Greek/Hebrew advice

I am a TOTAL noobie when it comes to Greek and Hebrew. I have the leaders library but no tools for it beyond that. I am not looking to learn these languages (yet), so I was wondering what tools/stratageies/resources you all would recommend for someone who just wants to look up a word from time to time.

Thanks!

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Jack Caviness

I have the leaders library but no tools for it beyond that.

For starters, upgrade to at least the Original Languages package. Beyond that, what kind of budget will you allocate for this?

NB.Mick

I am a TOTAL noobie when it comes to Greek and Hebrew. I have the leaders library but no tools for it beyond that. I am not looking to learn these languages (yet), so I was wondering what tools/stratageies/resources you all would recommend for someone who just wants to look up a word from time to time.

Thanks!

Neil, according to your stated interest, Original Languages (OL) may be a bit heavy, as it is designed for students and scholars in the biblical languages (also, I think there is no upgrade path from Leaders to OL, so it might pecome pricey).

Maybe check out the content of your package first: according to the package comparison page, you should own this product http://www.logos.com/product/10354/new-american-standard-updated-edition-exhaustive-concordance-of-the-bible (note to non-package owners: it comes cheaper in the http://www.logos.com/product/8734/nas-electronic-bible-library ), which lets you look up an English word and see the verses it occurs as well as a numerical link to the original Greek/Hebrew word(s). Clicking these should open a dictionary - the Leaders library contains Strong's dictionaries, Swanson's dictionaries and the NAS Hebrew & Greek dictionaries.

A strategy could be to use this, or the multiple Reverse Interlinears in your package which give you the Hebrew/Greek words in translation text order and you may look them up from there. If your "lookup" becomes more of a theological word study, you may want a bigger lexicon, maybe http://www.logos.com/product/4096/theological-lexicon-of-the-new-testament

my 2 c

C Devin Chaulk

I would recommend upgrading to Scholar's. You get Greek and Hebrew Lexicons, the ability to do word studies, and automatic parsing of every word in the original languages (not to mention a SLEW of other original language tools). No original language background is needed to use these tools.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/383918#Comment_383918

A strategy could be to use this, or the multiple Reverse Interlinears in your package which give you the Hebrew/Greek words in translation text order and you may look them up from there. If your "lookup" becomes more of a theological word study, you may want a bigger lexicon, maybe http://www.logos.com/product/4096/theological-lexicon-of-the-new-testament

If you are a total newbie and are truly interested in learning the original languages, AVOID INTERLINEARS LIKE THE PLAGUE THEY ARE. Once you develop a habit of relying on an interlinear, you will never master the language. I would suggest Futato's Beginning Biblical Hebrew as an introduction to Hebrew. I haven't checked introductory works for Greek since my chief interest is in NT and I was a Greek major in college (with additional work in seminary), but I'm sure there must be some. Once you have the basics under your belt, the important matter is reading, reading, reading. You should have good lexica (and grammars) in the language to consult for troublesome spots, not dumbed-down lexica which simply offer glosses which you can use to flip a coin and select from the options given. I would recommend that you accept nothing less than Arndt, Gingrich, Danker for a Greek lexicon since anything else isn't really worth the effort. For Hebrew I would recommend Koehler/Baumgartner, Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament—the Brown, Driver and Briggs lexicon is still quite serviceable though it doesn't have the latest material from the Ugaritic materials and other studies. The important factor is persistence. This is not a task to be undertaken unless you are willing to discipline yourself to set aside a regular time for study. Don't think that you can simply study a language whenever the spirit moves you—do it every day (perhaps you can give yourself a day off occasionally). When you consult a lexicon, don't simply adopt a gloss (translation equivalent) which seems to fit what you think a passage should say. Rather, examine the various options and learn what words signify if specific contexts. Again, read, Read, READ.

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/383936#Comment_383936

A strategy could be to use this, or the multiple Reverse Interlinears in your package which give you the Hebrew/Greek words in translation text order and you may look them up from there. If your "lookup" becomes more of a theological word study, you may want a bigger lexicon, maybe http://www.logos.com/product/4096/theological-lexicon-of-the-new-testament

If you are a total newbie and are truly interested in learning the original languages, AVOID INTERLINEARS LIKE THE PLAGUE THEY ARE.

George, I was actually thinking of you and halfway expecting you to turn up when I mentioned the RI.... [H]

Note that I just gave a bit of additional advice to the original poster who stated he does not want to learn the language but only to sometimes look up a word. I stopped short of recommending blueletterbible.com and rather came up with the small lexicons etc - then I looked what is contained in the Leaders package and was surprised that all these things are already there. For someone intending to learn Greek my advice would be different and much more like yours (although I didn't yet get BDAG).

[:)]

fgh

I
sell individual volumes from the Hermeneia & Continental -commentaries for
LOGOS 4 and some other items.

You can't. Logos doesn't allow transfers of individual volumes from a package/collection/bundle. It's all or nothing. (They also don't allow using their forums for advertising.)

Kevin Maples

I would recommend that you use a good commentary based on the original languages. My Greek professor would joke that, "most people know just enough Greek to be dangerous." In that joke is a serious warning about trying to use information from a language that you don't understand. So if you are completely new to Greek and Hebrew, I think it is best to look to commentaries for your word studies. The commentator will have enough knowledge of the language and the context of the passage to give you good insight into what lexical or grammatical nuances may be at work in the text. May God bless your study.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/384237#Comment_384237

I would recommend that you use a good commentary based on the original languages. My Greek professor would joke that, "most people know just enough Greek to be dangerous."

I would second Kevin's remarks. Too often people will remark that a particular word has a particular meaning when they don't know the language and don't take into account the context. Until and unless you put in the time and effort to learn the language, don't begin to make remarks about a particular Greek or Hebrew word having a particular meaning in a specific passage based on picking a gloss that you happen to prefer out of a bare-bones lexicon which gives only glosses (or not much more). Words generally have more than one meaning. "Bad" normally means undesirable and is to be avoided, but sometimes and in particular contexts it can mean good.

Kendall Sholtess

When you are ready to get into the original Greek, rather than merely doing word studies I would suggest learning the language. I taught myself basic Greek using David Alan Black's book http://www.logos.com/product/5196/learn-to-read-new-testament-greek.

It took a lot of persistence to get through that book. I plodded along daily, putting one foot in front of the other, until I finished. I had no help at all, so I believe anyone can do it if they love the scripture.

Basically, I am trying to convince you to learn Greek. My mind is a lot sharper now since I put it through this training, and the scriptures just come alive! If you can just get to the level where you can read John (very simple) you will see what I am saying. John is simple but PROFOUND.

That said, either learn Greek or stick with a program of several translations. Otherwise it is like you are in a pitch black room groping for the door. You grab hold of random items, but do not know yet if it is the doorknob or the light bulb you have grasped. I plan to continue reading the Greek New Testament and learning more Greek until my last breath. Praise God for His excellent revelation!

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/384241#Comment_384241

I would recommend that you use a good commentary based on the original languages. My Greek professor would joke that, "most people know just enough Greek to be dangerous."

I would second Kevin's remarks. Too often people will remark that a particular word has a particular meaning when they don't know the language and don't take into account the context. Until and unless you put in the time and effort to learn the language, don't begin to make remarks about a particular Greek or Hebrew word having a particular meaning in a specific passage based on picking a gloss that you happen to prefer out of a bare-bones lexicon which gives only glosses (or not much more). Words generally have more than one meaning. "Bad" normally means undesirable and is to be avoided, but sometimes and in particular contexts it can mean good.

+1 [Y] Searching Logos for "bad" found some verses to ponder:

My favorite Logos 4 feature uses tagging for visual filter highlighting in English and Greek resources. WIki has => Examples of visual filters that shows highlighting palette and visual filter definitions.

For learning Greek, if language mastery goal is sight reading, then avoiding interlinear resources with Greek and English on parallel lines is prudent to avoid until sight reading mastery has been achieved. Morphology lines in an interlinear can also be a hinderance to memorizing and recognizing variant spelling.

By the way, learning Greek provides new insights for the phrase "That's Greek to me."

Personally reading "Learning New Testament Greek Now and Then" for sentence diagramming along with reviewing Greek grammatical nuances. Logos has resources tagged so memorizing variant spelling is not needed to grasp thought flow in Greek and English. Personally like to show Louw-Nida line at times so can hover mouse on Louw-Nida # for a contextual range of meaning for a Greek lemma. Also, sentence diagramming is useful across languages.

Verse numbering lacks correspondence with Greek sentences. One Greek sentence can have many verse numbers: e.g. Ephesians 1:3-14 In other places, one verse can have many Greek sentences: e.g. Ephesians 2:8 contains two Greek sentences while John 1:21 has four Greek sentences.

Personally wish for an option to visually hide verse numbers in Logos 4 (setting font color to match background color so numbers not readable on screen).

Logos has New Testament discourse analysis resources. Old Testament discourse analysis resources are under development.

Keep Smiling [:)]

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/384944#Comment_384944

By the way, learning Greek provides new insights for the phrase "That's Greek to me."

Yes, when someone says "It's all Greek to me", I reply that it's a good thing it isn't Swahili. [;)]