John A. Lee on αγαπαω and φιλεω in John 21:15-17

[Matthew Longhorn]

My first lexicon would in those cases be Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
Kittel, Gerhard; Friedrich, Gerhard. A couple of years ago I bought a complete German Edition for 75 Euros. (11 big Volumes).

αγαπαω : 43 pages
φιλεω : 31 pages.

Every Item has a historical overview of the use of the words.

Thanks, I haven’t looked at that in years - seems worth taking a look at it again.

[Stephen Carlson]

What sort of resources would a reader of the GNT need to look at to see whether a particular lexeme is becoming more obsolescent than another at a certain time to help make such a formality judgement. That coupled with the register of the sources it appears in. It strikes me that this sort of analysis is likely something outside my ability to assess properly and is something I will have to rely on others for, then hope I understood them, and that they are right.

The best source would be the papyri, and the second best is reading scholars who work with the papyri (e.g., J. A. L. Lee).

[MAubrey]

My first lexicon would in those cases be Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
Kittel, Gerhard; Friedrich, Gerhard. A couple of years ago I bought a complete German Edition for 75 Euros. (11 big Volumes).

αγαπαω : 43 pages
φιλεω : 31 pages.

Every Item has a historical overview of the use of the words.

φιλέω is probably mostly fine. But the entries in the first volumes, which is where ἀγαπάω would be are going to be filled with the kind of theologizing nonsense that prompted James Barr to write The Semantics of Biblical Language in 1961.

But as Stephen says, the papyri are the place to be.

[Matthew Longhorn]

Thanks to both responses about the papyri.
What resources do you recommend for non-specialists like me on that?
I have Moulton’s vocabulary of the New Testament. What authors are worth engaging with on this like Lee?

[Jean Putmans]

The resource for the Papyri would probably be: Preisigke: Wörterbuch der griechischen Papyrusurkunden:

https://archive.org/details/wrterbuchde ... 7/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/wrterbuchde ... 9/mode/2up

To be honest: I don‘t think the lemmata αγαπαω and φιλεω will be very informative in this case.

And maybe a look in Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon will be helpfull, according to that αγαπαω and φιλεω might very well be interchangable.

As for Kittel: almost each lemma has a part concerning the non-biblical use of the word (non-theologizing!).