A further complication is - Were they speaking in Greek? Or in Aramaic?Jason Hare wrote:Carl,
Do you think there is any significance as to a distinction between ἀγαπῶ and φιλῶ when it is pointed out that only when Jesus asked Peter if he loved him (with φιλῶ) did he become offended. He wasn't offended either time when he asked him if he loved him (with ἀγαπῶ). Do you think there's no significance to this at all? Just curious.
John 21 ἀγαπάω / φιλέω
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Please quote the Greek text you are discussing directly in your post if it is reasonably short - do not ask people to look it up. This is not a beginner's forum, competence in Greek is assumed.
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Re: John 21 ἀγαπάω / φιλέω
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Re: John 21 ἀγαπάω / φιλέω
Shirley,
Why would it matter what language they spoke? I've often wondered about this. I don't think we have an issue with translational Greek (like the LXX) here, do you? Regardless of what language Christ and Simon were conversing in, the author here is portraying, to a largely Greek speaking world, the events in Greek and he would be using the Greek language to communicate what he wanted his readers to understand. I think it would be sheer speculation anytime someone tried to figure out what the verbal language was that was spoken, and make an interpretation based on that. Please enlighten me on your reasons for such an option. I remain open to such an idea, but I've not come across any good argument/explanation of this.
Why would it matter what language they spoke? I've often wondered about this. I don't think we have an issue with translational Greek (like the LXX) here, do you? Regardless of what language Christ and Simon were conversing in, the author here is portraying, to a largely Greek speaking world, the events in Greek and he would be using the Greek language to communicate what he wanted his readers to understand. I think it would be sheer speculation anytime someone tried to figure out what the verbal language was that was spoken, and make an interpretation based on that. Please enlighten me on your reasons for such an option. I remain open to such an idea, but I've not come across any good argument/explanation of this.
χαρις υμιν και ειρηνη,
Alan Patterson
Alan Patterson
Re: John 21 ἀγαπάω / φιλέω
+1Alan Patterson wrote:Why would it matter what language they spoke? I've often wondered about this. I don't think we have an issue with translational Greek (like the LXX) here, do you? Regardless of what language Christ and Simon were conversing in, the author here is portraying, to a largely Greek speaking world, the events in Greek and he would be using the Greek language to communicate what he wanted his readers to understand. I think it would be sheer speculation anytime someone tried to figure out what the verbal language was that was spoken, and make an interpretation based on that. Please enlighten me on your reasons for such an option. I remain open to such an idea, but I've not come across any good argument/explanation of this.
I'm definitely with Alan on this one.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
SIL International
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Re: John 21 ἀγαπάω / φιλέω
Sorry for being so late in the game, but there is another angle to this. Peter has twice used "φιλω" in telling Jesus he loves Him. Why would Jesus' diction be the source of his disturbance, when he was using the same diction as Peter himself?David H Robinson wrote:A very late follow-on question, but prompted by my looking once again at that breakfast on the seashore. I wonder myself whether the question of what upset Peter finds a possible solution in the τὸ τρίτον of ἐλυπήθη ὁ Πέτρος ὅτι εἶπεν αὐτῷ τὸ τρίτον• φιλεῖς με; where it seems to me that the sense is that at the third challenge, Jesus used a different verb, rather than that Peter was challenged 'three times' or 'for a third time'. I guess I might be helped by comparing other uses of definite article + ordinal, but I confess I'm not sure how to make such a search.
And yet another angle: Peter is excitable and always responds to Christ with enormous enthusiasm. Jesus tells Peter "I go to my death and you will all deny me" and Peter immediately cries that he will also die, rather than deny Him. Jesus walks over the water towards the boat and Peter jumps over the side! It simply is not in Peter's personality to understate a response. If there were a difference in the inherent meaning of "ἀγαπάω" and "φιλέω", Peter would be using the more powerful verb. He would never say, "Yes, I love you but not quite as deeply as you are asking."
And a third: Jesus responds to Peter's first two answers by giving him a responsibility. "Feed my lambs" and "tend my sheep" are inconsistent with a response from Peter that means "I love you but not in a deep spiritual or divine sense, as you asked, but only with a brotherly, affectionate kind of love."
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Re: John 21 ἀγαπάω / φιλέω
"Do you have a general love for me?" (asking about the less important)Mason Barge wrote:Sorry for being so late in the game, but there is another angle to this. Peter has twice used "φιλω" in telling Jesus he loves Him. Why would Jesus' diction be the source of his disturbance, when he was using the same diction as Peter himself?David H Robinson wrote:A very late follow-on question, but prompted by my looking once again at that breakfast on the seashore. I wonder myself whether the question of what upset Peter finds a possible solution in the τὸ τρίτον of ἐλυπήθη ὁ Πέτρος ὅτι εἶπεν αὐτῷ τὸ τρίτον• φιλεῖς με; where it seems to me that the sense is that at the third challenge, Jesus used a different verb, rather than that Peter was challenged 'three times' or 'for a third time'. I guess I might be helped by comparing other uses of definite article + ordinal, but I confess I'm not sure how to make such a search.
And yet another angle: Peter is excitable and always responds to Christ with enormous enthusiasm. Jesus tells Peter "I go to my death and you will all deny me" and Peter immediately cries that he will also die, rather than deny Him. Jesus walks over the water towards the boat and Peter jumps over the side! It simply is not in Peter's personality to understate a response. If there were a difference in the inherent meaning of "ἀγαπάω" and "φιλέω", Peter would be using the more powerful verb. He would never say, "Yes, I love you but not quite as deeply as you are asking."
And a third: Jesus responds to Peter's first two answers by giving him a responsibility. "Feed my lambs" and "tend my sheep" are inconsistent with a response from Peter that means "I love you but not in a deep spiritual or divine sense, as you asked, but only with a brotherly, affectionate kind of love."
"I have a real relationship with you!" (more important)
"Yeah, but do you love me in this general way?" (doubting the less important)
"I'm saying that you and I are real friends!" (more important)
"But, are we really friends? Do we really have that closeness?" (calling the more important into question)
Offense.
Of course he would be offended by Jesus using the word that he was using...
Jason A. Hare
The Hebrew Café
Tel Aviv, Israel
The Hebrew Café
Tel Aviv, Israel
Re: John 21 ἀγαπάω / φιλέω
Can you imagine such a dialogue as this?
"I'm OK, but are you OK?"
"Oh, I'm all right."
"But are you OK?"
"I assure you, I'm quite all right."
"Are you really all right"
"Damn it, you know very well I'm OK!"
"All right. That's good!"
I can imagine it only on stage before a live audience.
"I'm OK, but are you OK?"
"Oh, I'm all right."
"But are you OK?"
"I assure you, I'm quite all right."
"Are you really all right"
"Damn it, you know very well I'm OK!"
"All right. That's good!"
I can imagine it only on stage before a live audience.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Re: John 21 ἀγαπάω / φιλέω
The scenarios sound right enough for the assumptions upon which they are constructed. For my part, I think the second one is the right one, while the first one is the preferred interpretation (such is my impression, for what it's worth) of preachers that like to show off their Greek erudition in front of innocent congregations. But in view of the evangelist's common practice of using synonymous words (not only αγαπᾶν/φιλεῖν here, but also ποιμαίνειν/βόσκειν and ἀρνία/πρόβατα), I think that the first scenario is imaginary.David Lee wrote:Although I'm not sure how wide the semantic gap is between ἀγαπάω and φιλέω, if I am allowed to assume that difference in meaning is at play here (and that the difference is between love and affection-love), this is what I think is going inside Simon's head: ...
If I assume there's no semantic gap between ἀγαπάω and φιλέω, it would look like this: ...
Do these scenarios sound about right?
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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Re: John 21 ἀγαπάω / φιλέω
Zondervan has just published a new edition of NIDNTTE, see http://zondervanacademic.com/new-intern ... d-exegesis. You can get there a free "primer" which happens to include the discussion about αγαπαω and this passage. Recommended reading, although I'm partial to it because it agrees with me 

Re: John 21 ἀγαπάω / φιλέω
I'm not convinced either by the views that the NIDNTTE piece combats or the view that it promotes.
To continue with NIDNTTE:
But instead of supposing that John uses the two verbs with identical meaning, I suggest that Peter's reply is intended to assent to the whole proposition ἀγαπᾷς με πλεῖον τούτων; in other words φιλῶ σε = ἀγαπῶ σε πλεῖον τούτων. Peter is claiming to be Jesus' close friend in the sense of John 15.14-15, the people with whom the big man shares his plans and thoughts. If φιλεῖν were interchangeable with ἀγαπᾶν, Peter's reply would not have answered the question, whereas his ναί suggests he has.
The above view of the matter is apparently also the view that Spicq held, and which Robert Joly refutes towards the end of his celebrated study, Le vocabulaire chrétien de l'amour est-il original? : Φιλεῖν et Ἀγαπᾶν dans le grec antique.NIDNTTE wrote: Special attention is usually given to the well-known dialogue between Peter and the risen Jesus in John 21:15–17; here the alternation between ἀγαπάω (which Jesus uses the first two times he asks, “Do you love me?”) and φιλέω (which Jesus uses the third time and Peter uses in his answer all three times) naturally raises the expectation that some semantic distinction is intended. B. F. Westcott (The Gospel according to St. John [1882], 303) argued that by using the second vb. Peter “lays claim only to the feeling of natural love...of which he could be sure. He does not venture to say that he has attained to that higher love (ἀγαπᾷν) which was to be the spring of the Christian life.” This view has been widely accepted and seems to be reflected in the earlier NIV rendering of ἀγαπάω as “truly love” (1984 ed.; the word “truly” is omitted in the 2011 ed.).
I myself disagree with Joly's last sentence, but I believe his refutation of the common view that ἀγαπᾶν is a superior kind of love to φιλεῖν is valid. Bernard in his ICC commentary also points out that Peter's prefacing his first two replies with ναί ("Yes, indeed") does not suit this view.R Joly, p. 55 [my translation from the French] wrote: The first two times, Jesus uses ἀγαπάω and Peter φιλἐω; the third time, both of them use φιλἐω. Spicq believes that in Peter's mouth φιλέω, denoting human affection, is more modest, and then Jesus, moved by the fervour with which Peter makes his second reply, uses the same verb as he does.
Such subtleties! Before accepting them, it would be necessary to deal with two difficulties that they themselves raise. First of all, how can Jesus reply "Feed my sheep" to a disciple who only professes human affection? Then again, if one repeats the same thing three times, it is for the sake of progression to a climax, but in Spicq's exegesis we come to the opposite result: we fall from the heights of agape love to mere human affection, whereas in the immediately following context it is a matter of Peter's religious function. The only way to avoid these major difficulties is to maintain, here as elsewhere, the strict synonymy of the two verbs.
Bernard wrote: This is fatal to the idea that Peter will not claim that he loves Jesus with the higher form of love called ἀγάπη, but that he ventures only to say that he has φιλία for his Master. For why should he say "Yes," if he means "No"?
To continue with NIDNTTE:
This view of the matter seems also to have its difficulties. It may be questioned whether in the light of John 15.13 μείζονα ταύτης ἀγάπην οὐδεὶς ἔχει, ἵνα τις τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ θῇ ὑπὲρ τῶν φίλων αὐτοῦ, Peter would find ἀγαπᾶν "far too cold" a word. Also, if Peter's warm affection did "triumph" in persuading Jesus to change to φιλεῖν, it appears at least that the narrator did not see it that way, as he says Peter was saddened (ἐλυπήθη).NIDNTTE wrote:Trench (42–43) also sees a distinction, but his understanding is almost exactly the opp. of Westcott’s! According to Trench, ἀγαπάω involves “respect and reverence,” and thus to Peter this word “sounds far too cold” and fails to express “the warmth of his affection.” “He therefore in his answer substitutes for the ἀγαπᾷς of Christ the word of a more personal love, φιλῶ σε... And this he does not on the first occasion only, but again upon a second. And now at length he has triumphed; for when his Lord puts the question to him a third time, it is not ἀγαπᾷς any more, but φιλεῖς.”
The conclusions of Westcott and Trench are contradictory in one sense, but they agree in another sense, as they both proceed from the assumption that Peter found Jesus' use of ἀγαπᾶν problematic.NIDNTTE wrote:That two erudite Gk. scholars should reach such contradictory conclusions raises doubts about the validity of the enterprise.
But instead of supposing that John uses the two verbs with identical meaning, I suggest that Peter's reply is intended to assent to the whole proposition ἀγαπᾷς με πλεῖον τούτων; in other words φιλῶ σε = ἀγαπῶ σε πλεῖον τούτων. Peter is claiming to be Jesus' close friend in the sense of John 15.14-15, the people with whom the big man shares his plans and thoughts. If φιλεῖν were interchangeable with ἀγαπᾶν, Peter's reply would not have answered the question, whereas his ναί suggests he has.
Re: John 21 ἀγαπάω / φιλέω
And the triple affirmation matches the triple denial of Peter in the high priest's courtyard.David Lee wrote:So you're suggesting that Peter's use of φιλῶ is a stronger claim than ἀγαπῶ?Tony Pope wrote: But instead of supposing that John uses the two verbs with identical meaning, I suggest that Peter's reply is intended to assent to the whole proposition ἀγαπᾷς με πλεῖον τούτων; in other words φιλῶ σε = ἀγαπῶ σε πλεῖον τούτων. Peter is claiming to be Jesus' close friend in the sense of John 15.14-15, the people with whom the big man shares his plans and thoughts.
I don't think the premise here is as clear cut. If you look at the second question and answer, Jesus simply asks, "ἀγαπᾷς με;", and Peter responds with a Ναί here as well. Here then, Peter's reply of φιλῶ σε answers the question of ἀγαπᾷς με, even without the qualifier πλεῖον τούτων.Tony Pope wrote: If φιλεῖν were interchangeable with ἀγαπᾶν, Peter's reply would not have answered the question, whereas his ναί suggests he has.
Perhaps something worth a second look would be what's in focus when the author writes, "λέγει αὐτῷ τὸ τρίτον". If it means "he said a third time", then it lends itself to the view that all three of Jesus' questions were the same, whereas if it means "he said the third time", then it might be highlighting the fact that the third question was different than the previous two.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)