Structural Lexicology and the Greek New Testament

This study demonstrates a method for using corpus linguistics to disambiguate polysemes in the Greek New Testament. Included are several examples applying the method to exegetically problematic texts. 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. This book is a practical introduction to the use of digital corpora in the description and definition of New Testament Greek. After introducing the concept of structural lexicology as it has been developed through the use of computational linguistics, computational lexicography and corpus linguistics, the book explains the rationale and basic method for determining the contextual meaning of New Testament Greek words and phrases through an analysis of their collocations, colligations and semantic preferences.