Having gone over word study fallacies #1-5 in our first post and #6-10 in our second post, we now conclude our series with this final post summarizing and illustrating six more. At the end, I gives a brief word on conducting responsible word studies and using them in the pulpit.
- Unwarranted Semantic Disjunctions and Restrictions
- Definition: “When an author gives an either/or demand regarding the interpretation of a word(s) when Scripture does not do so.”
- Example: Lawrence Richards has claimed that “Authority, with its right to control and demand obedience, is not suggested…. As head He is the one who is committed to serve us and is able to bring saving transformation to our personalities. He stoops to lift us up…” This disjunction of “authority” and “headship” is unwarranted because Jesus is not only a humble servant or only a ruling king who makes demands. Rather, he is both.
- Unwarranted Restriction of the Semantic Field
- Definition: “When we either ignorantly or intentionally limit the meaning of a word and it affects our exegesis.”
- Example: The verb εἰµι can be used with many types of meaning: denoting identity, attribution, cause, resemblance, or fulfillment. Perhaps the most well-known debatable use of εἰµι is in Jesus’ saying, τουτο εστιν το σωµα µου (“this is my body,” Matt 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19). Those who would equate the bread of the Eucharist with Jesus’ body might point to this verse and argue that it says the bread (“this”) is Jesus’ body, meaning that it is equivalent (bread = Jesus’ body). But identity is only one use of the copulative verb, and to ignore the others as legitimate possibilities would be an unwarranted restriction of the semantic field of εἰµι.
- Unwarranted Adoption of an Expanded Semantic Field (Or “Illegitimate Totality Transfer”)
- Definition: “To apply the entirety of the word’s semantic value when its context expressly prohibits one from doing so.”
- Example: In Acts 7:38, Stephen refers to Moses as “the one who was in the ἐκκλησίᾳ in the wilderness.” Perhaps out of a desire to view Israel as the “church,” one might translate or interpret ἐκκλησίᾳ here as “church.” While certain theological positions do view Israel as the Old Testament church, one could not base this conclusion solely on a translation of ἐκκλησίᾳ here as “church.” Such a translation would be to import the entirety of the word’s meaning in the New Testament when the context clearly restricts the meaning to “gathering” or “assembly.”
- Problems Relating to the Semitic Background of the Greek New Testament
- Definition: “This occurs when a scholar jumps straight from the meaning of one word in one language to the rough equivalent in another, attributing the exact same semantic domain to the second language.”
- Example: In Genesis 1:1, God “made” the earth; the word “made” is בָּרָא. It would be fallacious either to interpret בָּרָא here through the lens of ποιέω in the New Testament, or vice versa, simply because ποιέω is often used to translate בָּרָא. Translators generally tend to choose words that have the most semantic overlap with their counterpart in the source text, but there is rarely, if ever a complete symmetry in semantic content or pragmatic effect. One should rather approach each word in their own contexts, within their own language, rather than using them as lenses for determining the meaning of the other.
- Unwarranted Neglect of Distinguishing Peculiarities of a Corpus
- Definition: The assumption that, because one New Testament authors uses a word in a certain or technical manner, that other New Testament authors do the same.
- Example: A common example is the use of δικαιοσύνη by Paul and Matthew. Paul uses the word as a juridical term to refer to right standing before God and imports much theological weight into the lexeme. Matthew, on the other hand, tends to use it to refer to an individual’s righteous conduct. Consider Matt 5:20: “for I tell you, unless your δικαιοσύνη exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Most, if not all translations render the word here as “righteousness” (= righteous conduct; so CJB; ESV; NIV; NASB; NET; etc.). The translation choice is appropriate since the word is being used as a scalar notion here; how could one be “declared innocent” more than someone else? In Paul’s notion, one is either justified or not. In Matthew’s notion, one can be more righteous than another. This is not a theological contradiction but rather a different use of the same word.
- Unwarranted Linking of Sense and Reference
- Definition: “When one assumes that any given word is referential, although the word’s meaning is often bound up with the mental content of its surrounding words.”
- Example: Some words, such as the name “Moses,” are referential because there is a extra-linguistic reality to which the word refers. Other words have sense, which is mental content, but they have no extra-linguistic reality. An example is the adjective “beautiful.” So sense and reference are not the same thing. But many word-study fallacies treat them as if they are. That is one of the underlying problems of the important Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, which often treated words as having both sense and reference, which allowed them to import so much semantic freight into concepts that really should only have been taken to have sense, and predominantly acquire their meaning through use in context. In the sentence “Three is a prime number,” each of the words has sense, but not reference, and their sense is greatly affected by the use in context.
A Final Word on Word Studies
After three posts summarizing sixteen word study fallacies detailed by D. A. Carson, one might get the impression that word studies are dangerous. It is true; they certainly can be dangerous if one does not know how to properly study the use of a word in context. How might one do so? The simplest way is to find as many uses of a word from the same century as the text you are studying and to read each use of the word in its broader context. If you have twenty or more instances, especially from different authors, you should be able to get a pretty good sense of the various meanings the word can acquire by different authors in different contexts. If you can find fifty or more, you are really in good shape for understanding the word’s meaning.
When preaching, rather than saying “this word in the Greek is ____ which means ____,” instead say “this word is used elsewhere in the Bible…” and then read 4-8 other sentences in which the word is used (in English translation). People will naturally hear how the word is used and gain a sense for the meaning of the word itself. Then you can return to your text and show them what the meaning of the word is in that context and why it was important for you to spend three minutes talking about it.
There is more to word studies, but we shall leave it for another time. We hope this series has been helpful to you.
Buy D. A. Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies here on Amazon.
