MAubrey wrote:there are plenty of words in Sophocles that aren't in LSJ. Basically, unless you're willing to drop a huge amount of money of Lampe, Sophocles is pretty awesome.
It seems that sometimes that it is just added senses, so it will always be necessary to supliment Sophocles definitions from memory, or to use Sophocles in conjunction with another lexicon such as LSJ or one of the standard New Testament ones.
Barry Hofstetter wrote:Latin is one of the required languages for the entrance exam into heaven
For entry into some historical texts written in Koine by Roman authours and some popular post-Constantinian (Byzantine) texts at least.
cwconrad wrote:many reference works in Biblical Greek from the mid 20th c. or earlier are of much less value to [those who have studied primarily Biblical Koine [-students who study Koine Greek without Latin]], inasmuch as they were composed by scholars utriusque linguae periti
That would be the majority of extant reference works that can be found on library shelves and all of the works whose copyright has expired, wouldn't it?
With regard to the development of Greek theological terms... I don't think Sophocles is at all adequate and Lampe will always have a place....From what I can quickly scan over online, patristic (theological) works don't include noticeable Latin loan words. What does seem to have happened over time is that Greek theological terms were progressively defined and redefined in ever tighter definitions or in different senses based on some current (neo-platonic) philosophical understanding and then the later strict (or altered) definitions were read back in time (homeostatically (in terms of the
then present
status quo) / retrospectively (with less regard for the authour's meaning and more regard for the
then present understanding)) into earlier texts (written before the terms were more closely defined or (even simply) defined by one council or patristic father or another) and the result was that different regions / groups of Christians were progressively cut out of discussion and finally communion. The earlier broad general definitions that allowed open discussion and maintained Christian unity were written and understood at a loose (lay) level of definition Later, however, first as reaction to the (stubborn) misunderstanding of some ("heresy",or schism), later in Byzantine scholasticism and later still in anti-western polemic Greek theological terms were progressively more narrowly defined. Sophocles does not treat words to that level as Lampe that Mike mentions does, so Lampe still has a place on bookshelves and for some Lampe is worth its price. But what about Lampe's coverage of Latin loan words?
With regard to Latin "loan" words in Greek.. If one was to spend money for Lampe, would one get coverage of the Latin "loan" words included in one's value for money? From memory not - it is a Patristic (not Byzantine) Greek lexicon [It is only since the fall of Constaninople to the Turks that Byzantine Greek has been understood as primarily Eccesiastical].
In my opinion, Sophocles is passably adequate for patristics, and for reading
late texts (particularly secular historical texts) Sophocles could still be a good (I mean "soft") for people who want to delve into patrisitic / Byzantine texts, who don't have (or don't want) Latin and who are not so interested in the deeper intertextual diachronic relationships in the development of various key theological terms. And for people wanting to read Roman authours contemporary with the New Testament, the "Roman ... period" part of Sophocles will be invaluable.