June 3rd, 2011
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Linguists have provided significant help to biblical scholars, not the least in the area of lexical semantics. “Lexical” here means words and phrases and “semantics” deals with meanings, so that “lexical semantics” is the study of how words mean. One area of particular help is that linguists posit that individual words often have what is called a “semantic range,” which will be explained and illustrated below.
May 27th, 2011
Last time, I mentioned that the great Aaronic benediction in Num. 6:22-27 concludes with the wonderful line: “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” The notion of God putting his name upon someone is an interesting one. One passage that has always stuck with me in this connection is in Exodus: “Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him” (Exod. 23:20-21; ESV; emphasis added). Having God’s name is really something!
April 6th, 2011
Word studies dominate the resources available for Christians. Some are good and some, well, not so good. With all the word pictures, Strong’s numbers, footnotes in translations, study Bibles and more, you would think that there’s nothing more that can be said about word studies in the Bible. I’m going to put a little oar in this massive lake anyway. The lake will be reduced in size a bit by only considering New Testament (NT) and Greek examples since this is my field.
