[b-greek] Re: Words Classified By Roots

From: Rodney J. Decker (rdecker@bbc.edu)
Date: Thu Sep 07 2000 - 08:06:04 EDT


<x-flowed>At 06:14 PM 9/7/00 +1000, you wrote:
>As a more general comment, the English word 'dog' doesn't come from a root
>of 'do', so just how far can we take root studies, and how certain can we
>be about them?

There is some, albeit limited, value from a diachronic study of Greek.
Unfortunately, it has been severely misused in the past (& still is in some
instances). Your example illustrates well the flawed approach to semantics.
I highly recommend that you spend some time reading Moises Silva. His
introductory vol. is *God, Language and Scripture: Reading the Bible in
Light of General Linguistics* (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), now also
available in a combined series vol., *Foundations of Contemporary
Interpretation* (ed. Silva). His more advanced volume deals explicitly with
this issue: *Biblical Words and Their Meanings: An Introduction to Lexical
Semantics* (2d ed., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994). There are other vols.
as well (Louw, Cotterrell & Turner, etc.).

Rod


****************************************************
Rodney J. Decker, Th.D. Baptist Bible Seminary
Assoc. Prof./NT PO Box 800, Clarks Summit, PA 18411
rdecker@bbc.edu http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/
The *Resources for NT Study* site is accessible at:
http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/rd_rsrc.htm
****************************************************


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