KEY BIBLICAL TERMS

KEY BIBLICAL TERMS
in the New Testament

Infobase Date: 2 January 2018

Katharine Barnwell, Paul Dancy, and Anthony Pope

Summer Institute of Linguistics

The illustrations of the priest, synagogue, Temple, and tabernacle are by Horace Knowles and are reproduced by kind permission of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

Biblical quotations are quoted from the Revised Standard Version, 2nd edition 1971, except where otherwise indicated.

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 Checklist of Key Biblical Terms - click here to open the Checklist of Key Biblical Terms infobase.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A number of people have contributed to this book by preparing drafts and by reviewing and commenting on the material. In particular we would like to acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Randy Buth to the article on “Kingdom of God”. Others who have contributed include participants in the Africa Area Exegetical Seminars for consultants and trainee consultants of the Summer Institute of Linguistics held in Yaoundé, Cameroon in October and November 1981, at Brackenhurst, Nairobi, Kenya in March and April 1985, and at Abidjan, Cwte d’Ivoire in November 1987. During the 1985 seminar Dr. R. T. France, guest speaker for the seminar, reviewed the material as it was at that stage and made a number of helpful comments and suggestions. Dr. Don Carson also read some of the articles at a later stage, and gave helpful comments. The valuable assistance of all who have contributed is very gratefully acknowledged.

INTRODUCTION

PURPOSE

There are many words in the Bible that are of particular theological importance for translators, perhaps because they deal with specifically Jewish or Christian ideas and customs, or because they are used in special ways in the Bible. Often they introduce an idea that may be previously unknown, or little understood, in the area for which the translation is being made. Before a translator can decide how to translate such key biblical terms, he has to know the exact meaning that the term had in the original language. The purpose of this book is to present the essential background information about each term, together with some suggestions on possible ways of translating the term.

Our primary purpose is to help translators who work from English as the source language to understand the meaning of the original Greek terms. The study is based on the English terms. But these terms are discussed with constant reference to the meaning of the underlying Greek terms. This following assistance is offered:

— A key to the meaning of selected New Testament Greek terms, showing the essential parts (or “components”) of meaning of each one, and the ways in which the terms contrast or overlap with each other.

— An explanation of areas of match and mismatch between the New Testament Greek terms and the terms that are commonly used to translate these ...