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Louw-Nida lexicon
>Date: Fri, 22 Apr 94 08:18:29 PDT
>From: "KENNETH D. LITWAK" <klitwak@vnet.ibm.com>
>To: B-greek@virginia.edu
>Subject: Semantic Domains
> With recent reading I've been doing in linguistics and NT Greek,
>I've become a regular user of the ABS's NT Lexicon based on Semantic
>Domains (I'm sure that's not the exact title but something like that).
>I tend to like it, though obviously it is not a "complete" in the sense
>of listing possibilities at different passages or bibliographic data
>as BAGD. I have, however, read others who disklike it. I'd be interested
>in comments from members of the list. Thanks.
>Ken Litwak
Since you asked: This lexicon is terrific for getting the scope of words
which the author *might* have used, which gives one a sense of how the
author may have been nuancing his thought. But I also find Louw-Nida
quite frustrating. It was prepared as an aid to on the field bible trans-
lators more than scholars, and consequently they provide no documentation
for their classifications or suggested English equivalents. Further,
they only give one or two NT examples. And there is virtually no effort
to give much help in deciding between alternative possibilities.
A good example of how this can be frustrating is the word authentein,
which of course is controversial because of its use in 1 Tim 2:12. L-N
give the meaning "usurp authority" in conformity with many other recent
statements about this word. But, like so many other statements, there
is no documentation, no indicatino as to why L-N felt it meant to "usurp"
rather than simply "exercise" authority.
Also, L-N is awkward to use, because you have to look everything up twice.
But the need for further evidence is what drives me back to BAGD and L-S.
Thus, I think L-N is very helpful in giving a student a feel for the way
words functioned in Greek, but it gives little help in deciding the meaning
of problematic words.
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