Lexicon Church Problem
LEXICON CHURCH PROBLEM
No dictionary or lexicon contains pre-christian evidence of the word ecclesia ever being used in a religious sense to mean church. While lexicons and dictionaries can cite ancient Greek documents where the word ecclesia is used to refer to the Greek Ecclesia (the civilian run legislative council meeting), they can not cite any pre-christian texts, outside of Scripture, that use Ecclesia to refer to a religious group or building or region or gathering or worship service and yet that is how most lexicons and dictionaries always define ecclesia. So where did they get that definition? Who decided that is how we should define this word, since no source evidence exists for it to be defined in such a way?
LETS EXAMINE A LEXICON
Let me show you what I mean. Here is a common translation from a common Lexicon:
Henry George Liddell; Robert Scott [1940], A Greek-English Lexicon (Trustees of Tufts University, Oxford)
Ecclesia:
#1 An (government) assembly duly summoned, less general than σύλλογος, Th.2.22, Pl.Grg.456b, etc. ;
applied to the Homeric Assemblies, Arist.Pol.1285a11 ;
to the Samian Assembly, Hdt.3.142 ;
to the Spartan, Th.1.87 ;
to the meeting of the Amphictyons at Delphi, Aeschin.3.124 ;
at Athens, ἐ. κύριαι, opp. σύγκλητοι, Arist.Ath.43.4 ;
κυρία ἐ., at Amorgos, IG12(7).237.46 ;
Verb
#2 συναγείρειν, συνάγειν, συλλέγειν, ἀθροίζειν, call an assembly, Hdt.3.142, Th.2.60, 8.97, X.HG1.6.8 ;
ποιεῖν Ar.Eq.746, Th.1.139,al. ;
ποιεῖν τινί Ar.Ach.169 ; διδόναι τινί Plb.4.34.6 ;
γίγνεται an assembly is held, Th.6.8 ;
καταστάσης ἐ. Id.1.31 ;
ἦν ἐ. τοῖς στρατηγοῖς And.1.2 ;
διαλύειν, ἀναστῆσαι, dissolve it, Th.8.69 (Pass.),X.HG2.4.42 ; ἀ
φιέναι Plu.TG16 ;
νεβλήθη was adjourned, Th.5.45;
περί τινος Ar. Av.1030, etc.
#3 =Lat. Comitia, ἐ. λοχῖτις, φρατρική, = Comitia Centuriata, Curiata, D.H.4.20.
#4 = ψήφισμα, ἀναγιγνωσκομένης ἐ. Philostr.VS2.1.11.
#5 II in LXX, the Jewish congregation, De. 31.30,al.
#6 in NT, the Church, as a body of Christians, Ev.Matt. 16.18, 1 Ep.Cor.11.22 ; ἡ
κατ’ οἶκόν τινος ἐ. Ep.Rom.16.5 ;
as a building, Cod.Just.1.1.5 Intr., etc.
SOURCES SCRIPTURE TO DEFINE SCRIPTURE
The author finds about 6 senses for this word. Notice the bulk of the usage of the word is concerning the Great Greek Ecclesia (the civilian led legislative council meeting). And in general this Great Ecclesia is how a Greek person living in the New Testament era would think of the word Ecclesia. If you want to know what ecclesia means in English today, this lexicon is great. Today ecclesia does mean church but it didn’t in the time of the New Testament.
Notice the sources the author gives for how he came to the conclusion of the meaning he is suggesting to us. Let’s examine the 6th sense of the word. All of his sources are from the Bible. This means that the author’s logic goes something like this, “How do I know that ecclesia means church? Because the English translation of the Bible defines it that way. Why does the English translation define it that way? Because ecclesia means church.”
That or he is just looking at the word ecclesia and considering it’s context and decided that the word church best fits it’s context. If that is the case than the author is doing in this lexicon what anyone with a Strong’s Concordance can do, and the issue of what ecclesia means, since it was up to the opinion of this author alone, is also up to whoever has the best logical argument for how they feel the word should be defined. I believe I have the best argument for how the word ecclesia should be defined in the English Bible.
What the author should have done is found pre-christian sources where the word ecclesia is used to mean church or religious body or group or place of worship or meeting for worship and then based on that common use by the ancient pre-christian Greek man define the word as church. Since the author did not do this, his interpretation of the meaning of this word then becomes a matter of logical argument and not history.
The problem is all throughout history that evidence does not exist. No one ever thought that ecclesia was church until a group of Christians decided so and that group evolved into the majority.
HEBREW QAHAL AND GREEK ECCLESIA RELATIONSHIP
Notice the 5th sense of the word ecclesia to refer to a Jewish congregation and he gives Deuteronomy 31:30 as a reference. The Hebrew word used in Deuteronomy 31:30 is ‘qahal’ the writers of the Greek Old testament in 270BC used ecclesia to define qahal. Deuteronomy 31:30 gives the reader no understanding of what qahal or ecclesia means in the Old Testament sense. To find this you need to go back to Genesis 28:3 where Isaac blesses Jacob saying, “May the sovereign God bless you! May he make you fruitful and MULTIPLY you! Then YOU will become a large MULTITUDE.” The Hebrew qahal means multitude and the text in Deuteronomy is referring to that. This Lexicon writer is a person who I respect highly and who has a wonderful grasp of the ancient Greek language. However he simply seemed to have overlooked this probably because he didn’t comprehend there would be any problem with something that was so common to the culture he grew up in. It happens to the best of us and I am sure that in one case or another it has happened or will happen to me. This is exactly why the highest calling in the life of a Reformed believer like myself is Semper Reformanda, that we always have a need for reform, to continue to stay as close as we can to the objective view of Scripture or to God’s subjective view or to authorial intent where we see God as the ultimate author.
The author of this lexicon, who I highly respect, failed in this small area because he is defining terms as they are used TODAY and not as they were used at the time of the writing of the text. This is why a lexicon will not be able to help you IN THIS CASE and the reason is because they CAN NOT. They don’t have the evidence to back up the claim that ecclesia means church or congregation or assembly, because it doesn’t. The word ecclesia simply does not mean that. We should focus our attention not on the word ecclesia but on the Hebrew word qahal. That is what the New Testament writers were trying to get us to see.
