Confusion over accuracy of Louw-Nida numbers

I am concerned over how accurate the Louw-Nida numbers are within Logos software, for example in the following instance...

In LN 37.64 (to RULE as a king) Louw-Nida make the point that it is a serious mistake to translate "kingdom of God" as referring to a place, as it should refer to the RULE of God.

This makes perfect sense to me, and therefore I would have assumed that when the "kingdom of God" is mentioned in the NT that Louw-Nida would ensure that the LN numbers would point to LN 37.64...

But, not so.

In every instance that I looked at where the "kingdom of God" is mentioned in the NT (for example, Mt 6:33, "seek first the kingdom of God"), my logos software is pointing me to LN 1.82 (we are to seek first the "area ruled by a king") instead of LN 37.64 (we are to seek first the "rule and reign" of God).

So i am confused as to how accurate the LN numbers are in the software, as the dictionary itself states that the "kingdom of God" refers to the semantic domain LN 37.64, but every instance I have found of the "kingdom of God" using the Logos software is pointing me to Semantic domain LN 1.82 instead.

Can anyone explain?

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Dave Hooton

In LN 37.64 (to RULE as a king) Louw-Nida make the point that it is a serious mistake to translate "kingdom of God" as referring to a place, as it should refer to the RULE of God.

DBL Greek lexicon (not surprisingly) follows this i.e. βασιλεία 1. LN 37.64 = reign as a king (Lk 1.33), 2. LN 1.82 = kingdom, an area ruled by a king (Mk 6.23).

"Kingdom of God" and "Kingdom of Heaven" = LN 1.82 except Mt 3.2 where "kingdom of heaven" = LN 37.64!

In fact there are only 8 exceptions to "kingdom" (βασιλεία) being tagged as LN 1.82 (in ESV); two being LN 37.64, and the remainder also appear to be tagged correctly.

I would expect Faithlife to respond to this.

David Thomas

Can anyone explain?

I would have to look up the usages, but one distinction comes to mind.

1.82 is the noun form of the word.

37.64 includes the verb, and the noun that derives from it.

First thought is that if the Biblical author uses a verbal form of the word (participles?) then Louw and Nida assigned the verbal semantic domain. If the Biblical author uses an objective form of the word then Louw and Nida chose between the noun or verb/noun domain.

It is important to remember when asking about "accuracy" is if Logos is accurate in relating the print resource, or is the print resource accurate in its conclusions.

Stephen Brockett

Thank you for the replies so far.

I suppose there are a few questions I have in mind.

FIRST QUESTION

Is the Logos software accurately reporting Louw-Nida numbers?

Unfortunately Logos have made it impossible to test out the accuracy of such numbers.

In Louw-Nida’s Introduction, they have written: “If one is concerned primarily with the lexical values to be found in words of a particular passage of Scripture, then obviously the place to begin is with the biblical index. This index is exhaustive in that it lists all of the domains and entries where a specific verse of Scripture is treated in any way.”

If the place to begin is the biblical index, then why have Logos refused to add this biblical index in the software? This omission makes it impossible for me to double check whether any Logos bible (e.g. ESV, KJV) is accurately reflecting the Louw-Nida numbers. Any mistakes or errors will never be found or reported under this system.

So my first question is whether the Louw-Nida numbers can be confirmed as being absolutely 100% accurate in Logos software, based on what is contained in Louw-Nida’s biblical index?

SECOND QUESTION

If the KJV and ESV are based on two different Greek texts (Textus Receptus vs Nestle Aland) then it stands to reason that the words may have slightly different textual meanings as the context or wording may be different. Is this also taken into account within the Logos software? Or are similar words just always given the same Louw-Nida number regardless of the translation philosophy?

Has Logos software ensured that Louw-Nida numbers are accurately assigned to all translations based on the original Greek text?

THIRD QUESTION

However, if we assume that Logos IS accurately reflecting the Louw-Nida numbers contained in the biblical index that they are hiding from us, then my confusion must lie with Louw-Nida themselves. Is their book accurate, or is there a misprint?

Or is there somethinbg else I am missing?

Let us consider the following verses translated in Young’s Literal Translation in Logos (I am only citing three verses, but there are plenty more)...

Matt 5:3 ‘Happy the poor in spirit—because theirs is the REIGN of the heavens.’ (YLT)

Matt 6:10 ‘Thy REIGN come: Thy will come to pass, as in heaven also on the earth.’ (YLT)

Matt 6:33 ‘but seek ye first the REIGN of God and His righteousness, and all these shall be added to you.’ (YLT)

Now compare this to the ESV in Logos…

Matt 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the KINGDOM (LN 1.82) of heaven.”

Matt 6:10 “Your KINGDOM (LN 1.82) come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Matt 6:33 “But seek first the KINGDOM (LN 1.82) of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

According to Young’s Translation, Jesus is clearly talking about the reign of God in these passages, and Young would probably have suggested that these passages should be using LN 37.64.

But according to the LN numbers assigned within the ESV, Jesus is clearly talking about a kingdom area, using LN 1.82.

But Young is not in disagreement with Louw and Nida because they themselves affirm… “It is generally a serious mistake to translate the phrase ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ ‘the kingdom of God’ as referring to a particular area in which God rules. The meaning of this phrase in the NT involves not a particular place or special period of time but the fact of ruling. An expression such as ‘to enter the kingdom of God’ thus does not refer to ‘going to heaven’ but should be understood as ‘accepting God’s rule’ or ‘welcoming God to rule over.’” (LN 37.64)

And yet, assuming that the LN numbers are accurately represented in the Logos software, why do Louw and Nida constantly disregard their own advice? Why do they look at these passages (and many more) regarding the “kingdom of God” and repeatedly tell us that the word kingdom is referring to an “area” (LN 1.82), while also telling us that it is a serious mistake to think of these passages in this way?

This is confusing on many levels, and leads me to wonder how accurate Louw-Nida are in general.

But if anyone can clear up this confusion then I would be very happy to know what the answers are.

Thank you in advance.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1182058#Comment_1182058

But if anyone can clear up this confusion then I would be very happy to know what the answers are.

As above, probably only the FL guys can answer.

But you might consider (in no order):

- YLT sits over top what might be called a majority text (there were many at the time). And his choice of english was relative to english at the time, not now. I like YLT.

- The english 'kingdom' or 'reign' is heavily argued, especially in the late 20th century. LN was throwing in their 2 cents worth. I'd think the question is buried in the late 1st century, maybe in today's northern Syria. Or even ruins east of Jerusalem.

- LN itself is an opinion, and a naive (simplistic) one at that. It's grouping an ancient language/culture into a more modern language/culture's hard-slots (vs a a more generalized similar-to). They knew that, but helpful to remember, it's an approximation.

- Should Logos RI reverse-engineering reflect LN's opinions, or Logos' opinion of LN slots? Of couse, as with most Logos products, who knows?

- And yes, they're literally slotting numbers against lemmas? Or lexical usage? Or? You're right.

Beloved Amodeo

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1182058#Comment_1182058

In Louw-Nida’s Introduction, they have written: “If one is concerned primarily with the lexical values to be found in words of a particular passage of Scripture, then obviously the place to begin is with the biblical index. This index is exhaustive in that it lists all of the domains and entries where a specific verse of Scripture is treated in any way.”

Stephen, I take very serious your assertion that our digital rendering of the Louw-Nida text is some how incomplete and therefore suspect in its usefulness in answering some of the most basic text critical issues you have cited.

I call FL to give us clarity on this very important matter.

Young is not in disagreement with Louw and Nida because they themselves affirm… “It is generally a serious mistake to translate the phrase ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ ‘the kingdom of God’ as referring to a particular area in which God rules. The meaning of this phrase in the NT involves not a particular place or special period of time but the fact of ruling. An expression such as ‘to enter the kingdom of God’ thus does not refer to ‘going to heaven’ but should be understood as ‘accepting God’s rule’ or ‘welcoming God to rule over.’” (LN 37.64)

Someone expert in the Greek should settle this issue. For as I have stated above this text critical issue is basic and cuts to the core of our understanding about the text as it is rendered across major translations.

I again call for FL to give an answer to the issue you have raised.

Edit: BDAG agrees with the quotation you cite above

ⓑ esp. of God’s rule the royal reign of God (usually rendered ‘kingdom of God’, and oft. understood as royal realm but with dilution of the primary component of reigning activity), a chiefly eschatological concept, beginning to appear in the prophets, elaborated in apocalyptic passages

Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 168). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

α. β. τῶν οὐρανῶν mostly in Mt: 3:2; 4:17; 5:3, 10, 19f al.;

• otherw. (Did., Gen. 52, 11; 60, 28) J 3:5 v.l.;

Rick Brannan (Logos)

Hi folks.

Hopefully I can clarify a few things.

First, the Louw-Nida annotation available in Logos Bible Software was commissioned and completed by Faithlife/Logos (in the early/mid 2000s, IIRC). As with any effort that attempts to exhaustively apply a framework (such as Louw and Nida's semantic organization) to a corpus (like the NT), there are going to be fuzzy areas and areas of disagreement.

The tool we developed and used creating this analysis was designed to evaluate the Louw-Nida articles to determine where LN referenced a specific Bible reference (e.g. Lk 1:33) in a specific domain + article (e.g. LN 37.64) and strongly suggest this to the annotator. If no reference was cited, then DBL Greek was similarly evaluated for references to suggest. If there were no potentially appropriate citations for a given word instance at all, the annotator determined the annotation based on their own experience and understanding.

The analysis goal was to annotate appropriate for context at the word level and, where possible, at the phrase level. As a result of this post, we now have a case to review "Kingdom of _____" tagging based on the Louw-Nida semantic organization. That will take some time to accomplish and even more time to roll out with all of the different resources that utilize this data. I am unable to give an estimate for this work beyond "not immediately."

Regarding the "Biblical Index" mentioned in some of these posts: There is no comprehensive, every-word-annotated, biblical index in the print of Louw-Nida (that's why we decided to do the analysis back in the early/mid 2000s). The introduction is referring to an index of all scripture references cited in the body of the lexicon. This information is available in Logos from a right-click search in the resource.

Regarding analysis of the KJV: In the past 5 (?) years, we re-analyzed areas of Scrivener's 1881 The New Testament in Greek (which is the text Faithlife/Logos align with KJV and other TR-based translations) that differ with the critical text and have incorporated those differences into the data. So we do our best to account for differences. But, please note: This is an analysis of the Greek of the New Testament, it is not an analysis of how the Greek was translated into a target language. So "translation philosophy" is not taken into account in the analysis.

Regarding general accuracy of the analysis: This analysis has been complete for, I'm guessing, at least 15 years. We've received feedback at several points along the way and integrated it. We will continue to receive, review, and integrate feedback. As with any exhaustive application of a framework (Louw-Nida) to a corpus (the NT), there are going to be legitimate points of difference, there are going to be areas of difference due to subjectivity, and there are going to be flat-out errors. We've fixed errors since this data was released (and plan to continue doing so); we've reviewed and edited areas where suggested due to subjectivity and legitimate differences (and plan to continue doing so).

Hopefully this helps.

- Rick

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1182174#Comment_1182174

Hopefully this helps.

Thank you Rick. It is a very fair assessment and we appreciate the willingness to consider changing the "kingdom of ....." tagging.

Stephen Brockett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1182174#Comment_1182174

Thank you Rick

That has answered my concerns.
Previously I had assumed that Louw & Nida had looked at every word in the New Testament and they had personally assigned it a number. Certainly this was my understanding. I think I had seen a Morris Proctor video, and perhaps a few other Youtube videos where various Logos users told me that using LN numbers would immediately point to the correct number.

The fact that the LN numbers in Logos are still open to interpretation is not something that I found on your website, and does not seem to be widely advertised, but it would have been helpful to know before purchasing Louw-Nida's book.

Nevertheless, it is very helpful to know that, unlike Strongs numbers which were overseen by Strong himself, most of the LN numbers in Logos can be classed as "suggested LN numbers" which were not necessarily affirmed by Louw Nida themselves, unless a verse was specifically referred to in Louw-Nida's book.

I wonder if you can make that point clearer on your website going forward to avoid further confusion. I am happy to use Louw-Nida's book, and it will be a useful resource, but it would have been helpful to know that things are not as cut and dried with LN numbers as it had previously appeared.

Thanks again for your detailed response.

Stephen

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1182683#Comment_1182683

The fact that the LN numbers in Logos are still open to interpretation . . .

This is true of essentially all study helps - glosses, parsing, best text, etc. are still open to interpretation which is why scholars continue to work on the issues