Diachronic semantics analysis of the word “God” in Old Testament and New Testament

ABSTRACT

All things in the entire world have meanings, either creatures or creator. Meaning brings crucial role of its existence in the world. By understanding the meaning deeply, we are able to identify the language easily. As the researcher, meaning has important impact on this research, the research will go successfully at the time the researcher understand the meaning well. By the reasons above, the researcher tries to give his best presentation in relation with diachronic semantic analysis of the word “GOD” in Old Testament and New Testament.

Related to the title of the study above, this research aims at answering the following question: (1) What are lexical meanings developed for the word of “GOD” in Old Testament and New Testament?, (2) What are the kinds of lexical relations used in the word “GOD” in the Old Testament and New Testament?, and (3) How is the meaning of “GOD” develop in Old Testament and New Testament?

This research uses descriptive qualitative design. This research focuses on the description and explanation of the word “GOD” in Old Testament and New Testament as the object of this study. The researcher uses qualitative research because the data could not be analyzed using statistical formula.

The result of this research shows that there are developments of meaning used in the word “GOD” in Old Testament and New Testament. For the first, the developments in Old Testament are: God, Lord God, and Lord. In other way, the developments in New Testament the word Lord and God used as the relation of the word Son of God. It means, the lexical relations in Old Testament used synonym and followed by hyponym. This phenomenon answers the last question with the answer that the word God improves from the concrete becomes the abstract.