philadelphia revisited
Ben and Jo Crick
ben.crick at argonet.co.uk
Sat Apr 13 16:59:33 EDT 2002
On Sat 13 Apr 2002 (15:39:49), talmid512 at cs.com wrote:
> If so then I can understand why the term is rendered "brotherly love".
> Any thoughts?
>
My thought is that in Greek, Latin and many languages, abstract nouns are
of feminine grammatical gender, regardless of sexual gender connotations.
FILADELFIA is rendered "brotherly love", because in the ancient Near East
it was a Patriarchal society, not a Matriarchal society. And as far as the
early Church is concerned, all Christian Elders were male, as were all the
Apostles: "brothers in Christ". The generic term "Brothers" includes
"sisters" unless specifically mentioned otherwise. Compare the German term
"Geschwister" which looks like "Schwester" (sister) but means Siblings:
"brothers-and-sisters" (either/or, or both).
ADELFOS = brother; ADELFH = sister; ADELFIA = Brotherhood/Sisterhood.
ERRWSQE
Ben
--
Revd Ben Crick BA CF, and Mrs Joanna (Goodwin) Crick
<ben.crick at argonet.co.uk>
232 Canterbury Road, Birchington, Kent, CT7 9TD (UK)
http://www.cnetwork.co.uk/crick.htm
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