[b-greek] Re: Philadelphia = "brotherly love"?

From: Brent Hudson (brent@riveroflifembchurch.com)
Date: Wed Feb 06 2002 - 07:52:23 EST


>It's possible that the coiner of this name of many Hellenistic cities knew
>Greek grammar better than you: <snip>

That is a very interesting response! I understood the question quite differently. In my reading of it, I understood Keith to be asking how Greek scholars (not the original writers) came to gloss FILADELFIA as "*brotherly* love" when it is a feminine form.

Brent Hudson

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 05/02/2002 Carl W. Conrad wrote:

>At 4:44 PM -0500 2/5/02, Keith Saare wrote:
>>Can somebody please explain to me why "Philadelphia" (in the feminine
>>gender) somehow came to mean "brotherly love." Did this mistake originate
>>simply from folks not knowing Greek grammar?
>
>It's possible that the coiner of this name of many Hellenistic cities knew
>Greek grammar better than you: I believe it was Alexander the Great, whose
>tutor was Aristotle and who esteemed the idea of "brotherhood" very highly
>and named several of the cities in the vast eastern realm that he had
>conquered by that name. That the word FILADELFIA is feminine has to do with
>its construction (abstract noun from compounded elements) from roots FIL-
>"affection" and ADELF- "brother/sister." The feminine gender has nothing
>whatsoever to do with either "brother" OR "sister."
>--
>
>Carl W. Conrad
>Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
>Most months: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
>cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad@ioa.com
>WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
>
>---
>B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
>You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [brent@riveroflifembchurch.com]
>To unsubscribe, forward this message to
>leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu
>To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu




---
B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu




This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:37:17 EDT