[B-Greek] New book: Singular-Meaning Lexicon and Handbook of the Greek New Testament
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Sep 25 08:05:22 EDT 2008
Mike Aubrey in a blog entry of yesterday (http://evepheso.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/heres-a-winner-for-you/
= http://tinyurl.com/4cumdo) calls attention to the above new title.
He cites the blurb for it thus: "is divided into two distinct
sections. The Lexicon first gives a singular meaning for every NT
Greek word. Next, the meaning is discovered by analysis of every
occurrence of that word in the NT. Meanings are sifted until a
singular meaning is found that adapts in every location of that word.
This would be as near as a human could get to the meaning that was in
the one mind of God, who is the author. The Handbook includes a
treatment on the rare subject of the scriptural history of language.
The Grammar section is an attempt to adapt the NT Greek grammar so
that it is consistent. Issues like the passive meaning given to the
middle voice, imperatival force put on the participial verb forms etc.
are discussed."
I don't know whether to be delighted, amused, or appalled at what the
the title of this book suggests. Is the intent of this lexical
analysis to discover/uncover the unique sense supposedly inherent in
each Greek word in the GNT? On the surface, at least, it looks like a
lexicographical quest for the "least common denominator." IF that's
what it is, I really wonder how useful that is to the student of the
GNT -- but maybe that's NOT what is meant by "a singular meaning for
every NT Greek word"? There's clearly a hermeneutical assumption at
the heart of the proposition here, and hermeneutics is NOT a topic
open for discussion in this forum. And are we to understand the second
section is aiming at the very same sort of consistency with respect to
Koine Greek grammatical constructions? That certainly sounds pretty
good ... Google Book Search lets you see exactly what this involves: http://tinyurl.com/4rmepd
The review at Amazon.com concludes with the following appraisal:
"The method in this book fails to treat Greek as a language, trying to
make it some magical, mathematical formula instead." Mike Aubrey says,
"Its a good review, but what scares me is that there were two people
who didn’t think it was helpful." I note that there were ten others
that thought it was a helpful review, but of course we don't evaluate
scholarship by majority vote. In any case, I'd like to see the book,
although at $24 it seems a bit pricey; but my guess is that I'd
probably say in paraphrase of this effort what the French general
Bosquet said about the celebrated "charge of the Light Brigade" in the
Crimean War: "C''est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la grammaire."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Ret)
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