How Not to Do Word Studies

Three named traps, each attributed. The root fallacy: a word's etymology is not its meaning (James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language, 1961 — cite-only). Illegitimate totality transfer: importing a word's entire semantic range into one occurrence — the atlas brief applies this caution by name to shalom: the NT context, not the Hebrew range, sets each occurrence's meaning (D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies — cite-only; atlas lens 10 row 8). And the agapaō/phileō alternation of John 21:15–17, which the atlas same-word brief flags as an observation "many overclaim" — this hub names the trap instead of trading on it (atlas lens 04). The governing posture: the workbench gives occurrences, morphology, and bridges; context sets meaning; etymology never preaches. Sources: as attributed above.