“Don’t rely on a word’s etymology....Meaning isn’t primarily located in a word’s root or history.”
This is true.
2.0, however, is that even though a word's current usage may be very different from the historical, its origins, though long forgotten, may still play an important role in its shaping its semantic range, connotations, and emotional impact.
A skilled writer knows how to use this to his advantage.
Whether applied to writing or preaching/teaching, so much of being faithful comes down to two questions:
- Is this information (here, etymology) evidence that can support a point or is it color/warmth/nuance/depth/something else?
- What’s the appropriate level of certainty?
The lines are blurry, but we have to at least ask the questions.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Word studies are wonderful because they can give a strong hint as to how the ancients thought, and it really can open up the Scriptures to us that way. It's delightful that a Hebrew word for anger literally means "nostril" or "nose" (picture an angry horse snorting), and that helps us understand what's being meant in translation.
Now the error I can think of is to use a lexicon the same way many use a prooftext; as a way of "proving" something while ignoring the rest of the context. But if you get past the prooftexting issue, the hasty generalization, it's a huge, wonderful blessing. It saddens me, frankly, that so many Christians in America don't even attempt to learn a touch of the Biblical language, even many pastors.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
There are many ways to go astray with word studies. … not that I’m against them, but it’s like a treasure hunt in a minefield. Maybe a better, less dramatic analogy is a treasure hunt in a bog. Errors are seldom fatal! 😄 But they are messy.
The example you mentioned reminds of one common error: “literally…” Words frequently mean something quite different from their literal denotation. This is because they also have connotation—not to mention a range of denotation, based on, as you noted, context.
The Greek for Spirit is, “literally,” breath. But we correctly don’t translate it ‘breath’ in lots of passages because it also “literally” means “spirit.”
A common ‘literalness’ error is reasoning that, because one of the words for anger is literally nostril, passages about anger refer to outward, visible anger.
A close cousin is the components error: this Greek word has two parts, and literally means (part 1 + part 2)… But it doesn’t follow that a word’s meaning is always (or even ever) the sum of its parts.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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