Giving feedback to people doing word studies
Posted: September 26th, 2018, 12:41 pm
I received an email from someone in my church the other day asking if I would be willing to read his article on the Greek words translated as tongues and languages. He is doing this for the church and doesn't have any Greek training so wanted me to check that there weren't any obvious issues. On the whole I like what he wrote, and I like his desire to do it.
I am encouraged that he wants to look more deeply than the English translations but am uncertain as to whether I responded in the best way. Essentially he had listed each instance of the words glossa, dialektos etc and shown how they are translated in passages that seem contextually clear by noun case. He used a decent representative sampling of English translations which was good. He then moved to look at the "controversial" passages in 1 Corinthians and Acts with a view to glossolalia and xenolalia.
My response on the methodology, was basically that:
1. He cannot just look at the words, he needs to look at how they are used at minimum in the clausal and sentential level with article, prepositions etc to see if there is a clear parallels in the usages rather than just the word being the same. (he is already looking at the wider-textual context.
2. He cannot ignore the fact that meanings of words aren't finally determined by looking at other contexts, but needs to take into account individual context of utterance - for me that is not just the textual context but the social, cultural etc.
3. His lexicon used was Berry's Greek -English New Testament Lexicon; I don't have access to that so am not sure what standard of lexicon that is, but suggested he would benefit from using the likes of BDAG and Moulton-Milligan etc
4. Also that the Christians in 1 Corinthians wouldn't be matching meanings in the letter they received to other new testament texts, but to those in their language environment. By only taking into account New Testament texts his corpus was too small to make confident claims even if tentative suggestions could be generated
There were more points that I wanted to make, but my concern is that I don't want to discourage people digging deeper into the meaning of words by being pedantic. I also am aware that I am maybe setting too-high my standard of what needs to be done in word studies, especially given the resources most people have access to.
I can't be the only one to be asked to give feedback on studies in a church setting like this. What advice would you have as to how to be positive and encouraging while still trying to get across that there are complexities to be dealt with? If I am off base on any of the feedback I listed above as well it would be good to know as otherwise I am missing the point myself!
I am encouraged that he wants to look more deeply than the English translations but am uncertain as to whether I responded in the best way. Essentially he had listed each instance of the words glossa, dialektos etc and shown how they are translated in passages that seem contextually clear by noun case. He used a decent representative sampling of English translations which was good. He then moved to look at the "controversial" passages in 1 Corinthians and Acts with a view to glossolalia and xenolalia.
My response on the methodology, was basically that:
1. He cannot just look at the words, he needs to look at how they are used at minimum in the clausal and sentential level with article, prepositions etc to see if there is a clear parallels in the usages rather than just the word being the same. (he is already looking at the wider-textual context.
2. He cannot ignore the fact that meanings of words aren't finally determined by looking at other contexts, but needs to take into account individual context of utterance - for me that is not just the textual context but the social, cultural etc.
3. His lexicon used was Berry's Greek -English New Testament Lexicon; I don't have access to that so am not sure what standard of lexicon that is, but suggested he would benefit from using the likes of BDAG and Moulton-Milligan etc
4. Also that the Christians in 1 Corinthians wouldn't be matching meanings in the letter they received to other new testament texts, but to those in their language environment. By only taking into account New Testament texts his corpus was too small to make confident claims even if tentative suggestions could be generated
There were more points that I wanted to make, but my concern is that I don't want to discourage people digging deeper into the meaning of words by being pedantic. I also am aware that I am maybe setting too-high my standard of what needs to be done in word studies, especially given the resources most people have access to.
I can't be the only one to be asked to give feedback on studies in a church setting like this. What advice would you have as to how to be positive and encouraging while still trying to get across that there are complexities to be dealt with? If I am off base on any of the feedback I listed above as well it would be good to know as otherwise I am missing the point myself!