Papers by Ryder Wishart
Biblical and Ancient Greek Linguistics, 2018
This paper explores linguistic monosemy and the methodological priorities it suggests. These prio... more This paper explores linguistic monosemy and the methodological priorities it suggests. These priorities include a bottom-up modeling of lexical semantics, a corpus-driven discovery procedure, and a sign-based approach to linguistic description. Put simply, monosemy is a methodology for describing the semantic potential of linguistic signs. This methodology is driven by the process of abstraction based on verifiable data, and so it incorporates empirical checks and balances into the tasks of linguistics, especially (though not exclusively) lexical semantics. This paper contrasts lowest common denominator and greatest common factor methodologies within biblical studies, with three examples: (a) Porter and Pitts's analysis of the semantics of the genitive within the Greek case system in regard to the πίστις Χριστοῦ debate; (b) disagreement between Ronald Peters and Dan Wallace regarding the Greek article; and (c) the Porter–Fanning debate on the nature of verbal aspect in Greek. Analysis of the Greek of the New Testament stands to benefit from incorporating the insights of monosemy and the methodological correctives it steers toward. (Article)
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International Journal of Lexicography, 2018
This paper argues that the underdeveloped notion of semantic similarity in Louw and Nida’s lexico... more This paper argues that the underdeveloped notion of semantic similarity in Louw and Nida’s lexicon can be improved by taking account of distributional information. Their use of componential analysis relies on a set of metalinguistic terms, or components, that are ultimately arbitrary. Furthermore, both the polysemy within their semantic domains and the organization of those domains problematize their categories. By contrast, distributional data provide an empirical measurement of semantic similarity, and lexicogrammatical categorization provides a non-intuition-driven principle of classification. Distributional data is gathered by word embedding, and lexicogrammatical categorization is based largely on a derived metric of abstraction. This argument is tested by considering probable semantic field relationships for a number of Greek lexemes. Ultimately, this approach provides directions to address some of the critical weaknesses in semantic domain or semantic field theory as applied to the study of Hellenistic Greek, by introducing empirical means of approximating lexical fields.
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This paper will examine recent scholarship on the topic of biblical law in order to demonstrate t... more This paper will examine recent scholarship on the topic of biblical law in order to demonstrate that biblical law is best understood as a common-law tradition. After outlining long-standing questions in regard to the nature of law in the Hebrew Bible, I will argue for a complementarian rather than supersessionist view of law, following the work of Berman. The complementarian perspective entails a common-law account of the nature of the law tradition as opposed to the ubiquitous and presupposed statutory view. I will then further develop Berman’s argument by appealing to Jackson’s semiotic hermeneutic for interpreting biblical law. As supporting evidence, I will examine several biblical texts where scholars have demonstrated the explanatory power of non-statutory interpretation. To flesh out the implications of the common law approach, I will discuss the pivotal role of judges using distinctions described by Reaume. Finally, I will provide evidence for the claim that this common-law view is applicable not only to the Hebrew Bible but also to the New Testament. These texts and scholarly viewpoints together provide compelling evidence that the biblical law tradition is a common-law tradition that operates not by the force of codified legislation but rather through the agency of judges shaped by the values of the tradition that is maintained in both major corpora of biblical texts.
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This review article critically engages two recent monographs that utilize Charles Ruhl's theory o... more This review article critically engages two recent monographs that utilize Charles Ruhl's theory of monosemy to analyze the New Testament. After outlining Ruhl's theory, I discuss how Gregory Fewster attempts to model monosemy within the linguistic framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics, and how Benjamin Lappenga does so within the framework of Relevance Theory. Each makes important contributions, but I argue that neither has significantly improved on Ruhl's original model and that some of the modifications of Ruhl's theory end up being unhelpful or unclear. Nevertheless, both authors have persuasively exhibited the usefulness of a monosemic approach to studying biblical words and texts. (Review Article)
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The lexical and grammatical tradition within biblical studies leaves the interpretive guidelines ... more The lexical and grammatical tradition within biblical studies leaves the interpretive guidelines for exegesis unformalized. Polysemy provides no direction in addressing this issue, but serves only to blur the distinction between the invariant meaning of linguistic signs and the contexts and co-texts that specify and constrain those invariant meanings. Rather than proliferating senses and functions, the lowest common denominator minimalist priority of monosemy provides a better entry point into the task of modelling interpretive protocols, since it better enables empirical linguistic analysis. To this end I outline a robust theoretical basis, survey relevant works in the field, and through a case study of ἐν and its semantic field illustrate and explore the challenges and potential of empirical linguistic analysis of the biblical languages.
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This paper will examine recent input by both Mark Nanos and Brian Rosner on the issue of Paul and... more This paper will examine recent input by both Mark Nanos and Brian Rosner on the issue of Paul and the law. I will highlight what I believe to be two crucial, but mutually exclusive insights from each of the two positions. Nanos’s input is that Paul positively approves of the law because he did not find anything inherently wrong with either Judaism, or the Jewish way of life, including Torah-observance. Rosner’s input is that Paul’s negative assessment of the law is related to legalism. Because these positions are entrenched due to divergent views of Judaism, I will advance the conversation in this debate by offering an insight from contemporary legal theory that makes it possible to bring together the best insights of Rosner and Nanos on this issue. I will outline the difference between statutory and common-law legal systems, with reference to a study by Joshua Berman. I will also demonstrate the impact of a common-law view of Pauline paraenesis on Christian ethics.
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Chapters by Ryder Wishart
The focus of this study is Hellenistic Greek, a variation of Greek that continues to be of partic... more The focus of this study is Hellenistic Greek, a variation of Greek that continues to be of particular interest within the humanities. The Hellenistic variant of Greek, we argue, requires tools that are specifically tuned to its orthographic and semantic idiosyncrasies. This paper aims to put available documents to use in two ways: 1) by describing the development of a POS tagger and a lemmatizer trained on annotated texts written in Hellenistic Greek, and 2) by representing the lemmatized products as topic models in order to examine the effects of a) automatically processing the texts, and b) semi-automatically correcting the output of the lemmatizer on tokens occurring frequently in Hellenistic Greek corpora. In addition to topic models, we also generate and compare lists of semantically related words.
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Book Reviews by Ryder Wishart
Book Review published in the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism in 2017.
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Papers by Ryder Wishart
Chapters by Ryder Wishart
Book Reviews by Ryder Wishart