Lexicons VS Logos

In 'Learn to use Biblical Greek and Hebrew with Logos Bible Software' I understood Dr. Michael Heiser to be encouraging us to put away our lexicons and do the thinking ourselves.

At first I was very impressed by this and I thought - great! That will same me $$$ on expensive lexicons.

Then I realised that, in the video, after he shows some examples of this, he then compares his findings with the lexicons. That final comparison seems like a really sensible way of evaluating ones findings...

What do people think? Is the logos word study feature adequate with basic lexicons such as CHALOT or is it worth the extra money for the big lexicons?

It appears to me that the main advantage of the bigger lexicons is that they show contextual usage which is something the word study feature does very well and can be set to the opinion of whichever translation one chooses...

I'm wondering if the big lexicons have seen their day and been superseded?

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Comments

tom

IMHO, you need HALOT and BDAG for any original language work.

John Goodman

Tom,

Why is that? What is offered which is not also already in the word study?

I wonder if it is the celebrity status of these books which makes them a 'must have'?

Cheers,

John

DMB

Unless you're planning to emmigrate from Logosland soon, get the BDAG/HALOT combo. Else you'll waste your Logosian shekels. No question.

The problem isn't today; it's down the road. And if you were impressed with Heiser, it's hard to imagine 'not-Halot'. Hebrew is too iffy in the key passages, and the NT is very 'interpretive'. There are few simple definitions.

Kenneth Neighoff

I wonder if it is the celebrity status of these books which makes them a 'must have'?

Cheers,

John

These two works are considered standard works.

I find them indispensable for study.

Bruce Dunning

I wonder if it is the celebrity status of these books which makes them a 'must have'?

I think that it is more than "celebrity status". They are classics and essential for original language study.

John Goodman

Denise,

Perhaps you can explain a bit more why?

Cheers,

John

DMB

John, I started out with Original Languages which came with cheapo lexicons (concise this and that). I ended up replacing them with the BDAG/HALOT combo, the Moulton Vocabulary (papyri), and LSJ for the OT greek. Obviously I'm not a pastor, nor 'scholar'. But I do insist on do-it-yourself checking. There's way too many opinions and especially 'traditions'.

So I always recommend the Word Study group for easy study ... good solid answers. But the heavy lifters for things that impact your future (post-funeral-ish!).

Lee

1. Think of lexicons as mega word studies involving a larger corpus of material.

This is particularly helpful for words that occur less frequently in scripture, or even just once.

2. Think also of lexicons as the result of studies that have been critiqued again and again and again.

It's like putting many brilliant minds together, using the best available methodology and linguistic framework.

Anybody who says that one can be a bible expert without the use of these lexicons, is unnecessarily limiting himself. Of course, one could be an expert in the sense of living out key tenets of the bible. We all need experts like that, seriously. I feel that to develop into the latter kind of expert, there's no real need to delve into original languages. To be the former kind of expert though, even arming oneself with the best lexicons is just scraping the surface.

elnwood

The advantage of using lexicons is comparable to using Bible commentaries. Obviously Bible commentaries are not substitutes for our own study. While Bible commentators probably have spent more time reflecting on the passage and the Bible as a whole, they can be wrong, they go out of date, and they are often overly influenced by their background, and thus we need to do our own study. But studying the Bible something that is to be done in community, and checking Bible commentaries is one way to do that.

The same is true for lexicons and theological dictionaries. They are especially useful if you don't have time to look up all 890 uses of επι, but lexicons can be wrong, or out of date. Writing a lexicon is a mammoth undertaking, even more so than writing a Bible commentary, and most of us don't have the time to do that. On the other hand, writing lexicon takes so much time, that they often just copy the previous generation of lexicons, and thus the need to do our own word studies to check them.

Ken McGuire

Especially since the incorporation of the Perseus collection, Logos word studies for Greek are quite powerful. They let us see the usage of a word in the New Testament, and also its usage in a selection of key classical writings, and so serve as a gateway into actual study to some primary sources for the standard lexica.

BUT, note what I said above -- "for Greek", "selection of key classical writings" and "some primary sources". Logos does not have everything. In addition, there is wisdom in how all this evidence has been weighed by others - just like there is wisdom in looking at commentaries after doing your own exegetical work. Because of this, the standard lexica are still useful - and more convenient in Logos format than when I was in school and went to the library to use them. <g>

Logos word studies grow in usefulness as you include more ancient language texts, and so are much more useful than when I came into Logos back a dozen years ago - and will probably grow even more so - at least if you have the texts in your library.

For word studies, we need more Hebrew ancient texts as well as more Hellenistic greek - esp. papyri in Logos... (IMHO)

SDG

Ken McGuire

John Goodman

Thanks to All - that's some very helpful discussion.

I still wonder if the scholarship which goes into making the lexicon is paralleled by the scholarship that comes out in the word studies. Notice that the word studies and info pane draw their glosses from modern bible translations which are in turn carefully thought through by scholars and translators...

So far, what seems to be helpful is:

citations of extra-biblical material
the thinking of scholars who put the article together
a written definition
citations of books and articles about the meaning of the words.

I'm also wondering about advantages and weaknesses of:

LSJ vs BDAG (I own BDAG)

DCH vs HALOT (neither of which I own)

Thanks so much for the advice so far!

John

Ken McGuire

I'm also wondering about advantages and weaknesses of:

LSJ vs BDAG

BDAG is the standard lexicon for the New Testament and related literature. LSJ is the standard lexicon for classical greek. BDAG gets to focus on a much smaller corpus, and so tells you more about the words of that corpus. On the other hand, LSJ summarizes usage info across many centuries.

An old article (Libronix 3 days) on the Logos website still gives some good info about the various lexica: https://www.logos.com/support/lbs/greekkeylink

SDG

Ken McGuire

David Knoll

DCH vs HALOT (neither of which I own)

DCH must never be used as a sole lexicon. It lacks the etymological section, contains no reference to modern research and the definitions are lengthy and cumbersome with huge lists of scripture references.

The lexicons one should use are HALOT and BDB. The best you could do is work with both.

James C.

Sorry what is DCH?

SteveF

Sorry what is DCH?

I believe that they are referring to:

https://www.logos.com/product/29300/the-dictionary-of-classical-hebrew

Dictionary of Classical Hebrew.

John Goodman

DCH is the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew - D Clines Ed.

I think it is 9 vols. It's a very up to date hebrew lexicon but I think it employs a more modern linguistic analysis to arrive at definitions. It also covers extra biblical hebrew sources like the Dead Sea Scrolls...

David Knoll

It's a very up to date hebrew lexicon but I think it employs a more modern linguistic analysis to arrive at definitions. It also covers extra biblical hebrew sources like the Dead Sea Scrolls...

That is certainly how Sheffiled would put it. No serious scholar would recommend it. It is a disaster. The only thing you get is the incorporation of Qumran, usually without any discussion and a list of collocations and syntactic relationships you can get by searching Logos. If you are a novice it is a waste of good money. I only use it for a second opinion and I cannot recall anything intelligent I got out of it.

John Goodman

David,

Thanks for replying! I'm not an expert but I've done hebrew for a few years and am doing a course called 'Advanced Hebrew' at MA Level. My tutors seem to like DCH because of its wider scope and newly proposed definitions. I've used it in the library but come to a similar conclusion to you, when you said that "a list of collocations and syntactic relationships you can get by searching Logos".

But, do you think that HALOT is really worth it if DCH is not?

The lexicons I have are:

Strong, J. (2009). A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
Holladay, W. L., Köhler, L., & Köhler, L. (2000). A concise Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the Old Testament. Leiden: Brill.
Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
Brown, F., Driver, S. R., & Briggs, C. A. (2000). Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems.
Thomas, R. L. (1998). New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek dictionaries : updated edition. Anaheim: Foundation Publications, Inc.
Harris, R. L., Archer, G. L., Jr., & Waltke, B. K. (Eds.). (1999). Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Chicago: Moody Press.

Cheers,

John