[B-Greek] Biblical Greek lexical resources (was " to what extent... PISTEUW")
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Aug 21 05:57:57 EDT 2009
Luke, you've had several good responses to your question. It seemed to
me when I first saw your question last night that you had been
reflecting on various ways of translating PISTEUW into English,
although the real question is not quite the same, but rather it is
what does PISTEUW mean? What is the range of meanings that this verb
has demonstrably in the contexts of the literary texts (presumably the
GNT and early Christian literature)? And what is the sense that it has
in any particular text and context? These are questions that can be
answered only from a careful examination of all of the relevant texts
and contexts. This is what lexicography is all about and it is
precisely the sort of information that we seek from a good lexicon.
For the GNT that means, above all, BDAG and Louw & Nida; they are
different from each other and their different natures deserves some
careful exploration. Iver Larsen has cited relevant sections from L&N.
I was going to cite the entry from BDAG, but it runs four pages in a
word document with half-inch margins. The BDAG entry deserves to be
studied because it displays a careful analysis of the range of
meanings that the verb has historically as well as in the literature
we're particularly interested; equally important is that it lists the
evidence by chapter and verse for each usage in its analytic catalog
-- meaning that you can check the lexicographer's work. Louw & Nida is
a different kind of lexicon; it displays words from the GNT cataloged
by semantic domains and often discusses translation options in the
manner of a thesaurus. There are other dictionaries/lexica available
for the GNT that are really not useful for researching a question such
as this one. There is no perfect dictionary and we wouldn't want to
call either BDAG or Louw & Nida perfect, but they are based on a great
deal of research and careful thought, and -- most important -- they
provide the evidence that a user can test and potentially disagree with.
In sum, your question about the meaning(s) of PISTEUW is an
appropriate and important question, but examination of how some
translators handle it and speculation on the ways we think about
"faith," "belief," and "trust" and getting the opinions of others
about it ultimately requires that you do some homework in the
essential resources upon which we rely for any serious investigation
of Greek word usage in the Biblical Greek text.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
On Aug 21, 2009, at 2:00 AM, Iver Larsen wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mark Lightman" <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>
> To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>; "Luke Firth" <luke.firth.mail at gmail.com
> >
> Sent: 21. august 2009 04:23
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] to what extent... PISTEUW
>
>
>> --- On Thu, 8/20/09, Luke Firth wrote:
>>
>> <To what extent is there justification for any kind of idea that says
>> that the word PISTEUW (I believe (in), have faith, trust) has lost
>> much of it's Greek meaning by simply translating it as "believe"???
>> As the word believe in (at least Australian culture) is more of
>> a... I
>> THINK (with my mind) that this happened... as opposed to... I TRUST
>> in
>> this.
>> Wouldn't it be of much more significance to this culture to even
>> translate it as "trust in" - As does David H. Stern in his 'Complete
>> Jewish Bible'>
>>
>> Hi, Luke,
>>
>> Sometimes it would yes, and sometimes it would not.
>>
>> In John 11:26a PISTEUW means something like "I trust in" but in
>> John 11:26b,
>> it does not mean this at all. It means something like "I think this
>> to be
>> true."
>> As they used to say on Saturday Night Live, New Shimmer is a floor
>> polish AND
>> a desert topping.
>>
>> Mark L
>> Φωσφορος
>
> In the translation project in Africa that I have been involved in,
> we use 3
> different words to translate PISTEUW. If the object is a person, we
> use a word
> meaning "have complete trust" in that person. If the object is a
> statement or
> concept, we use a word that means "believe/accept/agree to". The
> first of these
> is used in John 11:26a, and the second in 11:26b. We have a third
> word that is
> stronger than "accept", and it includes both accepting something as
> true and
> responding positively in action to that acceptance. So, the word
> chosen depends
> on context. It happens all the time in translation that the range of
> meaning of
> one word in one language is covered by several words in another
> language.
>
> Louw and Nida list 4 senses for PISTEUW:
>
> a. think to be true: pisteuw#31.35 (to believe something to be true
> and, hence,
> worthy of being trusted - ‘to believe, to think to be true, to
> regard as
> trustworthy.’)
>
> b trust: pisteuw#31.85 (to believe to the extent of complete trust and
> reliance - ‘to believe in, to have confidence in, to have faith in,
> to trust.’)
>
> c have Christian faith: pisteuw#31.102 (to believe in the good news
> about Jesus
> Christ and to become a follower - ‘to be a believer, to be a
> Christian.’) e.g.
> Acts 4:32, Rom 1:8,16
>
> d entrust: pisteuw#35.50 (to entrust something to the care of
> someone - ‘to
> entrust to, to put into the care of.’) Rom 3:2.
>
> Iver Larsen
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