[b-greek] RE: b-greek digest: January 17, 2001

From: BillGarrison (BillGarrison@email.msn.com)
Date: Thu Jan 18 2001 - 11:02:28 EST




-----Original Message-----
From: BillGarrison [mailto:BillGarrison@email.msn.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 10:25 AM
To: Biblical Greek
Subject: RE: b-greek digest: January 17, 2001

Subject: RE: LOVE in John 21:15-17
On January 18, 2001 Wayne Leman posted the following quote from Nida and de
Waard's book From One Language To Another: Functional Equivalence in Bible
Translating, (Nelson, 1986, out of print), page 162 says:
"FILEW is also used as a symbol of personal affection, though in Matthew
26:48 it is hypocritical in the meaning of "to kiss."
I suggest that while Matthew MAY have intentionally used FILEW in a
hypocritical sense in this passage as Nida and de Waard suggest, it is more
likely that the usage simply reflects a typical Hellenistic use of FILEW in
its meaning "to kiss." In order to sort out the various usages of this word
group, it is helpful to observe some of the changes that were taking place
in word usage during this period. Donald Carson's study of this issue in
BibliothecaSacra-V156 #622-Apr 99-P.133ff. is helpful. He writes:
"First, careful diachronic work has been done on Greek words for love. In
the preclassical tradition, there was a homonymic clash between two verbs,
KUNEW, "to kiss," and KUNW, "to impregnate." Certain forms of the two verbs
are identical (e.g., the aorist EKUSA). Inevitably this gave rise to many
salacious puns, which forced KUNEW into obsolescence, replaced by FILEW
(which is used, for instance, to say that Judas kissed Jesus, Luke 22:47).
This meant, of course, that FILEW could be taken to mean "to kiss" or "to
love," which in the Attic period encouraged the rise of other words for "to
love." By the end of that period and the beginning of the Hellenistic era,
the verb AGAPAW was one of those verbs, though there is not yet any evidence
of the cognate noun AGAPH. In other words there are excellent diachronic
reasons in Greek philology to explain the rise of the AGAPAW word-group, so
one should not rush too quickly toward theological explanations.
Second, even in the Septuagint it is far from clear that the AGAPAW
word-group always refers to the "higher" or more noble or less emotional
forms of love. For example 2 Samuel 13 says that Amnon incestuously raped
his half-sister Tamar: he "loved" her-a vicious act, transparently sexual,
emotional, and violent-and both ajgapavw and filevw are used.
Third, John twice states that the Father "loves" the Son (John 3:35; 5:20),
and in the first occurrence the verb is AGAPAW while in the second it is
FILEW. It is impossible to detect any difference in meaning. Surely it is
not that God is more emotional in the second instance than in the first.
When Paul writes that Demas has deserted him because he "loved" this present
evil world (2 Tim. 4:10), the verb the apostle chose is AGAPAW, an
incongruous choice if it refers to willed self-denial for the sake of the
other.
Fourth, occasionally someone argues that a distinction must be maintained
between the two verbs because, however synonymous they may be in many
occurrences, inevitably there is a little semantic overhang, that is, one
will be used on occasions where the other could not be. As already noted,
FILEW can mean "to kiss," but AGAPAW never has this meaning. Kissing is part
of the semantic overhang of FILEW. This means that in any context a subtle
distinction can always be made between the two verbs, since the semantic
ranges of the two are not the same. But although this is a valid argument
for the lexical meaning of the two verbs, it has no bearing on any concrete
passage. To assume that it does is to fall into the trap that linguists call
"illegitimate totality transfer"-the illegitimate importing of the entire
semantic range of a word into that word in a particular context."
Any discussions of the meaning of these words (AGAPAW, FILEW, KUNEW, KUNW)
which fails to consider the phenomenon of diachronic changes runs the risks
of misinterpretation.
Sincerely,
Bill Garrison
Baltimore, MD.



-----Original Message-----
From: Biblical Greek digest [mailto:b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 12:00 AM
To: b-greek digest recipients
Subject: b-greek digest: January 17, 2001



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