From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Fri Sep 08 2000 - 14:32:16 EDT
on 09/08/00 7:58 AM, Daniel Riaņo wrote:
> It is interesting to note in this regard that, in the discussion of
> the word QEO/S of his (wonderful) *Greek religion*, Burkert does not
> even mention etymology . . .
Daniel,
Examples like this could be multiplied endlessly. Murray J. Harris in his
most formidable treatment of the NT use of QEOS in reference to Jesus (Jesus
as God, Baker 1992) sets aside etymology in a footnote on page 26 where he
says : "On the etymology of the term QEOS see Chantraine* 429-430. Harris
spends several hundred pages discussing the use of QEOS from historical,
lexical and syntactical points of view. But on the subject of etymology he
is mute.
On the study of lexical semantics, we need to make explicit an unstated
assumption about how this study should proceed. You cannot study lexical
semantics with any hope of success in isolation from general semantics.
Daniel's recommendation of John Lyons on semantics and my recommendation of
Beekman, Callow, and Kopesec were based to some extend on this unstated
assumption. J.P. Louw** decades ago made this point very explicit by showing
that lexical semantics is just one layer in a comprehensive semantic model
and can only be properly understood when viewed in relationship to the other
layers of the semantic model. I think this point is often lost in
discussions that begin with questions of the form "what does this word
mean?"
Thanks to Daniel for making his expertise available to us on this subject.
Clay
--
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062
*P. Chantraine, Dictionaire etymologique de langue grecque, vol 2., Paris:
Klincksieck, 1970
**J. P. Louw, The Semantics of New Testament Greek, Fortress 1982.
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