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Treasures of Biblical Context
November 9, 2009
The editor of a just-released online reference - the Contexticon of New Testament Language - demonstrated at an October Longyear program the great value of appreciating how New Testament terms were understood by the earliest Christian communities.
Modern readers of the New Testament often yearn to clarify or appreciate more deeply the significance of Biblical terms as they were used in the days of primitive Christianity. What were the inspired authors conveying to readers in that period?
The Contexticon of New Testament Language is designed to make such "context-aware" reading a convenient process. This new reference work has resulted from a decade of collaboration with world-renowned Biblical scholars. Their research is coordinated from the project's editorial office in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The site is now available to the public for membership at the organization's website www.contexticon.com.
The Contexticon enables Bible readers - even those who do not know the Greek of the ancient Mediterranean world - to become informed interpreters in their own right, less dependent on Bible translators for settling questions of meaning. It does this not by trying to "nail down" one specific meaning for a particular New Testament term; rather, the Contexticon brings into view the variety of associations possible for audiences in the Biblical period. With this range of possibilities at his disposal, today's reader can appreciate more fully the powerful precision and richness with which New Testament writers communicate.
Contexticon editor Richard Harley illustrated this new program for Longyear's audience by focusing on a Biblical Greek term that translators often render "fellowship" (koinonia). This term, he said, was actually used with a variety of emphases in the Biblical period: the sharing of resources; participation by people in a common cause; the sense of closeness people experience together; or a community based on shared ideals.
"Some contexts of New Testament usage," Harley said, "may legitimately carry a rich combination of these designations, as when Paul thanked the Philippians for 'their fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now.' For Paul's audience, 'fellowship' may well have carried multi-faceted associations with resource-sharing, joint participation, closeness, and Philippi-based community life. The Contexticon helps us to recover and enjoy more of that richness today."
The first release - Version 1.0 - explores an initial collection of words from 50 term groups (cognate groups totaling some 125 distinct Greek words) as they occur in thousands of contexts in the New Testament. Future versions of the Contexticon will include more terms and content. The Contexticon is developed, edited, and published by the New Testament Language Project, Inc., a non-denominational, non-profit educational research company.
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