Friday, December 21, 2007

Lexham Greek-English Interlinears for LXX and NT on Logos Pre-Pub

Logos recently announced that it is now offering on Pre-Pub the Lexham Greek-English Interlinear Septuagint and the Lexham Greek-English Interlinear New Testament to accompany the Lexham resources it already has published:Lexham Hebrew-English Interlinear Bible, The Lexham Clausal Outlines of the Greek New Testament, and The Lexham Syntactic Greek New Testament. ("Pre-pub" means that the item is offered at a reduced price, about 24% off list, as interest is being generated to move it into production.)

I find that I do not use the Clausal Outline of the Greek NT much at all. It helps visual the text somewhat, but it really doesn't offer that much more information than is gained by a simple awareness of the grammatical arrangement of the text. The Syntactic Greek NT, however, is very interesting. (Or at least, it will be. Only Romans, 1 Cor, Hebrews, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude, and Rev are available now. Though it has less syntactic analysis, Logos does offer the OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek NT which does cover the whole NT.) I can see where Lexham Syntactic Greek NT could be a real help to someone who needs a little help with their Greek. E.g., in 1 Cor 1.2, it is not immediately apparent that ηγιασμενοις is in apposition to εκκλησιᾳ, as the syntax notes make clear.

The two new interlinears being offered, however, complete the work begun with the Hebrew-English one. According to the Logos announcement:

Here are the primary features that make both of these Greek-English interlinears special:

  1. Two Levels of Glossing: Each Greek word has a simple, context-free gloss (i.e., the "Lexical value," what you'd see in a lexicon) and a context-sensitive gloss (or "English Literal Translation").
  2. Idiom Level: Where the literal translation doesn't convey the force of a passage, the interlinears provide an additional idiomatic translation.
  3. New Morphology: Several scholars have carefully worked through the morphology and made corrections. They have also added some nuancing to certain categories.
  4. Notes: There are four different kinds of notes: (1) lexical, (2) text-critical, (3) literary/rhetorical, and (4) LXX compared to the Hebrew (LXX interlinear only).
  5. Word Order Number: They also include English word order numbering where it is not clear.
Though these are indeed providing helpful information, I find that I really don't use interlinears much at all. It is not that I am basically opposed to interlinears, it is simply that they seem to me to be more of a print resource than a digital one. I.e., with all the popup help and linked resources in the software, there doesn't seem to be much need for all this information to be displayed. If one didn't know any Hebrew or Greek at all, however, it probably is helpful to scan and find a word more quickly. (The reverse interlinears that Logos offers--ESV for the OT and ESV and NRSV for the NT--might even be more helpful.) English glosses need to be used with caution, but all these resources are linked to more comprehensive lexicons.



1 comment:

  1. UPDATE: 2008.01.19: Rick Brannan has posted
    a video on the Logos blog
    showing more on how the Lexham Greek-English Interlinear NT will work.

    ReplyDelete