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How Not to Do Word Studies

The root fallacy, totality transfer, and the John 21 trap: the method page.

Primary passage:John 21:15

Three named traps, each attributed. The root fallacy: a word's etymology is not its meaning (James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language, 1961, cite-only). Illegitimate totality transfer: importing a word's entire semantic range into one occurrence: the atlas brief applies this caution by name to shalom: the NT context, not the Hebrew range, sets each occurrence's meaning (D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, cite-only; MannaFest's research index).

And the agapaō/phileō alternation of John 21:15–17, which the atlas same-word brief flags as an observation "many overclaim": this hub names the trap instead of trading on it. The governing posture: the workbench gives occurrences, morphology, and bridges; context sets meaning; etymology never preaches. Sources: as attributed above.

Commentary

Full verse-by-verse commentary and cross-references live on the verse page →