The Meaning of βαπτίζειν in Greek, Jewish, and Patristic Literature 15 narratives accord such cleansing, but the need of qualifying statements or contextual coloring in the documents indicates that the term β[απτίζω] was not nearly so technical as the transliteration suggests”.35 This com- ment suggests that translations other than with a transliterated loan word can and should be considered. Two key characteristics of a good lexicographical definition of a term are the following. (1) The definition of a term should enumerate “only the most important semantic features of the defined lexical unit, which suf- fice to differentiate it from other units”.36 (2) The definition is a ‘substitu- tion equivalent’ which can take the place of the word in its context.37 This means that the lexical definition of βαπτίζειν must be capable of being substituted for the Greek term in the text in which the term occurs.38 The definitions offered by LN and BDAG are sometimes problematic on both counts.39 While some lexicons have ‘flat’ entries in which all the senses of a term have equal status (the sense numbers running 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.), it is more helpful to have hierarchical entries which allow for ″a grouping of senses in a more intuitively satisfying way⁇ (the sense numbers running 1, 1a, 1b, 2, 2a, 2b, etc.).40 In hierarchical entries, the sequence of the senses can be either historical, or linked to their perceived relative frequency, 35 BDAG s.v. βαπτίζω 2. 36 Ladislav Zgusta, Manual of Lexicography (Janua linguarum 39 Series Maior; Prague: Academia, 1971), pp. 252-53; this principle is often quoted by lexicographers; cf. Geoff Barnbrook, Defining Language: A Local Grammar of Definition Sentences (Studies in Cor- pus Linguistics 11; Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2002), p. 23; Sue Atkins, ″Theo- retical Lexicography and its Relation to Dictionary-Making [1992–1993]⁇, in Practical Lexicography: A Reader (ed. T. Fontenelle; Oxford Linguistics; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 46. 37 Yuri D. Apresjan, Systematic Lexicography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 172; cf. John A. L. Lee, A History of New Testament Lexicography (Studies in Biblical Greek 8; New York: Lang, 2003), p. 160, with reference to the practice of the Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford Latin Dictionary. 38 This characteristic, which is taken for granted by most lexicographers (Lee, History of New Testament Lexicography, 160), is ignored by Young, Young’s Literal Translation, when βαπτίζειν is translated in Mk. 7:4 and Lk. 11:38 as ‘baptize’ (depending on Young’s definition of ‘baptize’); see n. 10. Equally difficult is the attempt to use BDAG’s definition of sense #3 of βαπτίζω (“to cause someone to have an extraordinary experience akin to an initiatory water-rite, to plunge, baptize’) as an equivalent for βαπτίζω in the sentence for which it is suggested: ″and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea⁇ (1 Cor. 10:2; NRSV). Lee observes that the definitions of BDAG ″have been generated out of and grafted on to the existing glosses⁇ (ibid. 166). This is obvious in the definition of sense #3 of βαπτίζω, attached to which we find the comment: ″‘Cp. ‘take the plunge’ and s. OED ″Plunge⁇ II 5 esp. for the rendering of usage 3c)⁇. 39 Cf. Lee, History of New Testament Lexicography, pp. 158-70. 40 Atkins, “Theoretical Lexicography⁇, p. 41.