The question from Samuel Moreno Olivares about a good-to-
excellent N.T.Greek-English dictionary has come up periodically.
It is too bad that there is still only one answer:
Walter Bauer, _A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament
and Other Early Christian Literature_; translated into
English by Arndt and Gingrich from 4th edition; "Second
Edition [1979], revised and augmented by Gingrich and
Danker" from Bauer's 5th edition, 1958. University of
Chicago Press; also available from Zondervan.
There is really no other choice. Gingrich once made a small
edition, but it is SO small and costs SO much that it isn't worth
the bother.
The more recent (6th) edition of Bauer (edited by the Alands,
1988) is better; but it is in German, with no E.T. available for
non-readers of German.
Unhappily, all three translators (Arndt, Gingrich, and Danker --
the latter two being friends of mine) chose to "revise" and to
"augment" in addition to translating; they are none of them any
match for Bauer in lexicography, with the consequences quite
evident. Often they simply attack Bauer's entries, instead of
translating them! (See, as a really hilarious example,
"skenepoios".) The absurd "causal eis" invented by J. R. Mantey
to support his fundamentalist-Baptist doctrine of John's baptism
(a matter of "translation driven by theology", as Brower has just
said in his recent posting!) was given a full five-line special
entry in the 1st ed. by Arndt & Gingrich; it is at least reduced
in the 2nd ed. to three lines, and credited solely to Mantey (who
obviously couldn't read non-biblical Greek very well, as Ralph
Marcus carefully pointed out, in two separate articles, despite
Mantey's co-writing a textbook).
The result is that, although it is the best available in English,
it still suffers from the additions of its three translators.
However, even Bauer was guilty of "translation driven by male-
chauvinism" at times, the most incrdible example being the entry
for "Junias". This completely non-existent name is listed by
Bauer (with the fanciful guess that it must have been a nickname
for 'Junianus'), with the statement that the purely theoretical
possibility that the name is 'Junia' (a very common woman's name)
is rendered impossible by the context! The "impossible" is that
Paul's remarkable lady-relative Junia was an apostle! Horrors!
Surely Phoebe was no deacon (a term Paul applies to himself), and
Junia was no apostle (a term Paul applies to himself)! How can a
WOMAN have been chosen by God for REAL ministry? Thank God, the
NRSV has now restored Junia to her place in the apostolate, where
even the King James Version had her.
Even the great Bauer had his blindnesses!
--Edward Hobbs