>
> On Jul 19, 2008, at 10:39 PM, Mark Lightman wrote:
>
>> Mike wrote:
>>> Can anyone show me one clear thing wrong in Thayer that BDAG
>> corrects hEXIS? The gloss "habit" goes back to the Vulgate
which
>> ironically was semantically correct at time time, but was
>> interpreted incorrectly later on.BDAG is correct because Lee wrote
>> an article on the lexical history of the word and it convinced
>> Danker.
>>
>> hEXIS is a interesting example because Lee does makes a
>> strong argument that in Heb 5:14 this means something
>> closer to “condition” or “mature state” than “habit”
>> or “practice,” which, as Lee notes, most of the versions
>> go with. But Thayer does NOT gloss hEXIS as
>> “habit,” but instead writes: “a habit, whether of body
>> or mind; a power acquired by custom, practice, use.”
>> This latter definition, recognizing that hEXIS can
>> be the practice of something or the state attained from
>> that practice, seems to me to anticipate exactly what
>> Lee says. And compare Thayer and BDAG here;
>> Thayer actually cites and gives examples in Greek of
>> MORE passages than BDAG does. The entry in BDAG
>> focuses solely on proving the point that hEXIS means
>> “state of maturity”, which I guess is okay if it does mean
>> that, but Thayer gives a more balanced treatment.
>
> Etymology, like "a little Greek" is a dangerous thing, but with
regard
> to hEXIS and any influence of Latin usage of HABITUS as an
> "equivalent," I think it helps to be aware of (a) the form of
the word
> ἕξις hEXIS as a verbal process noun formed from the root ἐχ-
> (EC-) and the 3d-decl. process-noun formative element -σις/-
> σεως
> (-SIS/-SEWS) from the idiomatic usage of the verb ἔχω (ECW) with
> adverbs to indicate a condition in which the subject sustains a
> disposition. One might compare French idiomatic expressions such as
> "j'ai faim" ("I'm hungry") or "j'ai
froid" ("I'm cold"); that usage
> still is current in the GNT, as can be noted in the phrase TOUS KAKWS
> ECONTAS (Mk 1:32) for "those who were ill" or "those who
were in a bad
> way, healthwise." My own reading of BDAG's entry on hEXIS is that
it
> is focused on "the only place in which it is used in our lit."
(Heb.
> 5:14) where "it refers to a state of maturity" -- but that it
does
> initially point to the various meanings outside of the GNT.
>
>> Carl (TECNH) and James (PNRA) gave examples where
>> BDAG is better overall. I’ll give some examples, in addition to
>> hEXIS, where I think Thayer is better. For STAMNOS,
>> Thayer tells you it is from hISTHMI (this is particularly
>> important because I did not know that) he gives you
>> the Hebrew, and he refers you to the KATASTAMNIZEIN
>> part of the wine making process. BDAG gives none of
>> these details and has nothing not already found in Thayer.
>> Or, take a look at METEWPIZOMAI, where Thayer’s
>> treatment is longer and more detailed. In general, Thayer
>> is much more likely to refer you to the root and give the
>> Hebrew. Carl is right that there is more in Bauer to study
>> than in Thayer; BDAG gives some great passages written
>> out in Greek, but Thayer does this too quite often. Thayer includes
>> more historical information in entries like Pharisee and Pilate.
>> He has some neat appendixes which give words unique to
>> NT writers and full parsing info on rare verb forms.
>> I don’t object to saying that BDAG is a better lexicon than
>> Thayer. What I object to is what I have read many times,
>> even on this list, statements like “Shortly after it was
>> published, the discovery of the papyri made Thayer
>> obsolete.” This is sort of like, not a lot like, but sort of
>> like, saying we should not read Hamlet any more because
>> Shakespeare did not have access to satellite photographs of
>> Denmark. Anyway, I think we have reached a consensus, and
>> have reduced the Thayer bashing and idolatry of BDAG to a
>> more nuanced level.
>>
>> And as for George’s statement
>> You might consider that no one finds it particularly worth the
>> effort to take precious time to argue the matter with someone who is
>> determined to maintain a particular position. If you wish to be
>> stubborn, that is your prerogative. You won't get much support
from
>> the academic community.
>> The helpful responses I got from Carl, Mike, James, John et al
>> suggest that maybe
>> George underestimates how supportive the academic community can be
>> even
>> towards a stubborn, argumentative sinner like myself. I would only
>> remind
>> everyone of what Barry Goldwater said to his Classics teacher:
>> “Moderation in
>> discussing lexicons is no virtue, and stubbornness in defense of
>> Thayer is no
>> vice.”
>
> This does not seem to me the most felicitous twist to be put on
> Goldwater's phraseology ("Extremism in the defense of liberty is
no
> vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." I
recollect
> that 1988
It was, of course, 1968, not 1988. 1988 was the year of publication of
my citation reference work. 1968 was also the year of the original wee-
hours red-phone in the White House TV ad; 1968 was not a very good
year for moderation, methinks.
> campaign with its rhetorical excesses: "In your heart you
> know he's right!" "Yes, FAR right!" I've already
disowned the business
> of selling one's first-born in order to acquire BDAG and I recollect
> saying about the "middle Liddell" what I would also say about
Thayer:
> it's not so much that it's a "bad" lexicon or that
it's not useful --
> even Barclay Newman's USB dictionary is not without its degree of
> utility (although I'd rather have Thayer, I think), it's just that
I
> think that something better than Thayer is available and that the
> utility of such glosses as the USB dictionary offers is not very high.
> I had a geometry teacher once who seemed to think that, for learning
> geometry, we could hardly do better than use Euclid's book; he said
> about textbooks, "There are old books and good books; the good books
> are not new and the new books are not good." I'm more inclined to
> think that there are old books that are good (A.T. Robertson, for
> example) and there are newer books that are good (like BDAG). But
> tastes do differ, which is why George Bernard Shaw thought that the
> Golden Rule was not very practical. For myself I'd like to be the sort
> of GRAMMATEUS described in Matt. 13:52 πᾶς γραμματεὺς
> μαθητευθεὶς τῇ βασιλείᾳ τῶν
> οὐρανῶν ὅμοιός ἐστιν ἀνθρώπῳ
> οἰκοδεσπότῃ, ὅστις ἐκβάλλει ἐκ
> τοῦ
> θησαυροῦ αὐτοῦ καινὰ καὶ παλαιά. [PAS
> GRAMMATEUS MAQHTEUQEIS THi BASILEIAi TWN OURANWN hOMOIOS ESTIN
> ANQRWPWi OIKODESPOTHi, hOSTIS EKBALLEI EK TOU QHSAUROU AUTOU KAINA KAI
> PALAIA.].
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
>
>
> ---
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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