Does "Bible Sense Lexicon" track with Louw-Nida Semantic Domains ?

Rick AusdahlUser: "Rick Ausdahl"
Rick Ausdahl
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Updated by Jason Stone (Logos)

I don't have the Louw-Nida "Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains".  I'm considering getting it, but am wondering if the Logos "Bible Sense Lexicon" provides basically the same type of information as Louw-Nida.  If so, I'm curious as to whether it's typically in agreement with Louw-Nida.  And finally... if it does track well with Louw-Nida, I'm wondering if there are still significant reasons to have Louw-Nida?

If you have experience with both and would be willing to share, I'd appreciate your insights.  

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    Jeremy ThompsonUser: "Jeremy Thompson"
    Jeremy Thompson

    Hi Rick:

    I was one of the Hebrew curators of the Bible Sense Lexicon data. The Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) and Louw-Nida (LN) are similar in that the lexicons are arranged by meaning rather than alphabetically. I would say that the BSL information should track well broadly with currently existing Greek and Hebrew lexicons.

    That said, there are important differences between the BSL and LN. For example, the BSL covers content words in the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament, whereas LN only covers the New Testament. LN also covers grammatical function words in the New Testament (things like definite articles, prepositions, connectives, etc.), whereas the BSL does not. We considered that those are more appropriately dealt with in refrence grammars. The domain structures are little different: the BSL is more strictly a taxonomy, whereas LN includes different kinds of semantic domains.

    So, I think there is good reason to have both. Otherwise, it might be a trade-off of whether having coverage of the Hebrew Bible is more important or coverage of grammatical function words in the New Testament.

    John KightUser: "John Kight"
    John Kight
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    I think there is good reason to have both.

    Agreed.[Y]

    For book reviews and more visit sojotheo.com 

    Rick AusdahlUser: "Rick Ausdahl"
    Rick Ausdahl
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    OP

    Hi Rick:

    I was one of the Hebrew curators of the Bible Sense Lexicon data. The Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) and Louw-Nida (LN) are similar in that the lexicons are arranged by meaning rather than alphabetically. I would say that the BSL information should track well broadly with currently existing Greek and Hebrew lexicons.

    That said, there are important differences between the BSL and LN. For example, the BSL covers content words in the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament, whereas LN only covers the New Testament. LN also covers grammatical function words in the New Testament (things like definite articles, prepositions, connectives, etc.), whereas the BSL does not. We considered that those are more appropriately dealt with in refrence grammars. The domain structures are little different: the BSL is more strictly a taxonomy, whereas LN includes different kinds of semantic domains.

    So, I think there is good reason to have both. Otherwise, it might be a trade-off of whether having coverage of the Hebrew Bible is more important or coverage of grammatical function words in the New Testament.

    Jeremy, thank you very much!

    I'd like to attempt a layman's paraphrase via bullet points.  Please let me know if I'm on track--or at least facing in the right direction.  [:)]

    • BSL covers both OT and NT whereas Louw-NIDA (here-after referred as LN) does not.
    • BSL is limited to nouns whereas LN covers all (or at least additional) parts of speech.
    • BSL does not address functional/grammatical relationships within the text whereas LN does.
    • BSL attempts to address the meaning/sense of a specific word in a specific context whereas in addition to that, LN attempts to group various words with similar meanings/senses based on the semantic domains the authors devised. 

    Did I completely butcher it?  [:(]

    Jeremy ThompsonUser: "Jeremy Thompson"
    Jeremy Thompson

    Pretty close [:)]. The main correction would be that the BSL covers nouns, verbs, adjectives, and some adverbs, just not things like prepositions, articles, etc.

    Rick AusdahlUser: "Rick Ausdahl"
    Rick Ausdahl
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    OP

    Pretty close Smile. The main correction would be that the BSL covers nouns, verbs, adjectives, and some adverbs, just not things like prepositions, articles, etc.

    Thanks for that clarification.  Also please note that I added one bullet point to my previous post.  Hopefully that doesn't muck it up.

    Jeremy ThompsonUser: "Jeremy Thompson"
    Jeremy Thompson

    As to the last added bullet, the BSL does have what you could call a domain structure also. Only, the domain structure is a little different than that found in LN. Both the BSL and LN have what you might call ontological domains (things like "Animals," "People," etc.). But, LN also includes cultural kinds of relationships - "Religious Activities," "Maritime Activities," "Military Activities."

    And yes, the BSL should track with the meanings found LN or BDAG or any of the other number of Greek lexicons currently available. The BSL didn't really seek to propose "new" meanings for words, but to present the meanings of words in new and interesting ways that would enhance search capabilities and allow users to explore meaning more easily.

    Rick AusdahlUser: "Rick Ausdahl"
    Rick Ausdahl
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    OP

    Pretty close Smile. The main correction would be that the BSL covers nouns, verbs, adjectives, and some adverbs, just not things like prepositions, articles, etc.

    One last clarification.  Do I understand correctly, that the sense/meaning BSL applies to the nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. that it does cover, would generally line-up fairly close with LN?
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