Dave Black had some interesting notes on this subject today, which I posted to The Jesus Paradigm. There is a constant debate on what is “correct” usage. We have this with regard to modern usage. I’ll have authors cite some manual against their editor, usually on optional items. So why do we expect all usage…
No, this is not a post about the crazy ways people interpret the Bible. It’s about the way in which people make precision difficult in communication. Am I thinking about biblical interpretation? Of course I am. If you have to guess what I’m thinking about and I don’t give you a clue, “biblical interpretation” is…
Dave Black comments some on linguistics and teaching biblical languages in a post today. (Check out the linguistics conference coming up!) The difficulty is the difference between teaching someone a language in a classroom and in discussing and describing that language in some detail as a linguist would want to do. Both the framework and…
Re: Linguistics and New Testament Greek: Key Issues in the Current Debate It’s more than a year away, April 26-27, 2019, but this conference looks like about the most fun you can have on a seminary campus without breaking the rules! I see several names I know, some well, and one Energion author, Thomas Hudgins,…
I try not to call what I do here “reviewing” as I don’t really try to provide an academic review. In fact, I might do better to call these “Ramblings after Reading.” In the case of this book I need to provide an additional caveat. Dave Black is a friend, and I publish several books…
Thomas Hudgins is teaching Greek, and he thinks students should study with the intention of actually using their Greek in ministry (HT: Dave Black). I’m delighted to see more and more effort put into this type of teaching. I was very frustrated as a graduate student when I saw how students in the MDiv program…
We all use idioms, mostly unconsciously. There are a number that bother me that are in common usage, such as “I could care less” which developed from the more logical “I couldn’t care less.” But idioms often aren’t about logic. They’re about what people actually say, and what other people understand by what they say….
One of the great problems I find in teaching biblical languages, or in explaining Bible translation to lay audiences, is that people don’t understand meaning very well. They assume that words have fixed, narrow ranges of meaning, and that if you search carefully, you can find a word or phrase to precisely represent that word…
A Living Sacrifice provides a link to some material on linguistics and exegesis, particularly word studies. The articles are by Benjamin Baxter and are in the McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry. One is The Meaning of Biblical Words, and the other is Hebrew and Greek Word-Study Fallacies. I highly commend both. The key element…
David Alan Black has posted a new essay, Ten Best Books for Studying New Testament Greek. The majority are books I have read and/or are on my shelves, but there are a couple that are just on my “need to read this list” and a couple more I’m going to add. I note that when…
