Between August 2003 and May 2004 I worked my way through all of the nouns, adjectives and verbs in the Pastoral Epistles.

I wrote a little program to help me keep track of my notes on each word, and reference words back to their first occurrence (in the Pastorals) as that is where the primary notes for the word are located. My examination of each word consisted of summarizing the BDAG entry very briefly (typically looking at the extended definitions and glosses). I also examined LSJ and added notes where I thought relevant. A third field included my own thoughts on the instance in question. Finally, I also ascribed a Louw-Nida domain and article number to the instance of the word.

This data should be used with caution, I have not proofread it at all. There are things in there that I know are wrong. There are other areas where I have since changed my mind and would write differently. I do not plan on updating this data any time soon, but I am using it (and modifying, and rewriting, and expanding it) as I work through the text again in the process of writing more coherently on the topic. Samples from this work will be posted for evaluation on this website at a later date.

I offer the Vocabulary Notes here in case they are useful for some. Here is a sample from 1Ti 4.7, word #8: γύμναζε:

• 4.7 Word #8: γύμναζε (LN 88.88)
• BDAG: BDAG glosses as ‘to train’, ‘undergo discipline’.
• LSJ: LSJ, of course, begins with the classical sense of the word: ‘train naked’, ‘train in gymnastic exercise’. Originally γυμνάζω had to do with training the body. As time progressed, γυμνάζω began to be used of ‘training’ or ‘practice’ in general.

• Comment: The proper translation here is train. Note that while γυμνάζω applied to both physical and mental training at this point, the original connotation of "gymnastic" training would not be lost. Indeed, that is the very reason why the word is so appropriate — it conjures up images of hard physical training so that one knows he must enter into similarly rigorous training of the mind and body for godliness.

This is a set of data that I created while working through the text of the Pastoral Epistles that I'm still not sure how to best implement.

This concordance is not exhaustive and only treats adjectives, nouns, and verbs as classed by James Swanson's Swanson's New Testament Greek Morphology, UBS4 Edition, copyright 2003 by James A. Swanson. All other parts of speech are not included in this concordance.

While working through each noun, verb, and adjective in the text I categorized them according to semantic domain. This concordance, then, lists the words in their Louw-Nida order with Bible references so one can see where different domains occur. The links are all enabled for the Libronix Digital Library System (the LDLS).

Peter Misselbrook has posted a series of word docs and PDF docs designed to help one read through the Greek New Testament over a period of five years. His notes on the Pastoral Epistles are set to be studied over the course of nine weeks.

From his page, he offers a PDF document of the whole nine-week session and also has word docs for each week.

His brief comments with each verse reference Mounce's WBC edition on the Pastoral Epistles.

Stephen C. Carlson of Hypotyposeis has, some years ago, conducted an analysis of Authorial Style in the New Testament based on what he calls lexical contact. He describes it thusly:

A "lexical contact" between two books or corpora is a shared word or phrase (of which each word is in lexical form). The "order" of a lexical contact is the number of words being compared at a time. Thus, "first-order lexical contacts" comprise the shared vocabulary between two corpora, and "third-order lexical contacts" are the shared three-word phrases. Although other order lexical contacts are possible, the third order is used because that order generates the most contacts.

His analysis is worth consulting if one is interested in the question of authorship in the Pastoral Epistles.