notes on the Greek tems in a NT

Jonathan Robie
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Re: notes on the Greek tems in a NT

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Leonard Isaksson wrote:The advertisement for the book, if it was written by Ann Nyland, does make a pretty strong statement on having better lexicographical notes than most any other work, Danker's lexicon, and Deissmann and Moulton and Robertson are clearly mentioned by name as having done some good work, but that this work goes farther than theirs. That was the way it struck me. I do not have a quote from her site to refer to, so I suppose the way I read it can be criticised on this. Having known Frederick Danker as well as using his work, it just seemed like too much to say the notes went farther than his lexicographical work, so I did react.
There's an old interview on Better Bibles. She seems to make some strong claims.
The Source is different because:
  • The meanings of many words in other available Bibles are, quite bluntly, wrong.
  • These meanings were discovered only recently but have been published only in technical academic journals related to the classics discipline in secular universities. The lexicon to replace Moulton and Milligan will not be published in fascicles, and is years away from publication.
  • The Source is the only translation to date to take account of these word meanings. My field of research is lexicography.
  • Another difference - I, as a translator, am a Classical Greek scholar formally trained in all Greek dialects, not a theologian. I am not backed by any denomination. Of course, some see that as a bad thing, but I note this as a difference. I have also avoided the Biblish dialect, as no secular translator would say for example, “I am in the Persian king” (unless they were a sandwich, not a person) – they would say, “I am a follower of the Persian king”, and no secular translator would say, “I believe in Socrates” – they would say, “I believe Socrates”. “Believe in (someone)” is an appalling mistranslation and I would happily mark a student wrong for such a translation.
Claims like these are best addressed one word or phras at a time, in separate threads, with all the details.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Leonard Isaksson
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Re: notes on the Greek tems in a NT

Post by Leonard Isaksson »

cwconrad wrote:
Jonathan Robie wrote:
Leonard Isaksson wrote:The reason I made a query here was to get someone else's views, who are able to judge or report on the book.
We don't discuss translations on B-Greek. Is there anything in scope to discuss here?
I thought Leonard said he wasn't interested in the translation but in the value or usefulness of Ann Nyland's lexicography. I suspect, however, that any judgments on that would already have appeared by now.

Hello Carl,

I am not sure what you are meaning by judgments on her lexicography. Since I haven't been able to read any of it, what can I say about it? That is why I asked what others knew of the lexicographical work that she had done.

I have a difficult time entering links, so last evening I took over an hour copying a few paragraphs from Ann Nyland, to let her thoughts be expressed, at least the ones I had reacted to. However, I failed in the attempt, the note was lost. These paragraphs I sought to quote are contained in an interview that she had with one Wayne Leman, on betterbibles.com, and the interview was in the summer of 2005. This way she could speak for herself, especially if we read the whole interview, at least one part of her thought would be presented.

As I read her interview again, and it was an interview(my mistake), not on her own site or on Amazon, but on the betterbibles.com, I read more closely her account of the development of NT Greek lexicography. She talks about Deissmann, whom she does not put down. She doesn't really put down Moulton and Milligan either, but she speaks of their limited body of data, that there were 17% of the vocabulary of the NT that was not covered, and that a great many words were included, listed, but received no attention. She does speak of the insufficiency of Moulton and Milligan, that it was outdated when it was published, as many more discoveries of papyri continued to be made.

It was salutary for me to read her interview again, I think I reacted to her statement that all translations were based upon Moulton and Milligan. She criticises the translations that derive from the Tyndale/Geneva/King James and down through the last several centuries She says that the Bible dictionaries were not really good enough. What about Bauer?

She speaks of a trove of inscriptions and papyri that were discovered in 1976, and how that no translations have taken into accountwhat may be learned from the words in these documents, nor have any Bible dictionaries. BDAG works with them some, she reports, but in a limited way. I did not catch a number, round or otherwise, on how many NT words are illumined by the new documents found. She did not put down BDAG, although she says that BAGD was not inclusive of study of various papyri that were published.

When I read this interview again I realised that she must be referring to, in least in part, the New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, the Australian work. She is or was nearby these folks. I do not know if she worked with them.

I also read in Danker's book Multi purpose tools for Bible study. He has a line about how it is necessary to get ready for the 'tidal waves' of change that will inevitably come in grammars and dictionaries as inscriptions and papyri are continued to be studied. He certainly did not consider his to be the last word, but we are happy to have his portion of the good work, as Robertson called it.

I think I reacted rather strongly, and after reading her interview again, perhaps rather than my saying that her work is claimed to be better than others, which I said in my irritation, that she says that she is using a more complete base of documents for lexicographical study.

I did not say that Ann Nyland was a witch or that the translation was wiccan. I did not mean to say that. Since I haven't hardly seen her t ranslation, I cannot maintain that, I wouldn't know, and it wasn't translation that I asked after.

She does take an interest in some nonBiblical documents which have at least been used in occultic practices, or claimed to be. I always found the comment in Jude very interesting, and I looked for R. H. Charles work on Enoch. Having had bad experiences with occult t hings, I shy off from anything that may have been used in those practices. But, I certainly went out and bought Charlesworth's two volumes, and Schneemelcher too.

There is a lot of talk on various sites about some pseudipigraphical and apocryphal writings by some what seem like fundamentalist or evangelical folks. I don't know where all these folks really stand. I do know that I like to read in the pseupidigraphical documents and the apocrypha, or at least those that I have exposed myself too, and I regard them as important for the understanding of the NT.

One other thing that Ann Nyland says that bothered me, and that was how that she was the only classical scholar who had translated the Bible. I thought of Richmond Lattimore, and James Moffatt, and Frederick Danker, or Rudolf Bultmann. Sorry, this belongs in a translation forum.

Let me apologise if I have created a ruckus.

I'm still pondering getting her translation with the extensive notes to see what they are about.

She also appears to be the Ann Nyland who loves horses, and has written on the horse and its place in history. Our family has been in draft horses, so the book makes me curious. Who was Bucephalus, he had a role in carrying the Greek language, didn't he?
cwconrad
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Re: notes on the Greek tems in a NT

Post by cwconrad »

Leonard Isaksson wrote:Who was Bucephalus, he had a role in carrying the Greek language, didn't he?
Bucephalus (Βουκέφαλος, "ox-head") was the celebrated (coins, art) horse of Alexander the Great. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucephalus
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Leonard Isaksson
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Joined: September 10th, 2013, 11:43 am

Re: notes on the Greek tems in a NT

Post by Leonard Isaksson »

cwconrad wrote:
Leonard Isaksson wrote:Who was Bucephalus, he had a role in carrying the Greek language, didn't he?
Bucephalus (Βουκέφαλος, "ox-head") was the celebrated (coins, art) horse of Alexander the Great. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucephalus

Yes, that was what I meant, Bucephalus had a galloping big role in spreading the Greek language. Thanks for telling me the meaning of the horses name, I have wondered at it. I wonder if he was as swift as Secretariat? One wonders at the size and stamina of such horses as this one in history.

T:hanks for the note.
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