[B-Greek] Jn 21.13 & 21.15 How much do you love me?

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Mon Dec 18 01:41:47 EST 2006


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Oun Kwon" <kwonbbl at gmail.com>

> I found this article useful.
>
> http://www.sil.org:8090/siljot//2005/2/siljot2005-2-02.pdf
>
> Oun Kwon.

The arguments that Harold Greenlee lists are easily refuted. Only one of them involves a matter of
Greek when he says "if this were the meaning of the question, it could at least have been expressed
more clearly (even with the genitive of comparison) if John had added the emphatic SU 'you': AGAPAiS
ME SU PLEON TOUTWN  "Do YOU love me more than these (other disciples love me)?", thus indicating
that Jesus was comparing Peter with someone or something else."
This argument is faulty for two reasons. First, if the intention had been to highlight a contrast
between YOU and these, SU should have come before the verb. Compare, for instance, 21:17.
Second, Jesus is not intending to set up a competition between Peter and the other disciples, so
using SU at all would give a wrong focus. Rather, he is echoing the time when Peter set up the
competition about who loved Jesus most by not wanting to betray him. (According to Relevance Theory,
echoing is the basic means for expressing irony.) The focus of the sentence and the context is
clearly on "love (for Jesus)". Peter does not dare to say that he loves Jesus more than the others
do, because he now realizes his weakness. But he is saying that he loves Jesus in spite of his
weakness.The main reason for repeating the question three times is to give Peter a chance to
positively counter his three earlier denials.

L&N gives the following senses for PLE(I)WN:

a more (quantity): pleiwn#59.1
b more (degree): pleiwn#78.28
c more appropriate: pleiwn#66.11

For John 21:15, it has to be sense b about the degree of love, and for this sense L&N says:
"a degree which surpasses in some manner a point on an explicit or implicit scale of extent - 'more,
more than, to a greater degree, even more.' e.g. TIS OUN AUTWN PLEION AGAPHSEI AUTON  'therefore,
which one [of them] will love him more?' Luke 7:42.

NET Bible has a nice note:

"To whom (or what) does "these" (TOUTWN) refer? Three possibilities are suggested: (1) TOUTWN should
be understood as neuter, "these things," referring to the boats, nets, and fishing gear nearby. ...
Three things may be said in evaluation of this view; (a)  [I have deleted the first one, because I
think it is not valid]  (b) it would probably be more likely that the verb would be repeated in such
a construction (see 7.31 for an example where the verb is repeated); and (c) as R. E. Brown has
observed (John [AB], 2:1103) by Johannine standards the choice being offered to Peter between
material things and the risen Jesus would seem rather ridiculous, especially after the disciples had
realized whom it was they were dealing with (the Lord, see v. 12). (2) TOUTWN refers to the other
disciples, meaning "Do you love me more than you love these other disciples?" The same objection
mentioned as (c) under (1) would apply here: could the author, in light of the realization of who
Jesus is which has come to the disciples after the resurrection, and which he has just mentioned in
21.12, seriously present Peter as being offered a choice between the other disciples and the risen
Jesus? This leaves option (3), that TOUTWN refers to the other disciples, meaning "Do you love me
more than these other disciples do?" It seems likely that there is some irony here: Peter had
boasted in 13.37, "I will lay down my life for you," and the synoptics present Peter as boasting
even more explicitly of his loyalty to Jesus ("Even if they all fall away, I will not," Matt 26:33;
Mark 14:29). Thus the semantic force of what Jesus asks Peter here amounts to something like "Now,
after you have denied me three times, as I told you you would, can you still affirm that you love me
more than these other disciples do?" The addition of the auxiliary verb "do" in the translation is
used to suggest to the English reader the third interpretation, which is the preferred one."

Iver Larsen




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