hETAIROS and PLHSION

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Dec 21 15:27:58 EST 2001


At 12:54 PM -0500 8/17/01, Michael DD Rogers wrote:
>Is there any relationship between these two Greek words?
>Please give references.

I would (1) venture to say categorically that there's no relationship
between the two words, (2) wonder why it should be supposed that there's a
relationship between the noun hETAIROS ("companion") and the adverb PLHSION
("near," "closeby"); perhaps you want the substantive hO PLHSION = "the one
close-by", commonly translated from NT into English as "neighbor."

Louw & Nida offer the following terms as being in the same semantic domain
for NT usage:

11.89 GEITWN, ONOS, m and f., PERIOIKOS, OU, m; PLHSION, ADELFOS, OU m: a
person who; lives close beside others and who thus by implication is part
of a so-called 'in-group,' thzt is, the group with which and individual
identifies both ethnically and culturally -- 'neighbor, brother.'

hETAIROS, however:
34.16 hETAIROS, OU m: a person who is associated with someone else,though
not necessarily involving personal affection (as in the case of FIL;OS and
FILH, 34.11 and 34.12) -- 'companion, friend.'

It's interesting that this word appears in the critical text of the GNT
only 3x, all in Mt and all in the vocative: Mt 20:13, 22:12; 26:50.
hETAIROIS is a variant reading for hETEROIS in Mt 11:16, but my own guess
is that this is a matter of confusion of the sounds of -E- and -AI-.

-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University (Emeritus)
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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