A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature Description:

A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature review:
4 stars (The best dictionary for NT Greek) - This is the *best* NT Greek dictionary for students of the Greek New Testament. Thorough scholarship; many entries exhaustively categorize word meanings and all provide references to other ancient literature. A necessity for doing scholarly work in the New Testament, and a serious reference tool for the pastor or student. If you do any work in the NT, you *need* this lexicon. The 3rd edition revamps the earlier glosses and attempts to provide definitions for words. Also has words from the Apostolic Fathers and other early literature.



However, the price is VERY STEEP. Especially for students. If you are a student on a tight budget (and don't need to purchase the latest and greatest copy of Bauer), I would recommend doing obtaining a used copy of the 1st edition, which can be found for under $30 at the time of this writing. The glosses are basically the same in 1st and 2nd edition, the only thing that is changed are that more mistakes are corrected. The 3rd edition's definitions are nice, but in general I find it is more helpful to get glosses to point me in the right direction and use a concordance/search program to get a better understanding of how a word is used in the NT.
5 stars (THE Greek lexicon for New Testament research) - For anyone serious about studying the New Testament or New Testament Greek, this is the lexicon of choice. Perhaps that which sets it apart the most is its thorough references to early Christian literature at the time. This gives us a fuller understanding of what words actually mean. Too often we are confined to other examples within the canon of Scripture itself for further light on what a word means. Here we are taken much further.



The very informative "Foreword to the Revised Edition" and "Introduction to the Lexicon of the Greek New Testament" are included, and should be read for a greater understanding of how the dictionary works, the history of the lexicon and some tips on New Testament Greek itself.



The head word includes the full lexical form which, for example, means:



a) If the word is an adjective, the inflection/s for each gender of the nominative case are provided.



b) If the word is a noun, the nominative and genitive forms and the article are included.



After the (bolded) presentation of the head word, it is presented in a number of important forms. These are either the 1st person singular of different tenses/moods of the verb paradigms or commonly used forms.



Because of the fullness of the material and the need to save space, many abbreviations are used. It is worth familiarising oneself with the abbreviations by skimming over the "Composite List of Abbreviations" page LIXff before dipping too far into your work.



Possible improvements:



1) Mounce's categorisation of each word into a given code is quite well known and widely used (these can be found in his Basics of Biblical Greek, Analytical Lexicon and Morphology of Biblical Greek). It would be a great future improvement of BDAG to include these codes alongside each entry.



2) The font used makes kappas and rhos look funny and I personally need to look at a word twice at times in order to be able to tell what it is. A less cursive-style font would look better in future editions.



3) Little/no use is made of the front and back inside cover or back of the book. The back has some sample entries, which, while handy for a bookstore who may want to seal the book to maintain its good condition, it is a bit of a bore to someone who has owned the lexicon for some years. It would be better to include something worth memorising or a few quotes scholars have made about the dictionary itself.



If looking this book up in your library catalogue or any online resource, please note that it will not necessarily help to type in what it is commonly known as - BDAG. This is because it is not officially used as part of the title of the book, despite the widespread usage of this abbreviation.


5 stars (A Lexicon Fit for Years of Study) - This lexicon is invaluable for doing Greek word studies.



As a layman struggling to teach myself Greek, I find it a great place from which to launch my Greek word studies. It contains more than 15,000 references to classical, intertestamental, early Christian and modern literature.



This edition contains more elaborate definitions of Greek terms than other lexicons I have seen. The benefit of these, to me, is that it helps give me a fuller sense of the word being studied and helps me to avoid anachronisms.



There is no doubt in my mind that this is the lexicon for serious Greek students.