JoeWallack

JW:
Should Christianable Guesses Be Included In Lexicon Definitions?

Let's use Danker's "A Greek-English Lexicon Of The New Testament And Other Early Christian Literature" Third Edition (BDAG) as an illustration which I think would generally be thought of as one of the best Lexicons available for the Christian Bible.

Let's also use Mark 7:3 (KJV) for an example of a Christianable Guess:
Mark 7
3 "For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders."

Mark 7
3 "οι γαÏ? φαÏ?ισαιοι και παντες οι ιουδαιοι εαν μη πυγμη νιψωνται τας χειÏ?ας ουκ εσθιουσιν κÏ?ατουντες την παÏ?αδοσικ των Ï€Ï?εσβυτεÏ?ων"

The word being analyzed here is:

"oft"

"πυγμη"

Now let's look at Danker's entry for this word:

On page 896 the only defining words in bold are "fist" and "fist-fight" and every example except one shows a meaning of "fist" or fist-related. The one exception is:

"in a difficult pass. εαν μη πυγμη νιψωνται τας χειÏ?ας lit. unless they wash their hands with (the) fist Mk 7:3 where the v.l. πυκνα [s. πυκνος] is substituted for Ï€. [Vulgate crebro], thus alleviating the difficulty by focusing on the vigor of the action."

What in god's name is Danker trying to say here? We have the following evidence that the "πυγμη" of Mark 7:3 should be translated as "fist":

1) Outside of Mark 7:3 I don't believe there is any meaning of "πυγμη" that is not "fist" related for this time period.

2) Since the context is washing hands "fist" can obviously be related to the context.

A few later, inferior manuscripts have "πυκνα", "often". A good guess for this is that copyists recognized that "unless they wash their hands with (the) fist"
was unrecognizable as to what exactly Jesus was referring to and so they guessed that an earlier scribal error was made and the original word was something close to the same spelling:

πυγμη = fist
πυκνα = often

with "often" being a recognizable reason for Jesus' lecture. But Danker's Lexicon is supposed to be a Lexicon and not a Textual Variation guide. Holy BapsonofMan! If (the) holy spirit is a contributing editor to Danker why doesn't he/she/it/them? get any credit?

This Christianable Guess allows LFJ to claim that "often" is in a respected Lexicon thus defending against claimed error in CB's mistranslating "often" instead of the correct "fist".



Joseph

LEXICOGRAPHER, n.
A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods. For your lexicographer, having written his dictionary, comes to be considered "as one having authority," whereas his function is only to make a record, not to give a law. The natural servility of the human understanding having invested him with judicial power, surrenders its right of reason and submits itself to a chronicle as if it were a statue. Let the dictionary (for example) mark a good word as "obsolete" or "obsolescent" and few men thereafter venture to use it, whatever their need of it and however desirable its restoration to favor -- whereby the process of improverishment is accelerated and speech decays. On the contrary, recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense, has no following and is tartly reminded that "it isn't in the dictionary" -- although down to the time of the first lexicographer (Heaven forgive him!) no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary. In the golden prime and high noon of English speech; when from the lips of the great Elizabethans fell words that made their own meaning and carried it in their very sound; when a Shakespeare and a Bacon were possible, and the language now rapidly perishing at one end and slowly renewed at the other was in vigorous growth and hardy preservation -- sweeter than honey and stronger than a lion -- the lexicographer was a person unknown, the dictionary a creation which his Creator had not created him to create.

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