From: David A Bielby (dbielby@juno.com)
Date: Wed Dec 29 1999 - 17:55:18 EST
Dear Clay,
I would like to see a typical example of what has driven you to this
conclusion.
Thanks.
Dave Bielby
dbielby@juno.com
On 12/29/99, ""clayton stirling bartholomew"
<c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net>" wrote:
> ----------
> >From: Paul Sue <biblia99@yahoo.com>
>
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Has anyone any experience with Dr. Zodhiates' books?
> > (e.g. The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible). Would
> > they be helpful to people who aren't fluent in the
> > original languages?
> >
> > How about Robertson's and Vincent's word studies
> > books?
> >
>
> Paul,
>
> How helpful these books are depends on how you use them. If you use them
> the way that most people do my answer would be NO.
>
> The whole notion that we can understand an ancient text (or any text) by
> focusing on WORDS as the basic unit of meaning is highly suspect. These
> books are generally used by folks who assume that to understand a text
> you need to take a close look at each word or key words.
>
> After thinking about this issue for nearly a decade I have formed a
> tentative conclusion that it is nearly impossible to train a
> non-linguist to perform a valid word study. What we have for the most
> part in the popular** and even in some of the professional exegetical
> literature is a lot of misinformation about WORDs.
>
> A sentence which takes the form: "What this word really means in the
> Greek/Hebrew is . . ." will very rarely stand up to scrutiny.
>
> Rather than try and train every pastor or bible teacher in lexical
> semantics, which is an impossible task, it is more practical to just
> shun word study books all together.
>
> For this reason, I would not recommend the use of these books.
>
> Please note I am not attacking the authors of these books. I will leave
> that task for someone else. It is the misuse of the information in
> these books which is my focus in these comments. However I think that
> this misuse is to some extend built into the books themselves but that
> issue I will leave for someone with more time
>
> **The "popular exegetical works" which I have sampled are not works done
> by ignorant people. They are books by mainstream Pastors/Professors with
> real Phd's and lots of other credentials.
>
> Clay
>
>
> --
> Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
> Three Tree Point
> P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062
--- B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:40:52 EDT