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Title: Biblical Words and Their Meaning by Moises Silva ISBN: 0-310-47981-9 Publisher: Zondervan Publishing Company Pub. Date: 16 January, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Explaining the Why
Comment: It was my good fortune to have first encountered the study of semantics in an undergraduate level class. The text was James Barr's _Semantics of the Biblical Language_ which by coincidence is the takeoff point of this book by Moises Silva. What Barr does is to criticize the _Theological Dictionary of the New Testament_ for confusing word meaning with a history of ideas. Silva's goal in this book is the "relatively modest goal" of establishing principals and methods for "determining the most accurate English equivalents to biblical words."
I cannot help but smile at Silva's depiction of his enterprise as "relatively modest." Already in the first chapter Silva wants to maintain a distinction between etymology and semantic change. The former refers to origins; the latter refers to developments of a word. One might easily guess that Silva prefers the synchronic meaning of a term, how it is used in its present context.
This leads Silva to consider semantic change in the Septuagint and within the New Testament. Then it is on to a discussion of Saussure's terms langue (the linguistic system) and parole (actual speech). Many readers will begin to see here that determining what constitutes an accurate translation is surely the subject of critical thinking. What is the relationship of words such as walk and run? At this point Silva prefers three basic categories for synonyms: objective, emotive, and sociological.
In chapter 6, called "Determining Meanings," Silva outlines a method for understanding any text "remote from us in time" in order to reassemble a world around the text. Look at the immediate text. Look at the chapters which record the discussion of the term at hand. Look at the writer's teaching in general. Look at the New Testament as a whole. And finally, look at the religious environment of the New Testament. In his conclusion Silva critiques Bauer's Greek-English Lexicon. Bauer, too, failed to distinguish between language and theology.
Silva's book, though short, is at the same time very deep. I think I would do potential readers a disservice if I left them with the idea that this book is easy reading for the average person. He introduces his readers to many of the abstract terms of semantics. This might make his book formidable reading. Also Silva has a command of a broad number of examples from languages other than Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. This might be distract-ing. On the other hand one might just want to know why lexical aids offer diverse answers to the same question. In this book, Silva has explained the why.
Rating: 5
Summary: Superb!
Comment: In this concise book you will find a valuable resource to better understand biblical principles of linguisticis. Dr. Moisés Silva combines his expertise to offer a careful analisys and a structural approach of lexical semantics for more effective understanding of the Biblical text. The chapter about Semantic change and the role of septuagint is wonderful.
Rating: 5
Summary: You'll Never Again Look at a Lexicon the Same Way
Comment: Word studies are some of the most abused pursuits in biblical hermeneutics. When we enter the realm of ancient tongues, too often we forget common sense. We create rules of language that we ourselves never follow in our own day-to-day speech. We overload words with deep meanings, whether or not the author intended it. We analyze the life out of scripture, obscuring the text itself.
Partially, this tendency is enabled by the rich arsenal of word-study tools at our disposal. Lexicons and concordances make it easy to look up every definition and instance of any word and its cognates. Computerized tools make this process painless even for the amateur scholar.
But this arsenal is full of double-edged swords. In this compact introduction to lexical semantics, Moises Silva presents to the exegete the knowledge to make use of these tools without drawing questionable conclusions. In particular, he highlights five common pitfalls:
1. reading into a word inapplicable meanings from related words (abuse of etymology)
2. reading into a word more than the word actually says (illegitimate totality transfer)
3. misunderstanding the role of context (neglect of syntagmatic considerations)
4. misunderstanding the role of synonyms (neglect of paradigmatic considerations)
5. confusing language and reality (confounding symbol, sense, and referent)
This is not an easy read. There's an awful lot of technical material packed into few pages, making the book quite dense. It is, however, an invaluable resource for the biblical exegete. One will want to give it several reads through, as well as refer to it from time to time as he cracks open his copy of BAGD or Louw and Nida.
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Title: Exegetical Fallacies by D. A. Carson ISBN: 0801020867 Publisher: Baker Academic Pub. Date: 01 May, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
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Title: Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics, An by Walter C. Kaiser, Moises Silva ISBN: 0310530903 Publisher: Zondervan Publishing Company Pub. Date: 28 April, 1994 List Price(USD): $26.99 |
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Title: God, Language and Scripture by Moises Silva ISBN: 0310409519 Publisher: Zondervan Publishing Company Pub. Date: 11 February, 1991 List Price(USD): $18.99 |
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Title: Interpreting Galatians: Explorations in Exegetical Method by Moises Silva ISBN: 080102305X Publisher: Baker Academic Pub. Date: 01 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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Title: New Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students and Pastors by Gordon D. Fee ISBN: 0664223168 Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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