Lemma vs. Strongs Number?

Andrew Biddinger

Please excuse my ignorance as I am learning the original languages. My question is what is the difference between the Logos Lemma and the Strong's Number? From what I am seeing it seems to be basically the same thing?

Phil Quigley

The lemma is the lexical form of the word. That means it is how you would look up the word in a lexicon. The Strong's number should be a number, like G1234 or H1234, that would be how you could look up the word in a Strong's Concordance or any other resource that is linked to Strong's numbers.

Andrew Biddinger

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1056697#Comment_1056697

Phil Quigley said:

The lemma is the lexical form of the word. That means it is how you would look up the word in a lexicon. The Strong's number should be a number, like G1234 or H1234, that would be how you could look up the word in a Strong's Concordance or any other resource that is linked to Strong's numbers.

I guess I see that. But, it seems to me that the Strong's number or the word behind the number also represents the lexical form of a word...?

Phil Quigley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1056698#Comment_1056698

You are correct. I was merely responding to the question Lemma vs Strongs number. Yes, the word behind the Strongs number should be the lexical form.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1056699#Comment_1056699

Strongs was for those who had limited OL training, and before computer days. He started out with Biblical lemmas, then expanded to verbal morphs. Absent a computer, and absent OL expertise, Strongs was fast and easy. I still can spot Strongs numbers faster than their OL equivalent during a Sunday sermon. As the lexicons proceeded, they included Strongs, but began to get messy (ergo Logos struggling with which lexicon to prioritize, when doing a Strongs lookup).

With computers, Strongs becomes less and less 'quick' and more and more a crutch, since learning lemmas leads to an ease with the language, over time. Plus spouting Strongs in Bible class is helpful in lowering your pecking-order position (modern humble yourself). Better to spout lemmas no one understands (with a straight face, of course). Pistis, phileo! Just joking.

David Paul

Andrew Biddinger said:

Please excuse my ignorance as I am learning the original languages. My question is what is the difference between the Logos Lemma and the Strong's Number? From what I am seeing it seems to be basically the same thing?

To restate what has been concluded above, the entry behind the Strong's number is usually the lemma for a given word. Just so you know, however, because Strong lived over a hundred years ago, he and his lexicon have not been able to "grow" or revise. Swanson's Dictionary of Biblical Languages provides much more parsing of the entries found in Strong's. It isn't uncommon to find a single entry in Strong's being divided into 3-4 or more separate entries in DBL. Generally more helpful, but be careful. While the more granular breakdown of DBL is frequently appropriate, not all DBL entries are certain...but that can be said for pretty much any ancient language lexicon.

David Thomas

Andrew Biddinger said:

Logos Lemma and the Strong's Number?

In essence, Strong made an alphabetical list of all the Lemmas in the Bible the first Hebrew lemma he assigned the number H0001, the next Hebrew lemma in alphabetical order was H0002, etc. The first Greek Lemma in alphabetical order was G0001, next one G0002, etc. It was a way of "tagging" Lemmas for people who did not need to know the Hebrew or Greek Alphabets or vocabulary.

Reuben Helmuth

If you have Logos and still rely on Strong's numbers, it's a bit like using a paper map to navigate when you have multiple digital maps with layering and a GPS!

Andrew Biddinger

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1056724#Comment_1056724

Reuben Helmuth said:

If you have Logos and still rely on Strong's numbers, it's a bit like using a paper map to navigate when you have multiple digital maps with layering and a GPS!

Thanks for all your responses! Very helpful background information.

So, with Lemmas... Logos has basically made their system the gold source. I am also guessing it is a little more parsed than Strong's. Is their system of Lemmas based off of anything or their own internal scholars?

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1056730#Comment_1056730

Andrew Biddinger said:

Is their system of Lemmas based off of anything or their own internal scholars?

Each system or morphology has its own lemmas and method of parsing. Logos Greek and Logos Hebrew come from Faithlife's internal scholars, and are used in their own (or collaborative)  original language bibles i.e. Lexham and SBL bibles. They are also used in Reverse Interlinears, the NA/UBS bibles, and most TR (Greek) bibles. Hebrew has many alternative morphologies e.g. Westminster, Andersen-Forbes, WIVU, SESB. You can see these in Morph Search when you type in the search box.

Remember that Strong's numbers were formulated for the KJV and there have been modern attempts to overcome its deficiencies. Logos provides them in its Reverse Interlinears, so they can be used with modern English bibles as well as the KJV. Use Enhanced Strong's Lexicon with them.

Curtis Bowery

I am trying to learn Greek. When I am reading the Bible with the interlinear beneath, should I be using/learning the Manuscript or the Lemma? Or both? I hope this question is not "high-jacking" the post, but adding to the discussion. Thanks!

MJ. Smith

Good ole George is no longer with us to provide the rant that you shouldn't be reading with the crutch of an interlinear beneath … so I'll just let you know that using an interlinear to learn a language in controversial. However, what you learn as vocabulary is the lemma; by learning the rules of the language you learn to convert the lemma into the surface forms.

Mark Allison

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1353124#Comment_1353124

Is the "surface form" the same thing as an "inflected form"?

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1353134#Comment_1353134

Technically it is the form that appears in the manuscript itself i.e. almost always the inflected form.

Saay

Mark Ward's excellent article may be a great help to you:
https://www.logos.com/grow/original-language-research-dos-donts/

David Thomas

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1353098#Comment_1353098

Since you are "trying to learn", let me humbly offer an analogy from English. Think of the Lemma as "to be", the Manuscript could be "am, is , was, were, will be, going to be, have been, had been"—if you wanted to read English would you need to know "to be" or would you need to know all of the forms it can take in a sentence (each with different aspect [which is different than time—a whole different conversation about how a language functions])