The topic itself we call Lexical Semantics. Lexical refers to words, semantics refers to meaning, so this topic is about words and their meanings.
I. Biblical Authority and the Original Text#
We focus on this topic both because it can provide helpful insight into God’s word, but also because it has been an area of particular abuse in the past and we want to caution against the misue of doing word studies.
Be cautious in referring to the original languages, and onyl do so when it provides insights that cannot be recognized from reading the current translation.
II. Basic Principles for Biblical Work Studies (Lexical Semantics)#
A. Words generally have a semantic range, not one all-encompassing “meaning”#
One basic principle of lexical semantics is that words generally have semantic range, not one all-encompassing meaning.
B. Context determines which particular “referent” or “sense” within this semantic range the author intended#
What determines which meaning is correct? The answer is context. Context determines which sense is intended. It is the context, the words around it, the literary context that determines which sense, which meaning within the semantic range that the author intended.
C. Words normally have only one “sense” in any particular literary context#
The third basic principle of Biblical word studies is words normally have only one sense in any particular context
Example:
“He planted corn in his field” means by field a cultivated piece of land.
“He is an expert in the field of mathematics” means a field of study.
D. The meaning of words often changes over time#
The meaning of words often changes over time. In English, this becomes very obvious when we read the King James Version, first published in 1611.
Example:
James 5:11 in the King James Version says, “The Lord is very pitiful”. Pitiful in contemporary English means weak. Pitiful means to be pitied, but in fact when the King James Version was translated, pitiful meant full of pity or compassionate.
James 2:3 in the King James Version says, “You have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing”. In contemporary English, the word “gay” has come to mean homosexual but that it not what it meant in the King James Version. It meant fancy or expensive in that context.
E. Etymology is never a reliable guide to meaning#
A fift principle of lexical semantics is that etymology is never a reliable guide to meaning. Etymology refers to a word’s component parts or to its history, its historical derivation. Etymology refers to component parts.
Take the word “pineapple”. That word has two parts, pine and apple, yet a pineapple is neither a pine tree, not it is a kind of apple. The component parts of pine and apple do not tell us what the word means.
Take the word “understand”. Understand does not mean to stand under, understand means in English to comprehend.
Etymology can also refer to historical derivation, where a word actually comes from or what its meaning originally was.
Take the English word “Monday”. Where does the word Monday come from? Monday originally referred to the moon day, the day of the moon, the day dedicated or named after the moon, yet few English readers even know that, we would never say that Monday is moon day.
Take the word sophomore. The word sophomore refers to a student in their second year of high school or their second year of college. The word sophomore comes from two Greek words, sophos and moros and it means a wise fool. A sophomore is a wise fool because a freshman knows nothing and recognizes they know nothing. A sophomore thinks they know everything, but in fact they are just a wise fool.
F. Two Steps for Word Studies#
The meaning of a word is determined by two things, its contemporary semantic range (that is, what the word can mean) and the literary context in which it is used.
Determine what the word can mean by looking it up in a dictionary or a lexicon
Examine the context to determine which of its possible senses the word means
III. Avoiding Word Study Fallacies#
There are some common mistakes that are made when studying Greek and Hebrew words, some word study fallacies to avoid.
A. The “root meaning” fallacy#
A root meaning fallacy is the fallacy that every work in Greek has a single core meaning and we can apply that meaning to every passage.
One of the errors that is sometimes made is claiming that there are three distinct words for love in Greek and they each have a very distinct meaning.
Agape means God’s kind of unselfish love, self-sacrificial love
Philia means human love
Eros means lust or self-centered love
This is not the whole story because the Greek word agape or the verb form agapao can mean a variety of kinds of love. And philia can refer to God’s kind of love, not just to human love.
For example, 2 Timothy 4:10 says, “For Demas, because he loved this world has deserted me.” Paul says that Demas loved, agapao, loved this world, but that was not a self-sacrificial, God-like love. That was a desire for the things of the world, that was a selfish love.
Another example, John says (in 1 John 2:15), “Do not love the world”. John 3:16 says, “God loved the world”. We are talking about two different kinds of love. God loved the world in a self-sacrificial, giving manner; but we are not to love the world to desire selfishly the things of the world, same Greek word.
It is a root meaning fallacy to assume that every Greek word has only one meaning.
B. The “etymology” fallacy#
The etymology or etymological fallacy is finding the meaning of a word in its component parts instead of its context and literary usage.
Matthew 16:18 Jesus says, “On this rock I will build my church”. The Greek word for church is ekklesia. Ekklesia is built from two Greek words: ek which means out of and klesia which means called. Sometimes it is said that the church means the called out ones. That is an etymological fallacy. Ekklesia means an assembly or a gathered group of people. It came to be used as a technical term for the New Covenant people of God, that is the church. Nowhere in the literature of the first century do we find ekklesia meaning the called out ones.
Another example of an etymological fallacy. John 14:16 refers to the paraclete, parakletos. John 14:16 says, “And I will ask the Father and he will give you another counselor” or parakletos. Parakletos is built off two Greek words: para means alongside and kletos means called. Some have said that the Holy SPirit is the one called alongside to help. That may be true that the Holy Spirit is the one called alongside to help but that is not what the word parakletos means. Parakletos means a counselor or a mediator or an advocate or an encourager, that is its semantic range. It does not mean a called alongside one in that sense.
C. The “anachronistic meaning” fallacy#
An anachronistic fallacy is the fallacy where a sense which a Greek or Hebrew word developed later is imposed back on its first-century usage. An anachronism means something taken out of time, something placed in the wrong time or placed backwards or forwards in time.
Romans 1:16 says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation.” The Greek word for power there is dynamis. Sometimes it is said that the gospel is the dynamite (a word from dynamis) of God for salvation. Oviously there is a problem there. When Paul wrote Romans 1:16, he did not mean dynamite (it had not yet been invented), so he could not have been thinking about dynamite. That is a later meaning of a word, but the later meaning does not impose itself back on the earlier usage. Dynamis in this context clearly means power, it does not mean dynamite, it does not mean explosion.
2 Corinthians 9:7 says, “For God loves a cheerful giver.” The word cheerful is the Greek word hilaros. Some have suggested that God loves a hilarious giver, some who laughs, who greatly enjoys laughing while giving. That is another anachronistic fallacy, because the Greek word hilaros did not mean hilarious in the first century, it meant cheerful.
IV. Principles to Avoid Word Study Fallacies#
Here are some final principles to avoid word study fallacies, principles based on these points that we have made in relation to lexical semantics.
A. Meaning is determined by context, not word roots#
Meaning is determined by context, not word roots. We have seen the etymology, the component parts of a word or some core meaning of a word does not determine its meaning. What determines its meaning is its context.
B. Study sentences, not Greek words#
As a rule study sentences not Greek words. In other words, read larger sections of the text, they will give you a better idea of the meaning of these words then will minute study of individual vocabulary.
C. Read for the big idea, not the hidden meaning#
It is more important to identify the central message of a larger text or paragraph than it is to unpack the secret meaning of a particular Greek or Hebrew word, because that secret meaning probably is not there.
D. Compare various translation versions#
Compare various translation versions. In addition to a good translation, your second-best tool for Bible study is another good translation. Comparing various versions will give you some of the possible senses that a word can have.
E. Check the better commentaries#
Check the better commentaries because commentaries study the word in its context, looking at the meaning of the passage as a whole, talking about the meaning of that word within that passage.
F. The Best Tools for Word Studies#
The only reliable, truly reliable, English language word study book is Mounce’s Expository Dictionay of Biblical Words. There are other good resources that talk about how to avoid word study fallacies, D. A. Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies. Moises Silva’s Biblical Words and Their Meanings is also a good guide to learning how to read and interpret the words of Scripture
For Greek, the standard Greek lexicons are your best tools (for the New Testament, that is the Bauer Lexicon - Bauer, Danker, Arndt, and Gingrich). Avoid the older the word study books like Vine’s Expository Dictionary and Vincent’s Word Studies.