How not to do word studies

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How do we handle the text of Scripture sensitively? What difference does it make that the Bible we read today was originally composed 2000+ years ago? This presentation from Wycliffe Bible Translators considers some of the challenges faced by working with a text that was written at a different point in history in a different language to English and for a different culture.

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How not to do word studies:Discovering biblical concepts

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• Consider the following:• “I love ice cream”• “I love my husband”• “God loves me”• “I love Monday mornings”• Is the meaning of love the same in each

case?• Words do not have meaning in isolation.

They only have a meaning in context.• Words never have all of their

possible meanings in any one particular context.

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A conversation from yesterday:Sue: ‘I don’t have a pen’Student: ‘I’ve got one’

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What is language?

Just a bunch of words?

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A nice cup of tea

Du pain, du vin, du Boursin

Ein glas Bier

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Good and bad – which is which?

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Where is the past? Where is the future?

Behind you! (?)

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Did he run, run, run, run, run or run?

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Did s/he carry or carry or carry …?

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Language – a container or a pointer?

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Isaiah 62:4:No longer will they call you Deserted, or

name your land Desolate . But you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah: for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be married. (NIV)

(There are footnotes explaining the meanings of Hephzibah and Beulah)

Your name will no longer be “Deserted and Childless,” but “Happily Married.” You will please the LORD; your country will be his bride. (CEV)

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Greek word: charisTranslated, depending on the context,

as: • Grace• Favour• Credit• Gratitude• Thanks• Thanksgiving• Gift

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Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.(Revelation 21:2)

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Genesis 22:18‘through your offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed’