In a critical assessment of Louw-Nida’s “semantic domain” approach to to Hebrew lexicography, Reinier de Blois points out that the approach breaks down when dealing with figurative language. The word cherev , “sword” is listed in Louw and Nida under the domain of “Artifacts.” De Blois points out, however, that many of the uses are figurative, the word used as a metaphor for violence or war.

Louw and Nida might distinguish metaphorical and literal sense, with a separate entry for cherev as an “event.” But it’s not so easy to tell the difference in particular texts. He points to Jeremiah 47:6-7: ” Ah, sword of the LORD! How long till you are quiet? Put yourself into your scabbard, rest and be still! How can it be quiet, when the LORD has given it a charge? Against Ashkelon and against the seashore he has appointed it.” And he asks what “sword” means: “Is it used as an artifact here? Yes, because of the scabbard. Is it used as an Event here? Sure, because it actually means ‘war’ in this context.”

This is not a rare example, but “is a structural problem in this language . . . .

“Many words that basically denote a particular Object are also used to refer to the type of activity that that Object is normally used for. In addition to that there are words in Hebrew that technically should be considered Events, but that —in certain contexts— are used to denote the most prominent Object in the argument structure of that Event.”

Thus, “Because of these patterns . . . Louw and Nida’s methodology of organizing words by semantic domains rather than in their alphabetical order may not work well for biblical Hebrew, because it does not give us sufficient insight in the different ways one single word can be used. And that is exactly what is so important if we want to have an idea of what is happening in Hebrew semantics. If we miss the patterns we will miss the essentials!”

This is one example of significant developments in linguistics that encourage a modification of Barr-influenced biblical semantics. Enio Mueller argues that Barr assumed that language and thought were independent of one another: “one of James Barr’s major assumptions, coherent with his own philosophical and linguistic perspectives, was that there is no correlation between though and language ” and his critique of biblical studies was an assault on commentators who did believe that there was a correlation. Mueller argues that Barr’s assumption has proven inadequate: “the correlation between language and thought is now being reestablished by a more adequate linguistic approach.” He hastens to add that this doesn’t support the pre-Barr methods of interpretation. But it does mean that Barr’s perspective (shared by Louw and Nida) needs to be revised, precisely for Barrian reasons: To bring biblical studies into line with the latest findings of linguistics.