[B-Greek] AGAPAW, FILEW, etc. in the GNT
frjsilver at optonline.net
frjsilver at optonline.net
Wed Feb 15 19:41:58 EST 2006
Dear Friends --
Since one of my responsibilities in the Church is to work on liturgical translations into English from Greek original texts, this is an important issue for me.
You should know that native speakers of Modern Greek are perfectly well able to distinguish among EROS, STORGH, FILIA, and AGAPH, and that they -- alone among Christians -- still speak the language of the scriptures, albeit in a devolved form.
We must ask ourselves: If the first generation of Christian Greek writers found it useful to use different words for related concepts, is it useful for us in our generation to assert that the terms are synonomous?
Remembering that the gospels themselves are a canonical Greek representation of words undoubtedly uttered in Aramaic (mostly), the choice of vocabulary several decades after those words were spoken is likely to represent not only strictly semantic and semiotic values, but also to bequeath a still recent but already inured tradition.
So, in the present instance, eg., Jesus might be asking Peter 'do you love me?' as well as 'are you my friend?' Given the evangelists' assumption that Jesus had knowledge superior to Peter's, it's entirely possible that Jesus might switch words and Peter might not -- or vice-versa. We have to deal with the text we've inherited.
And, for that, I think that the text deserves at least as much sensitive differentiation in English as it exhibits in Greek.
Peace and blessings to all.
Monk James
Orthodox Church in America
Father James Silver
----- Original Message -----
From: RRedden604 at aol.com
Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 6:25 pm
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] AGAPAW, FILEW, etc. in the GNT
> I suppose most of the group are familiar with the writings of Leon
> Morris.
> One outstanding work is his "Studies in the Fourth Gospel"
> wherein he
> provides a lengthy study of the verbal variety in the Gospel of
> John. It is
> priceless. I believe he demolishes the efforts to maintain
> distinctions between
> AGAPAW and FILEW in Jn. 21.
>
> After studying his material and examining it afresh, I had to
> throw away
> several "good" sermon outlines! I hope others will do that same.
>
> Unfortunately, the NIV translators (and NAS marginal notes)
> continue reinforcing this
> "faux pas."
>
> Rob Redden
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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