Structural Lexicology and the Greek New Testament: Perspectives on Linguistics and Ancient Languages

A key issue in New Testament interpretation is the method used in determining the meaning of words and phrases. Moving beyond a traditional view of dictionary definitions, this book shows how an analysis of large corpora of Hellenistic Greek can advance our understanding of lexical semantics. The book traces the development of corpus linguistics as used in dictionary making and demonstrates how this approach can be applied to Greek-English lexica, with a special emphasis on defining words in context by disambiguating their possible meanings. Included are numerous case studies in the Greek New Testament applying the method to exegetically problematic texts.