[B-Greek] Follow up to Mitch's AGAPAW and FILEW

Dmitriy Reznik reznik1 at juno.com
Mon Aug 18 00:24:22 EDT 2003


On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 18:22:59 -0300 "Brent Hudson"
<brent at riveroflifembchurch.com> writes:
> 2) If I say to someone: "Do you like fish?" and they answer: "yes, I 
> love fish", the words "like" and "love" are not used synonomously 
> and the word "yes" is perfectly okay.  Similarly, I don't see 
> Peter's: NAI KURIE, SU OIDAS hOTI FILW SE as being a clear marker of 
> synonymous usage.  If FILEW is taken as a more emotive term than  
> AGAPAW, I don't see why Peter would need to negate Jesus' words 
> before saying FILW SE.
Maybe your example is good... Still it seems to me that if Peter answer
YES, he thus answers positively Jesus' question. And the question was
whether or not Peter AGAPA Jesus. If there were a significant difference
between AGAPAW and FILEW in this passage, then Peter would have answered
the question which had not been asked. Isn't it logical? 
> 
> >3) AGAPAW is used in various places of the NT and Septuagint in a 
> bad
> >(even disgusting) meaning, so nobody would understand John if he 
> decided
> >to play on difference of these words. 
> 
> I don't understand what you mean by this.  
By this I argue against a wide spread interpretation that states that
Peter could not answer simply, Yes, I love (AGAPW) You, so he says, I
(just) FILW You, thus in fact answering NO, not YES. Such an
interpretation implies that AGAPH is a special kind of unselfish love
that comes only from G-d. But because this is not how the word is used,
people would not understand such an idea if John had it in mind.
> 
> It would be wonderful if 
> there were some kind of a narrative marker when the terms differ, 
> but alas, such discernment is usually intuitive only to a native 
> speaker.
Yes, it would be good to find at least one native ancient Greek. :)

Sincerely,
Dmitriy Reznik 

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