Where Everybody's Crazy

So here's another Accordance tip. I got the wonderful Theological Dictionary of the New Testament this morning and started to play about with it. I selected the second word of Matthew 1:1, and was surprised to see this:

Come on, it's the second word of the New Testament. You've got to find that! Well, the trick is this: if the module you're looking things up in is the default Greek/Hebrew dictionary (usually Strong's) then the word is looked up by key number. This means that the word is searched by its uninflected (dictionary) form. Search for "γενεσεως", and it internally looks for "word number 1078", and you get the entry for "γενεσις". Perfect. But if the module you're using is not the default Greek dictionary, it looks the word up by the exact form, so you end up looking for "γενεσεως" in TDNT, and unsurprisingly it's not there.

The utility of this feature is questionable, but anyway, there's a way around it. When you select the module to search in - let's say the TDNT again - you need to hold down the option key. This searches for the uninflected form, which is what you want - the TDNT article for "γενεσις". In which there is a real theological gem, of which see the next post.