12 Eckhard J. Schnabel the meaning of βαπτίζω is indeed ‘to put under water’—it parallels the distinction between secular and religious which is anachronistic for the ancient world, in particular for Jewish contexts. (3) The entries in BDAG and LN suffer from the separation of the New Testament texts from the language of the New Testament authors and their audiences, which is Hellenistic (Koine) Greek.25 The authors of the New Testament texts as well as their audiences spoke and wrote Hellenis- tic Greek in their everyday lives, a fact that should prompt lexicographers to provide lexical meanings that first century readers would have readily understood, rather than give only (assumed) specialized meanings that ignore the full evidence of contemporary literary and documentary texts. As has already been stated, the gloss ‘to baptize’ is not a translation of βαπτίζειν, but a transliteration. A transliterated word is the phonetic equivalent (or near-equivalent) of a word of language A in the alphabet of language B; such borrowed words are generally loan words which have no equivalent in language B. Usually the meaning of loan words depends on one’s understanding of the loan word, not on the meaning of the transliterated term in the original language. For example, the meaning of the term ‘gnosis’ or ‘gnosticism’ as a system of thought or worldview does not depend on the meaning of the Greek term γνῶσις. If the loan word has the same meaning as the term in the original language, one can move straight from the word in language A to the loan word in language B. For example, one can say “ἀνάλυσις means analysis” if one refers to logic: in Aristotle’s texts, the Greek term ἀνάλυσις denotes the resolution of a problem by an investigation—or ‘analysis’—of its conditions.26 The qualification “if one refers to logic” is important, however, since in other contexts the Greek term ἀνάλυσις describes, for example, the dissolution of the body in death.27 If the loan word is not understood, its use obviously makes no sense. For example, to say “γλῶσσῃ λαλεῖν means glossolalia” borders on the nonsensical, unless the audience understands the loan word ‘glossolalia’ to mean ″speaking in unlearnt languages⁇. As explana- tions of terms in the original language, the use of the corresponding loan words in definitions often produce tautological statements. For example, to say “κρίσις means crisis” makes no sense since the Greek term denotes ‘decision, judgment, choice, interpretation, condemnation, event, issue, 25 The entry for βαπτίζω in DGE also distinguishes New Testament meanings in B.I-II from the meanings of A.I-II; on the other hand, the editors are at least consistent as they use the transliteration ‘bautizar’ for the ‘ritual’ sense of βάπτω (I.4) as translation for a non-Christian text (Arrianus, Epict. 2.9.20). 26 LSJ s.v. ἀνάλυσις I.3. 27 LSJ s.v. ἀνάλυσις I.2, with reference to Secundus, Sent. 19.