The Importance of Original Languages Part 0: Introduction to Language and Meaning
As Christians, we should have deep care and love for the Bible. We should want to understand it because it is God’s way of communicating His will, purposes in the world, way of living, holiness, love, and heart. With that being said, if we misunderstand a language then we will misunderstand a text. This is what makes linguistics and the study of the original languages important for a full understanding of the text of Scripture. God chose to communicate through Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, written by human authors, so if we want to respect His word we must have concern for topics such as linguistics and the original languages. This is the essential heart of this series of blog posts. In this post, we will give a basic introduction to language and meaning.
Linguistics is the study of language as language—that is, how language works as a system.[1]
In the process of studying patterns of language, linguists have discovered “that language is a system so organized that by learning a manageable set of elements and the rules for their combination, we can produce an indefinite variety of particular messages.”[2]
This means that there is a set of rules by which the system of language is set up, which we can use to understand what is being said throughout given texts and acts of communication. Examples of these rules at a basic level are the alphabet, vocabulary, paradigms, and syntax.
Paradigms = A systematic arrangement of a group of words with the same root but different grammatical features. See also conjugation (verbs) and declension (nouns, pronouns, adjectives, articles).
Conjugation = The pattern of morphological changes to a verb.
Declension = The pattern of morphological inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles.
Syntax = The word “syntax” comes from the Greek syntassein, which means “to place in order together.” According to Webster’s Dictionary “syntax” is “the way in which words are put together to form phrases, clauses, or sentences.” It is a branch of grammar.[3]
These are important concepts to understand in the study of language in order to form meaning, but there are also important concepts such as polysemy within language which is the ambiguity that a language allows and the multiple, related meanings it permits a given word to have (ex. diamond can mean a shape, a baseball infield, or a precious stone). “For non-native speakers of a language, polysemous words cause endless difficulty, but native speakers have no trouble understanding and correctly using different senses of the same word largely due to their greater familiarity with the socio-cultural context.”[4] Another important aspect of the study of language and any text within a given language is that that there can always be more than one way to say the same thing.
Example:
Let’s have lunch at the café.
I want to have lunch with you at the café.
Do you want to go to the café for lunch?
You and I should have lunch at the café.
The café for lunch?
How such differences influence meaning and what motivates the speaker’s choice of one combination of words over another is an important key to meaning. This is the significance of linguistic choices and it informs meaning of any text. Someone who is just learning, or does not know a language well, will not be able to detect the importance of the choice of certain words and phrases and will thus have a hard time detecting the significance of their meaning.
Thus far, the linguistic principles we have introduced show you the importance of a broader understanding of language for grasping meaning. However, many people are interested in the meaning of words individually, and to this Grant Osborn has something helpful to say:
“Contrary to popular assumptions, terms really do not carry meaning by themselves. It is true that some terms do produce a word picture in the mind, like “apple” or “house.” However, they confer this meaning as part of sentences or “speech acts,” and often they do not carry that particular meaning at all, as the term “pineapple” or the sentence “His suggestion housed several different ideas” illustrates.
Thus, there is no inherent meaning in a word. As Stephen Ullmann has noted, dictionaries give us the impression that words carry abstract content by their very nature (1964:39). Yet, in reality, words are arbitrary symbols that have meaning only in a context. They function on the basis of convention and practical use in any language system, and they must be studied descriptively, how they are actually employed, rather than prescriptively, according to preconceived rules. Nida provides a working definition of meaning as “a set of relations for which a verbal symbol is a sign” and adds that a word should be understood as “a token or a symbol for this or that meaning” (1975:14). Similarly, Benjamin Kedar begins his discussion by noting that speech is primarily a “symbol system” (1981:9). In other words, the individual term is not the basic unit of meaning. “As Saussure has shown decisively in one way, and Wittgenstein decisively in another, the meaning of a word depends not on what it is in itself but on its relation to other words and to other sentences which form its context” (Thiselton 1977:78–79).”[5]
“Semantic core of a word (the word-picture it calls up) is the result of convention and use, thus No necessary reason (i.e. inherent in Language or in the nature of things) why the word dog rather than, say, cat, is used of canines; otherwise we would not expect a Spanish speaker to be able to use a completely different symbol, perro, with the same meaning.”[6]
Below you will find the semantic triangle which is related to what Silva was saying above; it is how linguists determine meaning.
“The “sense” is the picture built in the mind by the term, that image which is connoted. For instance, if we say ‘The ship is at the docks,’ we have a symbol (ship), a sense (a large boat) and a referent (the Queen Mary). Let us consider Peter’s confession at Philippi, ‘You are the Christ’ (Mk 8:29). The symbol ‘Christ’ actually refers to Jesus (as we know from the context) but its sense is that of the Jewish expectation of the Messiah. In most other cases we must deal with sense more than reference. Abstract terms like faith, hope, love fit only this former category. In tracing salvific terms in the Old Testament (see Sawyer 1972), we are dealing with sense relations.”[7]
The sense a word takes is thus dependent on the function it has in the larger linguistic unit, the sentence. This realization is at the heart of a structural view of language. Terms then only have meaning as part of the larger structure. Thus, context does not merely help us understand meaning, it virtually makes meaning as Silva asserts. So, this demonstrates the importance of linguistics and, as such, to come to correct and full meanings we must understand the construction and format the original languages take, which means having an understanding of the original languages if we are to come to full meaning of a given text.
This means things like style, situational context, syntax, paradigms, linguistic units, rhetoric, genre, author, authorial use, discourse features, and the like. If we do not use these things as part of our exegetical tool bag, we will come to misunderstandings of the biblical text. This blog series is set to explore examples of this in order to express the importance of the original languages for the study of Scripture. For some, this means that they might want to learn the languages, for others it means to rely upon resources which can guide them in observing the important elements related to the original languages, and for yet others it may mean simply relying on other solid Christians who know the languages for things they may be missing in their studies of Scripture.
Check back soon to read more on this topic!
[1] Widder, W. L. (2016). Introduction to Linguistics and the Bible. In D. Mangum & J. Westbury (Eds.), Linguistics & Biblical Exegesis (Vol. 2, p. 1). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[2] David Alan Black, Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek: A Survey of Basic Concepts and Applications, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 10.
[3] Campbell, D. K. (1991). Foreword. In C. Bubeck Sr. (Ed.), Basic Bible Interpretation: A Practical Guide to Discovering Biblical Truth (p. 117). Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook.
[4] Widder, W. L. (2016). Introduction to Linguistics and the Bible. In D. Mangum & J. Westbury (Eds.), Linguistics & Biblical Exegesis (Vol. 2, p. 3). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press
[5] Osborne, G. R. (2006). The hermeneutical spiral: a comprehensive introduction to biblical interpretation (Rev. and expanded, 2nd ed., p. 94). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press
[6] Silva, Moises (1994). Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An introduction to Lexical Semantics. (pg. 104)
[7] Osborne, G. R. (2006). The hermeneutical spiral: a comprehensive introduction to biblical interpretation (Rev. and expanded, 2nd ed., p. 96). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
The Importance of Original Languages Part 0: Introduction to Language and Meaning
As Christians, we should have deep care and love for the Bible. We should want to understand it because it is God’s way of communicating His will, purposes in the world, way of living, holiness, love, and heart. With that being said, if we misunderstand a language then we will misunderstand a text. This is what makes linguistics and the study of the original languages important for a full understanding of the text of Scripture. God chose to communicate through Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, written by human authors, so if we want to respect His word we must have concern for topics such as linguistics and the original languages. This is the essential heart of this series of blog posts. In this post, we will give a basic introduction to language and meaning.
Linguistics is the study of language as language—that is, how language works as a system.[1]
In the process of studying patterns of language, linguists have discovered “that language is a system so organized that by learning a manageable set of elements and the rules for their combination, we can produce an indefinite variety of particular messages.”[2]
This means that there is a set of rules by which the system of language is set up, which we can use to understand what is being said throughout given texts and acts of communication. Examples of these rules at a basic level are the alphabet, vocabulary, paradigms, and syntax.
Paradigms = A systematic arrangement of a group of words with the same root but different grammatical features. See also conjugation (verbs) and declension (nouns, pronouns, adjectives, articles).
Conjugation = The pattern of morphological changes to a verb.
Declension = The pattern of morphological inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles.
Syntax = The word “syntax” comes from the Greek syntassein, which means “to place in order together.” According to Webster’s Dictionary “syntax” is “the way in which words are put together to form phrases, clauses, or sentences.” It is a branch of grammar.[3]
These are important concepts to understand in the study of language in order to form meaning, but there are also important concepts such as polysemy within language which is the ambiguity that a language allows and the multiple, related meanings it permits a given word to have (ex. diamond can mean a shape, a baseball infield, or a precious stone). “For non-native speakers of a language, polysemous words cause endless difficulty, but native speakers have no trouble understanding and correctly using different senses of the same word largely due to their greater familiarity with the socio-cultural context.”[4] Another important aspect of the study of language and any text within a given language is that that there can always be more than one way to say the same thing.
Example:
Let’s have lunch at the café.
I want to have lunch with you at the café.
Do you want to go to the café for lunch?
You and I should have lunch at the café.
The café for lunch?
How such differences influence meaning and what motivates the speaker’s choice of one combination of words over another is an important key to meaning. This is the significance of linguistic choices and it informs meaning of any text. Someone who is just learning, or does not know a language well, will not be able to detect the importance of the choice of certain words and phrases and will thus have a hard time detecting the significance of their meaning.
Thus far, the linguistic principles we have introduced show you the importance of a broader understanding of language for grasping meaning. However, many people are interested in the meaning of words individually, and to this Grant Osborn has something helpful to say:
“Contrary to popular assumptions, terms really do not carry meaning by themselves. It is true that some terms do produce a word picture in the mind, like “apple” or “house.” However, they confer this meaning as part of sentences or “speech acts,” and often they do not carry that particular meaning at all, as the term “pineapple” or the sentence “His suggestion housed several different ideas” illustrates.
Thus, there is no inherent meaning in a word. As Stephen Ullmann has noted, dictionaries give us the impression that words carry abstract content by their very nature (1964:39). Yet, in reality, words are arbitrary symbols that have meaning only in a context. They function on the basis of convention and practical use in any language system, and they must be studied descriptively, how they are actually employed, rather than prescriptively, according to preconceived rules. Nida provides a working definition of meaning as “a set of relations for which a verbal symbol is a sign” and adds that a word should be understood as “a token or a symbol for this or that meaning” (1975:14). Similarly, Benjamin Kedar begins his discussion by noting that speech is primarily a “symbol system” (1981:9). In other words, the individual term is not the basic unit of meaning. “As Saussure has shown decisively in one way, and Wittgenstein decisively in another, the meaning of a word depends not on what it is in itself but on its relation to other words and to other sentences which form its context” (Thiselton 1977:78–79).”[5]
“Semantic core of a word (the word-picture it calls up) is the result of convention and use, thus No necessary reason (i.e. inherent in Language or in the nature of things) why the word dog rather than, say, cat, is used of canines; otherwise we would not expect a Spanish speaker to be able to use a completely different symbol, perro, with the same meaning.”[6]
Below you will find the semantic triangle which is related to what Silva was saying above; it is how linguists determine meaning.
“The “sense” is the picture built in the mind by the term, that image which is connoted. For instance, if we say ‘The ship is at the docks,’ we have a symbol (ship), a sense (a large boat) and a referent (the Queen Mary). Let us consider Peter’s confession at Philippi, ‘You are the Christ’ (Mk 8:29). The symbol ‘Christ’ actually refers to Jesus (as we know from the context) but its sense is that of the Jewish expectation of the Messiah. In most other cases we must deal with sense more than reference. Abstract terms like faith, hope, love fit only this former category. In tracing salvific terms in the Old Testament (see Sawyer 1972), we are dealing with sense relations.”[7]
The sense a word takes is thus dependent on the function it has in the larger linguistic unit, the sentence. This realization is at the heart of a structural view of language. Terms then only have meaning as part of the larger structure. Thus, context does not merely help us understand meaning, it virtually makes meaning as Silva asserts. So, this demonstrates the importance of linguistics and, as such, to come to correct and full meanings we must understand the construction and format the original languages take, which means having an understanding of the original languages if we are to come to full meaning of a given text.
This means things like style, situational context, syntax, paradigms, linguistic units, rhetoric, genre, author, authorial use, discourse features, and the like. If we do not use these things as part of our exegetical tool bag, we will come to misunderstandings of the biblical text. This blog series is set to explore examples of this in order to express the importance of the original languages for the study of Scripture. For some, this means that they might want to learn the languages, for others it means to rely upon resources which can guide them in observing the important elements related to the original languages, and for yet others it may mean simply relying on other solid Christians who know the languages for things they may be missing in their studies of Scripture.
Check back soon to read more on this topic!
[1] Widder, W. L. (2016). Introduction to Linguistics and the Bible. In D. Mangum & J. Westbury (Eds.), Linguistics & Biblical Exegesis (Vol. 2, p. 1). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[2] David Alan Black, Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek: A Survey of Basic Concepts and Applications, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 10.
[3] Campbell, D. K. (1991). Foreword. In C. Bubeck Sr. (Ed.), Basic Bible Interpretation: A Practical Guide to Discovering Biblical Truth (p. 117). Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook.
[4] Widder, W. L. (2016). Introduction to Linguistics and the Bible. In D. Mangum & J. Westbury (Eds.), Linguistics & Biblical Exegesis (Vol. 2, p. 3). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press
[5] Osborne, G. R. (2006). The hermeneutical spiral: a comprehensive introduction to biblical interpretation (Rev. and expanded, 2nd ed., p. 94). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press
[6] Silva, Moises (1994). Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An introduction to Lexical Semantics. (pg. 104)
[7] Osborne, G. R. (2006). The hermeneutical spiral: a comprehensive introduction to biblical interpretation (Rev. and expanded, 2nd ed., p. 96). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.