What areas need updating in Silva?

[Phil Tolstead]

Stirling Bartholomew, writing "Re: NT Word Study" mentioned that Biblical Words and Their Meaning by Moises Silva "is out of date but still useful". I was wondering what areas have been modified? Related to this question, I recently read something from Mike Aubrey which seemed to have a sense that the structuralist approach had made its significant contribution in Biblical Studies from James Barr to Silva. Unfortunately I can't remember the article, but there was something about a hesitant return to seeing some value in the psychological approach to semantics.

So, my underlying question is to ask what areas of Barr-Silva seem outdated and what is developing out of them. However, I'm not looking for 'cutting edge' theory but rather what through the peer review process is gaining general acceptance as a helpful addition to Silva/Barr's recommendations for understanding Biblical texts. (Or for more helpful lexicography).

[Stirling Bartholomew]

Phil,

Silva is still valuable.

Check this out:

... one cannot fully comprehend the meaning of a single word (a lexical sign) without access to all the essential background knowledge that relates to that word.


Framing the Frames: A Theoretical Framework for the Cognitive Notion of “Frames of Reference”
Ernst R. Wendland 2010
http://www-01.sil.org/siljot/2010/1/928 ... 0-1-03.pdf

Semantic Domains for Biblical Greek: Louw and Nida's Framework Evaluated from a Cognitive Perspective
Reinier de Blois
https://www.academia.edu/2964052/Semant ... erspective

This is not "new theory" it has been around for ages. Looking for the next theoretical phase of lexical semantics is somewhat difficult.

[Stirling Bartholomew]

This is not "new theory" it has been around for ages.

Citation from Wendland 2010 pdf page 8

Minsky (1975), calling scenarios ―frames, defines them as mental structures representing stereotyped situations, by which we understand new situations, and which we constantly update in the light of experience. Stereotypical elements function as ―defaults‖ within these frames unless contradicted. Since understanding and interpretation is based on comparison between the ―remembered framework‖ and the actual situation, it is vital in communication that the audience access the appropriate ―frame.‖ However,…experience, and thus ―remembered frameworks‖ are affected by culture. So translations, which normally involve transfer of meaning not just across language but also across culture, will be interpreted in the light of different frames from those of the original author and audience. This means that a translation must do more than duplicate words, it must duplicate the situational frames those words originally referred to. Minsky acknowledges that people‘s mental frames can be modified in the light of new experience.

Framing the Frames: A Theoretical Framework for the Cognitive Notion of “Frames of Reference”
Ernst R. Wendland 2010 page 8 (34).
http://www-01.sil.org/siljot/2010/1/928 ... 0-1-03.pdf

This was already old news when I encountered it in the late 1980s.

[MAubrey]

That sounds like my chapter in Linguistics & Biblical Exegsis, which I excerpted here:

https://koine-greek.com/2017/11/02/ling ... -in-print/

Silva himself, I'm told, considers his own book on semantics in great need of an updating.

[MAubrey]

This was already old news when I encountered it in the late 1980s.

It isn't so much that the ideas are new. You could probably trace them into the 1970s or maybe even earlier. It's just that semantics for biblical languages didn't really start talking about then until this century.

[Phil Tolstead]

Thanks for the two helpful articles. Wendland's frames of reference, and Mike's chapter both help to refine the kinds of questions original language interpreters need to be asking behind any given passages wording. The illustration of the frames of reference being different for a Jewish perspective on adoption vis a vis a Roman is excellent. Are there any other developments in semantics since Barr-Silva that have a direct bearing on understanding and interpreting the original language scriptures?

[ewendland]

The "frames of reference" approach is a "cognitive linguistics" light approach to Bible translating.
For a rigorous CL approach to biblical semantics and lexicography, you might check out the work being done at Stellenbosch University by (and students under) my colleague, Prof, Christo van der Merwe.
For example, see this dissertation SOME LEXEMES ASSOCIATED WITH THE CONCEPT OF JOY IN BIBLICAL HEBREW : A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC INVESTIGATION at: http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/86427.

[Stirling Bartholomew]

The "frames of reference" approach is a "cognitive linguistics" light approach to Bible translating.
For a rigorous CL approach to biblical semantics and lexicography, you might check out the work being done at Stellenbosch University by (and students under) my colleague, Prof, Christo van der Merwe.
For example, see this dissertation SOME LEXEMES ASSOCIATED WITH THE CONCEPT OF JOY IN BIBLICAL HEBREW : A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC INVESTIGATION at: http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/86427.

This is marvelous! I did in fact check it out. The author makes use of Geeraerts, D., Theories of Lexical Semantics. Oxford UP 2010 which is also available as a pdf:

http://npu.edu.ua/!e-book/book/djvu/A/i ... ntics..pdf

[Stirling Bartholomew]

The author makes use of Geeraerts, D., Theories of Lexical Semantics. Oxford UP 2010 which is also available as a pdf:

http://npu.edu.ua/!e-book/book/djvu/A/i ... ntics..pdf

1.4 Beyond historical-philological semantics
Even though most of the work in historical-philological semantics has become
inaccessible to a contemporary international audience, the intrinsic value of
this tradition can hardly be underestimated.

Geeraerts 2010 p42 (p63 pdf)

What is Geeraerts trying to say?