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BAGD vs BDAG vs LSJ*？
Post by Sofronios » Wed Nov 11, 2015 9:01 am
Q: sry to ask about lexicon again. my Ancient-Greek journey is just about to begin, and I think lexicons would be my nearest companion, along with grammars.
does anyone here have experience using BADG 2nd ed vs BDAG the 3rd? 
how does the update effect their use to define the early apostolic father? (the edition I already have so far is both volume of Bart Ehrman Loeb)
does the 3rd edition cover more words or definitions than the 2nd that it is a must to replace? and how do they compare to LSJ?

A1 Postby Markos » Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:24 pm

The only real difference between BDAG 2 and 3 is the layout/typeface. The third edition is more clear/user friendly, easier to more quickly track down meanings. No additional words are covered. To me this advantage is not worth the increased price. For that matter, I've never thought BDAG was that much better than Thayer.

To me the main advantage of BDAG over LSJ is that the former more clearly and fully spells out the various constructions a word uses. LSJ of course covers more words.
 
A2 Postby C. S. Bartholomew » Fri Nov 13, 2015 5:16 pm

Thirty years ago I was in a Christian bookstore in Portland OR (about 90th east Stark) and I overheard the proprietor (owner) telling a woman why she should not purchase BAGD for her nephew who was studying NT in Greek. He told her that the dropout rate for students of NT Greek was about 95% and that the purpose of learning the language a used copy of Grimm-Thayer was more than adequate at 10% of price. On the other hand his colleague Norman Baggs at the Seattle branch of the store would tell people what a fine book BAGD was, the very best lexicon on NT published in English. They were both right. 

I have had at one time or another all four books. Grimm-Thayer, BAG, BADG, BDAG. There are certainly semantic threads that can be traced from Grimm-Thayer to the 3rd Edition BDAG. I keep Grimm-Thayer right next to BDAG and check it frequently. F. Danker devoted countless hours of his life to improving the second and third edition so it would be totally ridiculous to say there are no differences. The question is, for the beginning student what difference does it make? I suspect, very little difference. I have made more use of the first (Gingrich) and second edition (Danker) of the shorter (handbook size) lexicon as front end for the big books. You don't always need to see the big article on the word, sometimes you just need to help your memory. Then if you want to do more work you can look a the big book. 

If you intend to invest in software for biblical studies, make a point of getting package that includes Louw & Nida. Most of basic biblical languages packages include Louw & Nida and Brown Driver and Briggs. Louw & Nida with all it's faults is indispensable.

A3 Postby C. S. Bartholomew » Sat Jul 02, 2016 7:45 pm

polemistes wrote: ... because the dictionary is based on a German dictionary?

I have often wondered why the English speaking students of NT/LXX must rely on German dictionaries in translation. A large portion of the lexical reference works (greek, hebrew, aramaic) in my library are works in translation from German or French.

One might argue that BDAG isn't really a German work in translation. I don't know enough about Arndt, Gingrich and Danker to address that question. But I know someone who does,

Edgar Krentz posted this in 02/17/2015: 'Let me give a bit more information about BAG,BAGD, and BDAG. William F. Arndt was also a professor of NT at Concordia Seminary. He earned a Ph. D. in classics at Washington University; his advisor for his dissertation "The Participle in Polybius and St. Paul" was Thomas Shearer Duncan. The LCMS had an association of scholars that persuaded the church to fund the translation of Baur's lGerman lexicon, then being printed in Germany. The University of Chicago Press agreed to publish the dictionary and added F. W. Gingrich to the translation team. Cambridge University Press published the British version. Arndt was in England when it was published; he die riding on a rain from London to Cambridge.
Fred Danker and I were colleagues from 1954 to his retirement about 1990, first at Concordia Seminary and then at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. We were the only two students in some classics seminars at Washington University; I recall the one on Cicero's De natura deorum with Prof. Philip DeLacy. Fred did his Ph. D. at the Universiity of Chicago under Gertrude Smith with a dissertation on expressions of grief in Greek tragedy.
Fred and I, along with 40+ other colleagues were judged heretic by an LCMS convention in 1973 for teaching things "not to be tolerated in the church of God." Ironically e ery seminary student4 in the LCMS uses this heretic's lexicon as a guide to understanding he NT and other early Christian literature.
Fred did the minor revisions of the second edition (BAGD) and then spent years doing the major rewrite of the third edition (BDAG). He stressed a couple of things about this edition in personal conversations with me in his St. Louis apartment. 1. He provided basic definitions of Greek words, not just one word "equivalents". He stressed this point! 2. He added significant references to the non-biblical citations at the beginning of entries, especially from Greek epigraphic texts. These references were to indicate the linguistic fields in which terms occurred to fill out one's understanding of meaning possibilities. 3. He kept many of Baur's references to older exegetical literature, often disregarded by younger scholars (in Fred's opinion an arrogant attitude). He felt they often replicated what4 older scholars knew as if they were new discoveries.
Fred was a legend to his students, nicknamed "Red Fred" from his hair before it became quite scat. He was a phrase-maker, an original in English rhetoric. One example: After preaching in chapel he offered this prayer at the altar: Lord, teach us not to pat ourselves on the back; we might break our arms, and we need them to praise you." I miss him a great deal, and I hope these notes will increase your appreciation of him. Edgar Krentz Prof. Emeritus of NT Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago'

A4 by C. S. Bartholomew » Sat Jul 02, 2016 10:22 pm

There have been some critical reviews of BDAG reflecting cultural drift from the second to the third edition: Vern Poythress who some folks[1] consider an outspoken opponent of "evangelical feminism" http://frame-poythress.org/how-have-inc ... ment-bdag/

Others have taken note of the differences in how Danker presents the semantic content. As I understand this Danker was influenced by Louw & Nida to reconsider how definitions were presented. The intention was to abandon glosses and provide something better. A few fault finders have read conspiracy to corrupt into what was intended as an improvement in the form that definitions take. 

Both the semantic theory and format of BDAG book are very conservative. The theological signature of the articles have been a target of criticism. This isn't news. Bauer's approach to the NT is no secret. Bart Ehrman has been promoting it and selling millions of books. So there is little excuse for a graduate student being ignorant of the interpretive framework from which the BDAG lexicon emerged. 

[1] see: Paul and Gender : Cynthia Long Westfall , Aug. 2016.

A5 Postby brainout » Sun Jul 03, 2016 8:28 pm

I can't live without BDAG. It's bundled with Bibleworks, which I routinely use in my videos in vimeo or Youtube. Prefer Thayer, as it specializes in etymology, and have Big Kittle from both Logos, Accordance, and hardback, for in-depth usage. BDAG though is great for getting semantic range. As for the dropout rate for students, lol you can just sell Bibleworks to anyone if you drop out. The lexicon costs $75 as an add-on. I can't speak for BW10, only have BW5, 8, 9 (yes, all full versions). But in all those, it's great. Hope this helps.

* about LSJ from wiki:

It was edited by Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick McKenzie, and published by the Oxford University Press. It is now conventionally referred to as Liddell & Scott, Liddell–Scott–Jones, or LSJ, and its three sizes are sometimes referred to as "The Little Liddell", "The Middle Liddell" and "The Big Liddell" or "The Great Scott".

According to Stuart Jones's preface to the ninth (1925) edition, the creation of the Lexicon was originally proposed by David Alphonso Talboys, an Oxford publisher. It was published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford rather than by Talboys because he died before the first edition (1843) was complete. The second through sixth editions appeared in 1845, 1849, 1855, 1861, and 1869.

The first editor of the LSJ, Henry George Liddell, was Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and the father of Alice Liddell, the eponymous Alice of the writings of Lewis Carroll. The eighth edition (1897) is the last edition published during Liddell's lifetime.

The LSJ is sometimes compared and contrasted with A Latin Dictionary by Lewis and Short, which was also published by Oxford University Press (OUP). For comparisons between the two works, see the article on Lewis and Short's dictionary. It is also sometimes compared with the Bauer lexicon, which is a similar work focused on the Greek of the New Testament.

Greek scholars use these books so much that two short memorable clerihews have been written to describe the seminal work:

1.
Liddell and Scott, Liddell and Scott:
Some of it's riddle, and some of it's rot.
That which is riddle was written by Liddell,
That which is rot was written by Scott.

2.
Two men wrote a dictionary, Liddell and Scott,
And one half was good, the other was not.
Now tell me the answer, boys, quick, to this riddle:
which was by Scott and which was by Liddell?