I’m sitting in Trinity Western’s Library translating the LXX of 1 Samuel this afternoon (I’m aiming for completing 6 chapters this week). Right now, I’m also watching a guy who appears to be working on a Greek word study (<- really annoying term, a RAT). He’s dug out a good dozen books thus far, including multiple volumes from these three series:

TDNT
EDNT
NIDNT

He hasn’t pulled BDAG or even BAGD off the shelf yet. Much less LSJ or Lampe.

Granted, the articles in those three sets above are significantly easier to read than any of the lexicons, but I cannot help but think to myself that he would be doing himself a favor if he simple went online and did his word study from the texts themselves – either Perseus or TLG. His Greek would definitely improve and develop a whole lot faster if he did. And he’s be less dependent on what other says. You don’t learn Greek by reading about it (though perhaps by writing about it, assuming what you write is based on your experience in the text itself).

Or at least he could open BDAG and work through the entries example by example. That would be a better exercise than what I’m watching too – especially since the volumes of TDNT he’s using are the older volumes, the Pre-Barr criticism volumes with their serous methodological issues.