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Looking for a Word Study method


Paul Daunno

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I am interested in studying words and have limited experience doing so. Right now I am particularly interested in studying the word "grace". I'm sort of a step-by-step method kinda guy but haven't come up with one on my own that I really like. My goal would be to get a good understanding of the word "grace" and perhaps later drill down deeper. I'm planning to use the NIV11-GK for my text and the Mounce Greek Dictionary and Kohlenberger/Mounce Hebrew Dictionary as my starting points for the original languages. I have very little knowledge of those languages but manage to find my way around somewhat via the keyed texts I have.

 

If anyone has a good method for doing this type of study I'd really like to see it.

 

Dr. J, if you read this I think it would be an excellent topic for a podcast :):):)

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Paul,

 

Since you do not know the original languages, I would recommend you use the following method and tools:

 

 

Set your text to NIV11-GK

 

Click the magnifying glass icon to make sure you are set for a flex search

 

Search for ‘grace’

 

Click the analysis button and select to see the analysis window. This window will list all of the Greek and Hebrew words which are translated with various forms of grace.

 

You should then do a search for each of the Hebrew and Greek words which are translated with some form of grace. I would recommend starting with the more important words such as G5921 (charis) and H02858 (chanan).

 

To search on a keyword, do a command such as

grace@[KEY G5921]

 

This will list all 119 occurrences of this root that were translated in the NIV11 as some form of ‘grace.’ You should study these to see how the word is used and to determine its range of meanings.

 

You can do this for each major Greek and Hebrew root for grace.

 

You should also look up these root words in the best lexicon/dictionary you have.

 

If you are serious about word studies, I would recommend you invest in some good resources to help you. Even if you can not read Greek, a resource like the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology or the New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis will be a huge help. In fact, for real word studies, I would consider them mandatory.

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

In Christ,

 

 

Bret

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This will list all 119 occurrences of this root that were translated in the NIV11 as some form of ‘grace.’ You should study these to see how the word is used and to determine its range of meanings.

 

Good words, Bret. I have to say, too, that even as someone who uses Hebrew and Greek and various lexicons, dictionaries, etc., I often have to remind myself of the importance of just doing the simple thing of looking at each time the word appears, as Bret describes. I find that that is always time well spent.

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Paul,

 

I am writing a Bible Study Methods course for Accordance, which should be available before this Fall. It will include a detailed section on how to do word studies using key numbers.

 

In it I'll be recommending Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words: http://www.accordancebible.com/store/details/?pid=Mounce+Expository for this purpose. It's an excellent starting point for word studies. There are other, more complete word study books, but none are integrated as well into Accordance [even Accordance iOS!]—and none are as inexpensive as this one. After checking CEDONT, you then may well want to consult NIDNTT and NIDOTE, just as Bret recommended.

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The Biblical Greek Primer—now called Foundational Greek—is a series of lessons by Dr. Mounce that is designed to help you, "Learn enough Greek to understand a Strong's Bible and related resources like Greek word studies, and better dictionaries and commentaries." It is all about doing word studies. The only complaint I have is that it was done with Accordance 9 rather than Accordance 10. If you made that transition and are familiar with how to do things in 10 when shown how it worked in 9, then this shouldn't be an issue.

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I am writing a Bible Study Methods course for Accordance, which should be available before this Fall. It will include a detailed section on how to do word studies using key numbers.

 

Sounds great, I'm looking forward to seeing this. What format will it take?

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Thanks everyone for your help with this. Bret, I more or less have been following your suggestions. Dr J, glad to hear you are developing this course. I am very interested in it. I have recently purchased CEDONT and have just read the word studies section so that has been helpful too. I also have Greek for the Rest of Us but need to spend more time working through that :)

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Bud, thanks for the tip on Foundational Greek. I noticed awhile back that it has such a section, but didn't even think to recommend it. Good tip.

 

Alistair and Paul, I am excited about this, too. The course will be in the form of an Accordance module [Tool] with appropriate hypertext links to resources and texts. It will only require an Accordance 10 Starter Collection, Mounce's Expository Dictionary and the three "How To" books by Gordon Fee. It will include step-by step explanations of exegetical tasks, along with examples and practice assignments. It includes screenshots of Accordance and links to podcasts that deal with the same topic. We're even going to throw a few tests into the mix, so users can evaluate their retention of the important concepts.

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It will only require… Mounce's Expository Dictionary and the three "How To" books by Gordon Fee…

 

Will these be made available as a bundle? I don't have any of these modules (although I have one Fee book on paper).

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The How to series is now available as a set of 4. We don't have plans to bundle them with anything else for now.

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