A Reader's Lexicon of the Apostolic Fathers

Just received. Somewhat of a disappointment, whereas A New Reader's Lexicon of the NT, by the same publisher is Smyth sewn binding this one is butt glued so does not lay flat when opened. These butt glued bindings have a bad habit of cracking. All reference books should be sewn bindings. Wallace states that with MERELY 453 words known a student should be able read with some proficiency. As with all these other Reader's helps this IS NOT TRUE due to the morphology of irregular verbs. Knowing a basic verb form doesn't not mean you have all of it's forms memorized. I wish these scholars who are trying so hard to help us READ Greek would help us with irregular verbs! The most useful helps then are still the Analytical Lexicons by Friberg and the other by Taylor.

If you know Koine Greek from reading the New Testament and Septuagint (LXX), this is the perfect resource for expanding your reading to another great portion of the Koine corpus: The Apostolic Fathers.The assumption behind the Lexicon is that the reader knows all words occurring 30 or more times in the New Testament. He then can use the Lexicon to learn/review vocabulary occuring less than 30 times in the New Testament in advance of reading each chapter in the Apostolic Fathers. This method works wonderfully and provides a much improved experience vis-a-vis reading the Apostolic Fathers.

Outstanding book, outstanding service

I was fully satisfied with my purchase.

Dan Wallace (and his associates) have embarked on an ambitious trek, namely to provide students of the Apostolic Fathers a lexicon that serves to aid readers as they read and/or translate works of the Fathers. Having used the first in this series, Burer and Miller’s A New Reader’s Lexicon of the Greek New Testament with great benefit, I had the same expectations for Wallace's addition. In short, if you've used Burer and Miller's lexicon, you already know what to expect here.First, a few preliminary notes of interest from the preface. This lexicon provides all vocabulary in the AF that occurs thirty times or less in the NT, thus serving not only to strengthen one's vocabulary in the AF but also assisting with vocab from the NT as well. Also of note are the various lexical data provided. For example, the AF corpus is roughly half the size of the GNT, exactly 4,966 different words occur thirty times or less in the NT while the same list for the AF is 4,052, and the AF vocabulary "stock" is nearly eighty percent of that of the NT. A couple of other interesting facts: the most common word in the lexicon is πυργος, which occurs 148 times and the verse with the most vocabulary in the lexicon is Diognetus 7.2, which has thirty-four words. Obviously these are not the reasons one would purchase the lexicon. This lexicon's value lay in the subsequent pages, which provide the necessary information to aid one in the task of translating the Greek fathers.One of the aspects of this lexicon that I appreciate is the fact that the glosses provided are contextually derived. This, of course, does not obviate the need for further lexical work in order to determine the meaning in a more precise manner (when such is possible), but it serves as a more stable starting point. Rather than just providing a possible meaning, the editors have gone to great lengths to provide at least a more probable meaning. Naturally, many of their choices some will find disagreeable, and this is to be expected; however, their extra efforts will serve the reader/translator well.Perhaps the only negative that becomes readily apparent is that which can be said for any reader's lexical aid--it's simply not practical to arrange all such data on a page in a way that makes simple reading more easily accomplished. By that I mean it's rather tedious, at least initially, to have to stop and jump over to the lexicon in order to see what a word means. At the same time, one must bear in mind that such a lexicon should eventually serve as a minimally-used tool, assuming the reader will eventually possess such a vocabulary that only occasional consultation will be necessary. The layout, then, is not necessarily a fault or hindrance--it's simply the nature of this kind of work. However, students of Greek who consult BDAG or LSJ know what a cumbersome task that can be and will likely rejoice that this volume has nowhere near the bulk of those volumes (understanding that those volumes serve a different purpose).Without question, this volume will help readers of the AF bolster their Greek vocabulary, which in turn helps them in their work with the Greek NT. It will serve not only as aid to reading and translating, but also (hopefully) as a boon to further studies in the field. One can only hope that with two reader's lexica under their belts, Kregel has more in the works.

Reading, let alone understanding a foreign language can present a major obstacle for many as any can admit who has ever taken a foreign language class in high school or college. I remember taking two years of French and while getting good grades in that class, I must submit I have forgotten far more than I ever learned in that class. Thus, trying to engage the writings of men who wrote in a foreign language centuries ago in the formative years of the church in an effort to better grasp what exactly it was they were saying is indeed a formidable task at best. Dr. Daniel Wallace has provided A Reader's Lexicon of the Apostolic Fathers which along with Michael Burer and Jeffrey E. Miller's A New Reader's Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, provides the Bible student with a solid means by which to better understand the writings of the Apostolic Fathers in the tongue by which they wrote so many years ago.Now mind you Wallace's text exists on what can be labeled as the deep end of the scholarly pool meaning it is not for the average laymen to simply pick up and use. This is a book for those Bible students who are familiar with Greek and those familiar with using a lexicon. Additionally, this is a gloss meaning it provides an overview of words used less than thirty times in the Greek New Testament. The authors chose that number "on the belief that students who begin reading the AF (Apostolic Fathers) will almost always have a better grasp on NT vocabulary than just the words that appear more than fifty times in that corpus."The format of this book is very straightforward. It is divided by author and then by chapter with the glossed words in bold font. Immediately following the bolded glossed word is a number indicating the number of times that word appears. All of the glossed words are presented in their lexical form. Additionally, the words are followed by a short definition.I know for myself, as one who is by no means an expert in koine Greek or the Greek used by the Apostolic Fathers, I tend to gravitate towards online tools that provide the means to search for a particular passage of scripture and then choose a particular word in order to determine what that word is in the original language along with the semantic range of that word. This leaves some element of guesswork up to the reader unless they perhaps utilize a lexicon that might be provided with that particular online tool. From my experience, most do not take the time to engage a lexicon to really grasp how a word is used in context. Thus, Wallace's tool provides the student with an excellent means by which to really dig deep into word meanings, something particularly vital to sound biblical study and exegesis of Scripture.Those who really want to learn more about the Greek language in an effort to more fully understand not only what the Apostolic Fathers said in their writings, but more importantly what the biblical authors were saying, will find the time it takes to use <em>A Reader's Lexicon of the Apostolic Fathers</em> to be time well spent. As noted earlier, this tool should be used in conjunction with Michael Burer and Jeffrey E. Miller's <em>A New Reader's Lexicon of the Greek New Testament</em>. As a student of the Word, I know I will find myself returning to this tool many times in the future in recognition that words have meaning and understanding that meaning in context leads to a solid approach to grasping what God's word has to say. In addition, this tool provides a valuable key to engaging the Apostolic Fathers whose writings were certainly pivotal in the formation of the church and much of the doctrine we hold dear today. If you are interested in something new to add to your study repertoire this year, I highly recommend this book.I received this book for free from Kregel Academic for this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255 : "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."