G(r)eeking out over Online Tech Tools

My YouTube channel where I post all my instructional videos

It's been a whirl-wind couple of weeks culminating at SBL-AAR 2018, enjoying Thanksgiving, and getting back to work on grading and teaching. I wish I had more time to reflect on the SBL conference and the sessions that I heard but I think I'm just going to have to plunge into the end of the Fall semester since the final exams are coming around the corner in a few weeks. 

    That said, it was nice to see my 2nd blog post published at the Wabash Center for Teaching Theology and Religion as part of their ongoing series in online education. In the 2nd blog article, I write on the tech tools necessary for the would-be course designer and instructor to teach biblical languages online, focusing on the current course I'm teaching at North Park. The technology is available and affordable to teach beginning Greek (and Hebrew) well and effectively for today's online learning community. If you're curious, check out my blog article entitled: "G(r)eeking out over Online Tech Tools" here.

    Blessings as we head into Advent in one week's time. MJL

New Blog Series on Teaching Greek Online

This past summer, I received a teaching grant from the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning Theology and Religion to design and implement an online course for 1st year Biblical Greek. Over the span of 3 months, I created 80+ instructional videos, posted them on YouTube, designed a course shell on the Canvas learning management system, acquired skills in new technologies and applied new pedagogies. But the best part was a series of workshops held at the Wabash Center where I talked a cohort of other theological educators on the strategies, successes and failures, best teaching techniques, most effective learning activities, and everything one could think of concerning how to teach any part of the theological curriculum in a fully asynchronous, blended, hybrid or flipped course.
     I was not sure whether I could pull of teaching Greek 1 and 2 in a fully online medium but it's happening. The course design I created this summer is something I'm using right now this academic year of 2018-19. The Wabash Center kindly asked me to do a series of blog posts (5-6 in total) where I describe my experience teaching Greek online throughout the next two semesters. The 1st of the blog posts on the Wabash website has been published. 
    Click here to hear how I changed my mind about online teaching, and what face-to-face learning experiences can and cannot be approximated online and how some online teaching practices actually serve our communities more effectively than on-campus ones.

Highlights from the Pauline Epistles Session (Nov 21)

My flight back home is delayed, so while I'm waiting at the airport, I'm thinking the best use of my time is to do a quick post on SBL-AAR 2015. I won't be posting on every session and every paper that I attended but I will highlight what I feel were presentations either of particular interest to me personally, or I think would be of wider interest to those who, as Kevin Vanhoozer puts it, appreciate that one aspect of pastoral ministry is being a public theologian and therefore do not shy away from the insights born from engagement with academic study.

Pauline Epistles Session at SBL-AAR Atlanta on Sat morning (11/21/15)

   The Saturday morning Pauline Epistles session (Nov 21) had some great papers. I'm grateful that David Wheeler-Reed mined Galen's recently discovered treatise De Indolentia (now published in a critical edition) for how its exposition on λυπή (often translated as "grief") might illuminate Paul's discourse (paper title: "Paging Dr. Paul: Reading Paul's Use of Grief with Galen"). Long story short, after a great summary of the treatise, Wheeler-Reed argued that the injunction μὴ λυπῆσθε in 1 Thessalonias 4:13 should be translated not as "Do not grieve" but "Do not distress over." Galen, of course, was writing much later than Paul, but the former's discourse on λυπή, so argued by Wheeler-Reed, was part of the wider linguistic currency of the Greco-Roman world that ran through the 1st century up until Galen's time. 
   Theologically, the implications of the translation means that Paul was not against emotional grief per say (by all means, the loss of someone in this earthly life is an occasion to grieve, weep, and remorse). Rather "distress" relates to a mental state on how to deal with the tragedies and external circumstances surrounding an individual. Rather than reacting with visible demonstrations of panic, Paul's antidote to distress is faith, especially a faith which confesses that those who have died in the Lord will not be excluded from the benefits and promises of salvation. 
   I'm not completely convinced that Paul would limit the definition of λυπή to exclude the emotional component of distress. Paul does say: Don't grieve as those who have no hope, not: dont' grieve at all [period!]. And since Galen was not a Stoic but accounted for emotional experience in moderated measure (see my essay in Klyne Snodgrass' Festschrift), I'm inclined to think that Paul's use of the term did include some emotional component. However, the paper was a helpful reminder that λυπή focuses not on an internal condition of the soul but one's deliberate (not knee-jerk) response to present external circumstances. 
    I must mention also that my dean, colleague, and friend Stephen Chester gave a fantastic paper on "Conflicting or Mutually Dependent Perspectives?: Interpreting the Flesh, Sin, and the Human Plight in Paul." I don't think he meant to be humorous, but the points he made in his presentation were so clear, I could not help but laugh a few times throughout his presentation for the sheer irony that he was so ably cataloguing in his history of interpretation on Paul's justification language. His central thesis was that the New Perspective has made the mistake of lumping together the views of Augustine and Martin Luther so that in their re-reading of Paul, the NPP (= New Perspective on Paul) ends up faulting Luther for concepts that Luther himself does not support. In fact, if one examines Luther's interpretation of Galatians more closely, many of Luther's exegetical conclusions anticipate the criticisms of the NPP against Augustine. 
   In regards to Luther's understanding of the flesh vs. the Spirit, for example, the NPP has accused Luther of being dualistic in his views of human anthropology. However, Luther, in a text quoted by Chester, actually says: 

• The apostle [Paul] does not wish to be understood as saying that the flesh and the spirit are two separate entities, as it were, but whole... [LW 25:339-41 = WA 56:350, 22 - 352, 9]. Note that one and the same man at the same time serves the law of God and the law of sin, at the same time is righteous and sins! For he does not say: "My mind serves the law of God," nor does he say: "My flesh serves the law of sin," but "I, the whole man," the same person, I serve a two-fold servitude." [LW 25:336 = WF 56:347, 2-6; excerpt from a handout given by Chester]

When Luther talks about the whole person, he is hardly being dualistic or positing an anthropological hierarchy (human spirit > flesh). So when N.T. Wright says: 

• [Paul's anthropological terms] sometimes appear to designate different 'parts' of a human being, but, as many have pointed out, it is better to see as each encoding a particular way of looking at the human being as a whole but from one perticular angle (Paul and the Faithfulness of God, p. 491; excerpt from Chester's handout)

Luther would agree with Wright, and would add: And I said it first! Luther says the whole man serves God or sins. He does not think two different faculties in a person are at war with each other in some sort of (Neo)platonic dualism as Augustine does, but the NPP wrongly posits Luther's position as Augustinian. 
   So there is a delicious irony at work: the NPP has defined its movement vis-à-vis the Reformers but in fact many of its tenets (e.g., a holistic view of the flesh, or sin as an apocalyptic power) continue to depend on the exegetical work of the Reformers like Luther. 
    This paper, by the way, is part of a larger monograph that Stephen is almost finished with, and is tentatively entitled: Righteousness in Christ: Paul, the Reformers, and the New Perspective. He plans to submit a manuscript to Eerdmans and we will probably see it debut at the next SBL-AAR 2016 in San Antonio, Texas. Can't wait! 

Top Picks for SBL-AAR 2015 (Part 2)

Chris Spinks' suggested jogging route for SBL 2015

Continuing from the previous post, on Sunday Nov 22, I plan to attend the Worship Service of the Institute for Biblical Research at 7:30am. Then, for the morning sessions, I'm looking at: 

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Pauline Epistles
11/22/2015
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: 209 (Level 2) - Hilton

Caroline Johnson Hodge, College of the Holy Cross, Presiding

Todd Berzon, Bowdoin College
Reading Galatians in Late Antiquity: An Ethno-History (25 min)

Sonja Anderson, Yale University
Are Idols Real? Demons, Christians, and Rabbis (25 min)

Mark A. Ellis, Faculdade Teológica Batista do Paraná, Brazil
The Augustinian Captivity of Rom 5:12 (25 min)

James Starr, Johannelund Theological Seminary
Second-Century Reception of Pauline Paraenesis (25 min)

Will Deming, University of Portland
Similarities between Paul and the Stoics on Ethics (25 min)

I'm particularly interested in Anderson's paper on idols and idol food in the Corinthian correspondence, and to hear what Deming thinks are shared categories in moral philosophy and ethics between Paul and the Stoics. I have my ideas on the subject but I would be curious to hear Deming's own independent evaluation on the matter, and catalogue his assertions/suspicions along side those of Troels Engberg-Pedersen and a growing number of Scandinavian scholars who have written on the topic in a jewel of an essay collection, sadly not getting quite enough press, entitled: Stoicism in Early Christianity (2010). 
    For the early afternoon session, I'm heading over to: 

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Philo of Alexandria
11/22/2015
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: International 4 (International Level) - Marriott

Theme: Philo & the History of Interpretation
Seminar papers will be available on-line at http://torreys.org/philo_seminar_papers/.

Sarah Pearce, University of Southampton, Presiding

Nelida Naveros Cordova, Loyola University of Chicago
The Greek Philosophical Tradition in Philo's Ethical Teaching: Eusebeia for the Service of God and Human Beings (25 min)

Frank Shaw, Ashland University
An Onomastic History: What Can Philo Provide? (25 min)

Michael Francis, University of Notre Dame
Voluntary and Involuntary Sin and the Allegory of the Soul in Philo (25 min)
Break (10 min)

Ludovica De Luca, Università degli studi Roma Tre
The Bronze Snake according to Philo of Alexandria in Legum allegoriae II, 79–81 (25 min)

Justin M. Rogers, Freed-Hardeman University
The Reception of Philonic Arithmological Exegesis in Didymus the Blind's Commentary on Genesis (25 min)
Discussion (15 min)

An appealing feature of the above section is that the papers, for the most part, are already available to be read (here). The session is therefore dedicated to discussion of the papers, and over the years, there have been some very good ones. I'll have to make the most of my airplane flight and read especially Navaros Cordova's and Francis' papers so I can track whatever dialogue or debate ensues.
   For Sunday late afternoon/evening, I'm stuck again. I want to attend the Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics session but every year, I also attend the Korean Biblical Colloquium, especially to support rising scholars in biblical studies who read their papers for the first time at KBC. 

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Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
11/22/2015
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: 202 (Level 2) - Hilton

Theme: A Preposition You Can't Refuse
This session is dedicated to Greek prepositions. The history of preposition scholarship, linguistic theories, and issues of exegesis will be addressed.

Jonathan M. Watt, Geneva College
From Adams (1885) to Zimmerman (2003): In, With, and Under the Elements of Prepositions (15 min)

Stanley E. Porter, McMaster Divinity College
Greek Prepositions, Processes, and Cases in an SFL Framework (30 min)

Steven E. Runge, Logos Bible Software
The Contribution of Prototype Theory and Diachrony to a Synchronic Understanding of Prepositions (30 min)

Constantine R. Campbell, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Greek Prepositions and New Testament Exegesis (30 min)
Discussion (45 min)

Dilemma! Dilemma! Dilemma! What I'm likely to do is attend the first half of the BGLL session and run over to KBC to catch the New Testament papers by Kim and Park.

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Korean Biblical Colloquium
11/22/2015
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: 210 (Level 2) - Hilton
Immediately following the papers, we will have a brief business meeting. Afterwards, we invite members (and guests) to dinner at a nearby restaurant (TBA).

John Ahn, Howard University, Presiding

Sok-Chung Chang, Catholic Kwandong University
The Korean Translation of "Two Stones" in Exod 1:16 (30 min)

Baek Hee Kim, Brite Divinity School (TCU)
Whose Offspring Are Worthy of Honor? Ben Sira's Honor and Shame Matrix as a Counter-Colonial Discourse (30 min)

Donald Kim, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Faith(fulness) of Christ within Paul’s Judaism (30 min)

Hyun Ho Park, Graduate Theological Union
Minjung in the Sinking of the Sewol Ferry: A Reading of Luke 10:25-42 from Minjung Theology’s Perspective (30 min)
Business Meeting (30 min)

After the day's sessions are over, I'm off to a dinner with Levant and the folks at Tuktu Tours to hear more about the possibility of a trip to Asia Minor to see the seven cities of Revelation. I'm hoping all the details can be worked out. I'm eager to go!

    On Monday Nov 23, after the Full Theological Seminary breakfast at 7:00am, I'm going to have to miss the morning session featuring a book review of John Barclay's Paul and the Gift (2015) because I'm chairing a session for the Intertextuality and New Testament Interpretation Section. The papers for the INTI session look fantastic. It's just a shame that our session has to compete with the review of Barclay's book. 
     After the morning session is over, I'm heading to the airport and back to Chicago. I'm cutting my trip a day short and returning on Monday instead of Tuesday like I normally do.

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Pauline Soteriology
11/23/2015
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Marquis A-B (Marquis Level) - Marriott

Theme: Review of John Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Eerdmans 2015)

Alexandra Brown, Washington and Lee University, Presiding

Joel Marcus, Duke University, Panelist (20 min)

Margaret Mitchell, University of Chicago, Panelist (20 min)

Miroslav Volf, Yale University, Panelist (20 min)

Break (10 min)

John Barclay, University of Durham, Respondent (40 min)
Discussion (40 min)

     Hoping, nevertheless, to see many people for the INTI session on Paul and his rhetorical use of intertextual echoes. Safe travels to all who are going to Atlanta one week from tomorrow! MJL

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Intertextuality in the New Testament
11/23/2015
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: L404 (Lobby Level) - Marriott

Theme: Intertextuality, Rhetorical Criticism, and the Pauline Letters

Max Lee, North Park Theological Seminary, Presiding

A. Andrew Das, Elmhurst College
An Audience-Oriented Approach to Paul’s Use of Scripture in Galatians: Reader Competence and Differing Target Audiences (20 min)
Discussion (10 min)

Raymond Morehouse, University of St. Andrews
Diatribe and Deuteronomy: Romans 3:1-6 as Guided Reflection on Deut 32:4 (20 min)
Discussion (10 min)

Douglas C. Mohrmann, Cornerstone University
Paul’s Use of Scripture in Romans 9–11 as Palimpsest: Literature in the Second Degree (20 min)
Discussion (10 min)

Jason A. Myers, Asbury Theological Seminary
Paul and the Rhetoric of Obedience: A Rhetorical Reading of Obedience (20 min)
Discussion (10 min)

G. Brooke Lester, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
No, Seriously: A Unifying Theory of Allusion (20 min)
Discussion (10 min)

Top Picks for SBL-AAR 2015 in Atlanta (Pt 1)

SBL-AAR in Atlanta for 2015

What happened to the time? The Society of Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion annual meeting held in Atlanta this November 21-24, 2015 is only 2 weeks way... argh! I'm not ready. Someone slow down time and give me an extra month!
   Well, as I peruse through the catalogue of sessions, I have come up with my top picks and also the dilemma: when sessions overlap but individual papers do not compete, do I try to run over to the other session to catch a paper I want to hear or just plant my seat in one session and ride it out. This year, there are few tough choices, but not as much as there were last year, thank God! 
   Typically, I fly to SBL on Friday, and attend IBR's plenary Friday evening (Nov. 20's) session: 

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Institute for Biblical Research
11/20/2015
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Room: Marquis A-B (Marquis Level) - Marriott

Tremper Longman, Westmont College, Welcome (10 min)
Milton Eng, William Paterson University, Scripture Reading and Prayer (5 min)
Mark Boda, McMaster Divinity College, Introduction

Annual Lecture
Craig Bartholomew, Redeemer University College
Old Testament Origins and the Question of God (40 min)

Sandra Richter, Wheaton College (Illinois), Respondent (10 min)
N. T. Wright, University of St. Andrews, Respondent (10 min)
Discussion (20 min)
Reception follows the Annual Lecture and is sponsored by Zondervan

       For Saturday Nov. 21, there are 2 sessions I'm interested in, and I'm in a dilemma on which one to attend: 

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Pauline Epistles
11/21/2015
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: International 8 (International Level) - Marriott

Barry Matlock, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, Presiding

David Wheeler-Reed, Yale University
Paging Dr. Paul: Reading Paul's use of Grief with Galen (25 min)

David A. Kaden, St. Olaf College
Rectifying Incongruity: Redescribing Paul and the Law with Roman Legal Fiction (25 min)

Stephen Chester, North Park Theological Seminary
Conflicting or Mutually Dependent Perspectives? Interpreting the Flesh, Sin, and the Human Plight in Paul (25 min)

Joshua Garroway, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion
Under Sin: Finding the Antecedent for Paul's Charge in Rom 3:9b (25 min)

Jee Hei Park, Fordham University
Paul, the Cosmopolitan (25 min)

I very much want to hear the first three papers, especially since my dean and colleague Stephen Chester is sure to knock a grand-slam out of the park with his paper on Reformation readings of Paul that wed both forensic and participation categories of justification rather than seeing them as competitive. However, the next section has some excellent papers as well: 

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Poverty in the Biblical World
11/21/2015
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Hanover G (Exhibit Level) - Hyatt

Theme: Paul Impoverishment and Thriving

Sze-kar Wan, Southern Methodist University, Presiding

Ryan S. Schellenberg, Methodist Theological School in Ohio
Mutualism or Charity? Locating Paul's Economic Program (20 min)

Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Trinity College - Toronto
Economic Justice and Food Security in Romans (20 min)

Judith Gundry, Yale Divinity School
Where’s the Beef? Paul, Poverty, and Love in 1 Corinthians 8 (20 min)

Diana Swancutt, Boston University
Paul’s Rhetoric of Adoption and Inheritance as Israel’s Promise to the Poor and Enslaved (20 min)

Eric Gilchrest, Judson College (Marion, AL), Respondent (15 min)

Dilemma, Dilemma, Dilemma! My mentor and dissertation supervisor Judy Gundry has a paper on idol food, and that topic is particularly salient to my work (so do the first two papers that precede her). Judy is miles ahead of me as an exegete and her paper presentations have the enviable quality of being packed with information and yet a clear articulation of a complex thesis. I'll probably make my decision at the 11th hour.
    The rest of the afternoon and evening look fairly straightforward for what I'm interested in: 

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Philo of Alexandria; Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
Joint Session With: Philo of Alexandria, Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
11/21/2015
1:00 PM to 3:45 PM
Room: A701 (Atrium Level) - Marriott

Theme: Philo, Plutarch, and the New Testament

Rainer Hirsch-Luipold, Universität Bern - Université de Berne, Presiding

Gregory E. Sterling, Yale Divinity School
When East and West Meet: Eastern Religions and Western Philosophy in Philo of Alexandria and Plutarch (25 min)

Ronald Cox, Pepperdine University
“Through Others”: The Dirty Work of Heavenly Intermediaries in Philo, Plutarch, and Early Christianity (25 min)

Julian Elschenbroich, Protestant University Wuppertal/Bethel
The Mechanics of Death: Philo’s and Plutarch’s View on the Death of the Human (25 min)

Break (10 min)

Zlatko Plese, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Ritual, Idolatry, and the Rational Norm in Plutarch and Philo (25 min)

Gretchen Reydams-Schils, University of Notre Dame
Philo and Plutarch on Philautia (25 min)

David T. Runia, University of Melbourne
Response to Papers on Philo and Plutarch (15 min)
Discussion (15 min)

To me, the above is a no-brainer, hands-down, do not miss session. Except for Julian Elschenbroich and Zlatko Plese, I have read the works of all the presenters for their contribution to ancient moral philosophy. This session is the 2nd of a 3-year series by Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti in revisiting the intertextual and conceptual connections between Plutarch and the New Testament. Last year's session on the religion and ethics of Plutarch was fantastic. I'm looking forward to hearing how Philo's and Plutarch's religious tenets meet in the world of Paul and early Christianity. 
    In the later afternoon, I have to juggle a business meeting with the Intertextuality and New Testament Interpretation Section from 4-4:30pm, but then I plan to race over to catch the last two papers, one by a former colleague who used to teach at North Park (Genevive Dibley). I'm keen to hear what Genevive has to say about the redemption of the Gentiles in Romans (9-11) in comparison with Jewish eschatologies and the vindication of the righteous. Her doctoral work was in my former almer mater U.C. Berkeley and one of her mentors was the expert on Judaism, Daniel Boyarin.

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Paul Within Judaism
11/21/2015
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: International 8 (International Level) - Marriott

Dieter Mitternacht, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Hong Kong, Presiding (5 min)

Jeremy Punt, Universiteit van Stellenbosch - University of Stellenbosch
Paul the Jew, Power of Evil and Rome (25 min)

Thomas Dixon, Princeton Theological Seminary
God of Wrath and Mercy: Is Paul's God the 'Old Testament God'? (25 min)

John Kincaid, John Paul the Great Catholic University and Michael Patrick Barber, John Paul the Great Catholic University
Where the Juridical and Participatory Unite: Christ as a Hilasterion and the Cultic Dimension of Pauline Justification(25 min)

Genevive Dibley, Rockford University
Why Bother with Redeeming Gentiles? The Project of Justifying the Oppression of the Righteous in the Second Age(25 min)
Break (5 min)
Discussion (30 min)
Business Meeting (10 min)

   Whew! Good first two days. I'll write on the rest of SBL in a follow-up post. If anyone who reads this blog happens to be at SBL Atlanta, I'll be at the following two receptions. Catch me there and feel free to say "hello"! Would love to chat about all things Paul and the Greco-Roman world. 

M21-403 William B. Eerdmans Reception
11/21/2015
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Room: Westin-Augusta 1-3 (7th floor)

M21-414 Baker Academic and Brazos Reception
11/21/2015
8:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Room: Westin-Chastain1-2 (6th floor)

Koiné Greek Music Videos

Theater Mask (ca. 2nd century BC; Athens Museum)
Photo taken by Max Lee © 2014

It is probably the most miserable time of the semester for me. I just finished giving my last set of final exams and now have stacks of papers to grade, exams to read, essays to assess, student Greek translations to decipher. PTL for an endless supply of coffee, red bull, and chocolate-covered expresso beans to keep me going!
   But a touch of humor is also always welcome (and hence the photo above of a relief featuring a comic mask from the 2nd century BC, taken during my visit to the Athens Museum). Thanks to James McGrath over at Patheos (whom I got to know back when we were both part of the steering committee for the Intertextuality and New Testament Interpretation Section at SBL) for cluing me to the following Koiné Greek music video! 
   It looks like a group of students in the classical studies department at the University of Auckland decided to dress in togas and sing a Koiné version of "Let It Go!" from the Disney animated hit film Frozen. The nice part is that the music video has Karoake-style subtitles at the bottom of the screen so you can follow along in Greek. It's the Erasmian pronunciation too (as far as I can tell!) and it's a great way to introduce students to Koiné Greek outside of the New Testament (though there is an overlap in the vocabulary). Here it is (below): 



   This video also reminded me of an older musical tribute (called "All Things Are Better in Koiné") by a band of Biola University students working through their beginning Greek classes. It's still one of my favorite music videos (Greek-teaching wise) and you can watch it here:
 Enjoy! Now back to grading... 

(Re)defining Righteousness Language

Right before the Thanksgiving holiday, I attended the Society of Biblical Literature meeting held in Baltimore. I gave a paper for the Biblical Lexicography section entitled: "Greek Words and Roman Meanings: (Re)mapping Righteousness Language in Greco-Roman Discourse as a Prolegomenon to Paul." The paper summarized the work I have done to remap the definitions for δικαιοσύνη, δίκαιος, and δικαιόω according to their Κοινή or "common" every day use in Greco-Roman discourse. The problem with BDAG and other lexicons like it is their dependence on Septuagintal uses for defining the δικ(αιο)- word group. Letting the LXX define major semantic classifications is putting the proverbial cart before the horse. First we should examine how the words are commonly understood in the everyday discourse of the 1st century Mediterranean world. Then we examine how Paul might modify the definitions by quoting the Septuagint and its dependence on the Hebrew correlatives tsedek/tsedekah to define what the Greek words mean. So the Greco-Roman usages become the baseline for evaluating the likelihood of an echo.

The more unique the definition, or in other words, the further away Paul's specialized usage of  δικ(αιο)- lexemes is from their "normal" Κοινή use, the greater burden is placed on the exegete that the OT echo does indeed extend the normal meanings of Greek words in that direction.

This is not to say that the LXX is not important to the understanding of Paul's soteriological terms in his letters. Paul likely uses Septuagintal echoes in his letters to redefine the meaning of the δικ(αιο)- word group. However, these definitions are specialized and should not constitute a major semantic classification. 

Here's a sample of what I did with δίκαιος . The left column are the definitions in my alternative lexicon based on Κοινή usages. The right column are the entries of BDAG. The full study will be published in the form of two essays in the forthcoming Festschrift for Dr. Seyoon Kim: Fire in My Soul: Essays on Pauline Soteriology and the Gospels in Honor of Seyoon Kim (eds. Soon Bong Choi, Jin Ki Hwang, and Max J. Lee; Wipf&Stock, Mar/April 2014).

Lexeme	Lee*	BDAG
δίκαιος:	(A1): in accordance with the expectations, customs or decorum of the community; right, fitting, appropriate, customary[1] (A2): in accordance to the rules or civic laws which govern society; just, equitable, fair, lawful[2] (A2.1; as a substantive): the right to do something as guaranteed by law or custom; legal license or civic liberty; right, freedom[3] (A2.2; as a substantive): punitive action; punishment[4] (A3): in accordance to moral integrity; righteous, upright, honest[5] (A4): judged in the right; justified[6] unattested [[(A4.1): judged innocent; acquitted; innocent; free]][7]	(1) pertaining to being in accordance with high standards or rectitude, upright, just, fair (a) of humans (α) In Gr-Rom. tradition a δίκαιος person upholds the customs and norms of behavior . . . In keeping with OT tradition . . . δίκαιος like tsaddiq = conforming to the laws of God and people (β) of things relating to human beings . . . αἷμα δικαίου (Jo 4:19; La 4:13 = Pr 6:17 αἷμα δικαίον) blood of an upright, or better, an innocent man (b) of transcendent beings (α) God and deities are just or fair in their judgments (β) of Jesus who, as the ideal of an upright person, is called simply ὁ δίκαιος the upright one (2) obligatory in view of certain requirements of justice, right, fair, equitable

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* Prototypical definitions are render in blue. Particularly juridicial or forensic use (marked) is rendered in purple. Unattested, rare, or highly specialized usages are rendered in red. Definitions are ranked from unmarkedness to markedness. The lower digit categories (1, 2, etc.) signify the lexeme’s unmarked meaning(s) that are the least context dependent, while the higher digit categories (3, 4, etc.) indicate increasing semantic markedness. Subcategories (2.1, 2.2, etc.) represent specialized or marked uses of the lexeme regardless of ranking. English glosses (or what Danker calls “formal equivalents”) are distinguished from the definitions by rendering the gloss in italics.

[1] See Homer, Od. 6.120–21; 9.172–76; 13.209–12; 14.89–92. The social meaning of δίκαιος during the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman eras is well-attested, and here I depend mostly on the citations listed in Spicq, “δίκαιος, κτλ.” 320–21; BAGD, s.v. δίκαιος, 246–47; Schrenk, “δίκη, δίκαιος, δικαιοσύνη, κτλ.,” 182–85; Olley, Righteousness in the Septuagint of Isaiah, 32–43; Hill, Greek Words and Hebrew Meanings, 99–100; Ziesler, The Meaning of Righteousness, 48–51; Reumann, “Righteousness: Greco-Roman World,” 743.

[2] Aristotle, EN 1129a6–9; 1129a34–1129b1; Demosthenes, Or. 3.21; Thucydides, Hist. 2.71.2; Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 5.71.1; 12.45.1; 19.85.4; 40.11.1–2; 49.12.1; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 10.2.

[3] UPZ II 16 col. 7 lines 22–27; P. Oxy. VI, 905.9.

[4] Dio Cassius, Roman History 40.19.2; 54.19.2; Josephus, Ant. 14.288; 15.213.

[5] Herodotus, Hist. 1.96; Epictetus, Diss. 3.14.13–14; Fr. 14; Fr. 28b; Musonius Rufus, Fr. 16 (= Lutz, p. 104, line 33).

[6] Demosthenes, Or. 44.4; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 10.2. Cf. Aristotle, EN 1137a10–12 (ἄδικος ἡ κρίσις ἐστίν).

[7] The double brackets [[ ]] signify that definition of δίκαιος as “acquitted,” “innocent,” or “free” is unattested in Greco-Roman discourse. If found in Paul’s letters, this semantic classification denotes a unique Pauline use atypical of its κοινή usage during the early imperial period of Rome. However, the substantive use of δίκαιος as “punishment” is attested, though rare (see above def. A2.2). The denotation of the verb δικαιόω as “punish / penalize” is much more frequent and well attested (see below def. V3.2).