Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Vidcast on Doing Word Studies

Sorry I'm in a bad mood in this vidcast, but here is a 36 minute overview of doing a word study: http://interactive.ihets.org/p98786411/

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Thanks for putting up the vidcast. It has been very informative for me.

I suppose the best word studies for the word 'salvation' is this:

"Psa 139:16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

Anonymous said...

What if nobody really knows the near exact meaning of the word.

Just to quote an example:

"Psa 115:11 Ye that fear the LORD, trust in the LORD: he is their help and their shield."

The word fear in Strong explanation:
"yaw-ray'
From H3372; fearing; morally reverent: - afraid, fear (-ful)."

I would like to put the word 'fear' as something positve. It means "imprison by the love of God continuously."

Ken Schenck said...

Anon,

Your first comment does not involve any word to study. You are confusing thoughts with words, which is one of the main points of the vidcast. It is reflective of a pre-modern reading of the biblical text that is unable to read the words in context.

For the second post, it doesn't matter whether you or I want to put a positive spin on a word. The word had a connotation at the time of the psalmist and there's nothing you or I can do to affect it. The phrase "imprison by the love of God continuously" is a classic overreading--it shoves gobs of meaning into the word that is not relevant to its actual literary context. It imposes a system on a word. Rather words can fit within systems.

Anonymous said...

Yup! I guess you are right. Always intellectually stable biblical wise. Hee! Hee! Anyway, thanks for the reply, it do helps me see what you mean.

Paul Tillman said...

I enjoyed the vidcast, even though I am not taking the course. Two points.
First, you made me feel better about my sermon last Sunday on Praise from Psalm 33. One of my points was that singing is part of praise. That point lasted about 30 seconds. I basically said, "We all know what singing is, so I'm not going to tell you the Hebrew word for 'singing' and do a word study. It means singing. Next point."
Second, you mentioned the Septuagint for N.T. Greek word study. How do you feel about using it for an O.T. word study? Do you think it is safe to say that the Greek speaking Hebrew translators were close to the context of, or at least could better (than us) understand the context of the O.T. writers?

Ken Schenck said...

If your goal is to look forward--to the trajectory of truth, the Septuagint is fine. In general, I consider the Septuagint a punt for the meaning of the Hebrew. If we just don't have any clue from elsewhere in the Hebrew OT or Semitic parallels, etc, then the LXX will have to do. IMHO

Paul Tillman said...

Thanks for the response.

BTW - what blog gadget do you use for having your "books I'm reading" with the links to amazon?

Ken Schenck said...

Look for Amazon Associates on Amazon's website. Then go under links and products and search for the book or product you want to post. It will give you code that you paste into a blog box on Blogspot.

Marc said...

I find your vidcast very helpful. The idea that a word only has one meaning in a passage (unless a pun is in effect) seems a very strong claim however.

PISTIS is a prime case: we've split it into seperate meanings: belief, trust, faithfulness but maybe these ideas were fused or conflated in Pauls thought.

How do we know, for example, that Paul doesn't intend multiple meanings of PISTIS in Rom 3:26 (or v28) or something like Gal 2:21 where the word occurs many times.

It seems to me he could mean both trust and belief and faithfulness of either Christ or the believer (or even of both parties) and even intend this ambiguity in prompting us to emulate Christ for our final justification.

Ken Schenck said...

Marc, although I can't prove it, I actually am very open to Galatians 2:16 and Romans 3:22 involving a double entendre--faith in Christ and the faithfulness of Christ. The same for the phrase righteousness of God in Rom. 3:21.