jloucks@uts.amdahl.com (Jim Loucks) (03/25/91)
I'd like to study Greek and Hebrew but I don't know where to start.
I found one book that looked interesting - "The Zondervan Parallel New
Testament in Greek and English" which contained the NIV and KJV versions.
I'm not really interested in the KJV but it was right along side the NIV. Is
there a similar book with just the NIV? Is there an advantage to having
KJV? If I had my choice, it would be NIV and NASV side by side.
Another book was "Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms" by
Richard A. Muller which seemed very helpful. Any comments about this book
or any others like it?
Any ideas about Hebrew books?
I keep seeing references to "ho theos" which I couldn't find at all in the
Greek Bible. Is "ho theos" Hebrew? As you can see, my knowledge in this
subject is small if not non-existent.
I respect a lot of your opinions out there, but I won't tell you who just
to keep you humble! :-)
I need your help!
Please email your response.
Thanks
--
Jim Loucks {sun, pyramid, uunet}!amdahl!jloucks
We cannot pander to a man's intellectual arrogance, but we must cater to his
intellectual integrity. - John Stott
["ho theos" is Greek for God. It's certainly there in the Greek
Bible. There's a problem in transliterating from Greek to ASCII,
"ho" is being used to represent an "o" with a "`" over it.
Trying to learn Greek from a dictionary strikes me as doing it the
hard way. I used a book which walked you through the book of John,
pointing out grammatical points and vocabulary as they came up. It
was a workbook designed for self-study (or use in classes -- it was
used by the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary). The title is "New
Testament Greek Workbook: An Inductive Study of the Complete Text of
the Gospel of John" from the U. of Chicago Press. I believe I've seen
similar books recently. You'll want a text like that, a dictionary,
and a grammar. I'm in no position to recommend specific ones, but
what P.T.S. used was Dana and Mantey, "A Manual Grammar of the Greek
N.T.", Macmillan, and the for a dictionary, the abridged Gingrich.
(The full Gingrich is a standard reference book, but it's large enough
to be unwieldy for learning a language, and is also a bit expensive.)
I have never looked at Hebrew, and have no recommendations there.
There are parallel NT's based on NIV and RSV, I believe also from
Zondervan. (My older one is based on RSV, I believe from Zondervan.
Unfortunately it's at Rutgers, so I can't be sure.) The one I'm using
now is "The New Greek-English Interlinear New Testament", from
Tyndale, 1990. It's based on the NRSV and the UBS 3rd
Edition/Nestle-Aland 26th edition. Apparently many interlinears are
of dubious scholarship, so you want to be a bit careful.
--clh]NU169273@vm1.nodak.edu (03/30/91)
Hi Jim,
Glad you want to know more about the Bible, God's word.
If you want to learn Greek and English side by side purchase
a King James Version: INTERLINEAR GREEK-ENGLISH NEW TESTAMENT
with a greek-english lexicon and new testament synonyms by
George Ricker Berry. The publisher is Baker Book House: Grand Rapids,
Michigan.
The Greek text is that of the Stephens, 1550 and Elzevir, 1624...
commonly known as the Textus Receptus (Textum . . . . ab omnibus
receptum).
I would also recommend a Strong's concordance again in the
King James Version.
I would not recommend those so called bibles that take the blood
of Christ out of their verses. Write me and I will tell you what
I mean here.
Your truly,
Kevin Paulson, 222 Stockbridge Hall, N. D. S. U., Fargo, ND 58105kenns@prism.cs.orst.edu (Kenn R. Stump) (04/01/91)
In <Mar.30.03.00.38.1991.15008@athos.rutgers.edu> NU169273@vm1.nodak.edu writes: >Hi Jim, > Glad you want to know more about the Bible, God's word. > If you want to learn Greek and English side by side purchase > a King James Version: INTERLINEAR GREEK-ENGLISH NEW TESTAMENT > with a greek-english lexicon and new testament synonyms by > George Ricker Berry. The publisher is Baker Book House: Grand Rapids, > Michigan. [description dropped] > I would also recommend a Strong's concordance again in the > King James Version. [If possible, try to find a more complete FULL-scale GREEK dictionary. The Strong's concordance is good, but lacks many greek words. 8-(. . . Anybody know of a *good* greek dictionary? Something about 30 inches thick would be neat! ;-) I have no idea where to start in trying to find one, and I want one badly. The Strong's is good, and has aided me muchly. Also, references to a good Hebrew dictionary would be highly valued... Jim, you should consider a "Bible Hand-book" for the historical backgrounds it will contain. Beware though, Bible hand-books are usually written by theologians, and (no offense theologians) the hair-splitting that they sometimes do can miss the spiritual side of the issue completely. One good example of what my handbook has helped me with is where Paul in first or second Corinthians addresses the issue of hair length. I got some extremely useful backgroud info on what was happening in Corinth at the time and suggestions as to why Paul would have said something that, from outward appearances looks like a sexist-pig statement when it wasn't. There are MANY of these handbooks around, so I assume that the knowledge in them is common with all theologians. so one may be as good as another authority-wise.] > I would not recommend those so called bibles that take the blood > of Christ out of their verses. Write me and I will tell you what > I mean here. Amen! Preach it! ;-) <silly person at keyboard, please forgive> > Your truly, > Kevin Paulson, 222 Stockbridge Hall, N. D. S. U., Fargo, ND 58105 - kenns@jacobs.cs.orst.edu [Some standard works that I know of are Arndt and Gingrich, "A Greek-English Lexicon of the NT and other Early Christian Literature", and "the Theological Dictionary of the NT", edited by Kittel. I don't have either (they're too large and expensive), but have abridged versions of both. I find the abridged Kittel great for dealing with the kinds of issues that typically come up in this group. The first is more a dictionary. It gives citations from non-Biblical works, which often help illuminate the meaning of the words, and goes into great detail. The second is far more intensive about each word. It contains discussions of the theological background and implications of the words. It lists the Hebrew equivalents, and how the Greek word is used both in Jewish and Greek literature of the period. The unabridged version apparently has a lot of archaeological details and every other conceivable kind of background information. It includes only words of "theological significance". So you'll need a traditional dictionary if you really want to do a complete translation from Greek. It's a matter of what you want. If you are a practicing translator, you'll need both kinds of work, I suspect. If you are trying to understand passages using an interlinear, which is more likely, I think you'll probably find the one-volume abridgement of Kittel just the right thing. It has just the right kind of background to help you understand the words that matter. However it is not a concordance. I.e. it does not list every occurence of the word in the NT and classify which meaning applies. I believe Arndt and Gingrich do. If you wanted to do your own word studies, you'd need something that listed every passage in which a word appears. These days I'd be inclined to suggest using a computer concordance if you want to do word studies, rather than tracking things down by hand from a listing of passage in a book. (In fact the newest edition of Quick Verse, complete with Greek and Hebrew support, is probably no more expensive than Arndt and Gingrich.) One wierdness about the abridge Kittel: I uses only the Roman alphabet. Greek and Hebrew are transliterated. However it lists the words in Greek alphabetical order. I should note that it's been about 20 years since I looked at dictinoaries, so there may be something better than Arndt and Gingrich these days. --clh]
fyfe@cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Fyfe) (04/14/91)
[Some time ago a reader asked about tools for working with the
original languages. He has an interlinear but wanted to go a bit
further. --clh]
I have an interlinear greek-english new testament and had bought a greek
lexicon to go with it. I have found though, that I use Vine's Expository
dictionary of New Testament Words much more than the lexicon. You can buy
Vine's for about $10.00 through a book distributor like CBD (Christian Book
Distributors) or ~$15.00 at your local bookstore.
bobb
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efc@athena.mit.edu (Eric Celeste) (04/17/91)
Someone asked for ideas of guides to make using original languages easier... After only a year of studying Greek, I've found the Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich Lexicon to be the best, but horrible to use unless you also have a copy of the Index (edited by John Alsop, published by Zondervan). The Index is great because it goes verse by verse with quick English equivalents for the Greek words, and then gives you precise page number and paragraph references to the Lexicon (thus saving hours of look-up time). Hope this is helpful! Shalom, Elizabeth Celeste -- Eric Celeste