[B-Greek] Do You Love Me?
cwestf5155 at aol.com
cwestf5155 at aol.com
Mon Apr 23 11:18:30 EDT 2007
Dear John,
I have wanted to revisit this issue for some time. I am not completely convinced by Barr (Carson and Silva) in this case because of the same issues that you raise. But I would agree the criticism that AGAPH would not be considered to be more a more divine, superior love to FILEW.
While AGAPH and FILEW can be "interchangeable," grammatical or lexical choice still has meaning (a systemic linguistics principle), and contributes to wordplay. No synonyms are completely the same, and the variation would bring out the difference--sometimes in poetry, the meaning of the variation is a display of artistry, but this isn't poetry, and John isn't by any means adverse to repetition.
I would differ from you in my analysis slightly, or at least further nuance it. FILEW is said to be love for friends and family, and in the examples given, the love between the Father and the Son is FILEW. The love between the Father and his children is FILEW. This is exactly what would be expected: FILEW shows up (collocates) with family language, a language of deep intimacy, but not romantic.
So, I agree with you that Peter was probably professing a more emphatic love, but I would pick something that would be used among very close friends and family members. I might use "adore" for that term, but I think that males probably wouldn't.
Cynthia Long Westfall
McMaster Divinity College
-----Original Message-----
From: jfs at jfsanders.com
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Cc: ron at bonica.org
Sent: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 8:49 AM
Subject: [B-Greek] Do You Love Me?
Ron Bonica wrote:
Please pardon a newbie question:
In John 21:15, Jesus asks Peter, "AGAPAC ME PLEON TAUTWN". Peter replies
"NAI KURIE, SU OIDAS HOTI FILW SE".
Peter has switched verbs. It seems that the appropriate answer would
have been "NAI KURIE, SU OIDAS HOTI AGAPW SE". Is there some reason why
that reply would have been ungrammatical or inappropriate? If not, are
the words "AGAPW" and "FILW" one hundred percent identical in meaning.
Or is there some shade of difference between them?
I would answer your first question in this way, “NAI KURIE, SU OIDAS hOTI AGAPW SE" is one answer that is appropriate. But that is not the answer that Peter gave, and I would think his answer was just as appropriate (since it is what is in the text).
This leads to the second question. The way you worded your question implies an assumption which is not sustainable (at least in my view). In other words, I do not think that 100% convergence in meaning is a requirement to use alternate words to describe the same situation. All that is required is that there is enough convergence so that confusion or ambiguity does not arise. Let me present some examples that may clarify my thinking.
“Do you love me?” She asked.
He lowered his newspaper and whispered, “I adore you.”
In this example, although the two words, love and adore, do not converge 100% in their lexical or semantic domain, they converge sufficiently enough that we can believe they are used as synonyms.
“Do you love me?” She asked.
He dropped to his knees, took her hands in his; and looking up into her face, with tears streaming down his cheeks, he quivered, “I adore you.”
In this example, I think one can read a nuance into the change in verbs; that is adore implies a more emphatic love, not because of the lexical meaning of the word, but rather because a change in words was used, to demonstrate that the original word, love, was inadequate to express his sentiments.
And one last example.
As the entertainer came on stage, the shouts of joy erupted from the crowd. One observer quickly wrote, “The crowd adores him.” Another observer wrote, “The crowd loves him.”
In this example, love and adore are used as synonyms, but there meaning has shifted from the first two examples.
Coming back to John 21:15, I would say we can interpret this in one of two ways: AGAPW and FILW are synonyms in this verse as in my examples 1 and 3, or FILW is more emphatic than AGAPW as in my example 2. It is more emphatic, not by lexical meaning but because a change in verbs was used to emphasize that the original AGAPW was insufficient to convey the feelings Peter had. But to read it in this way would only be by interpretation only, there is nothing in the vocabulary or in the grammar that would determine such a reading.
I do not write the above as an expert, just as a guy also attempting to learn this language. Those who are knowledgeable can amend, disambiguate, or correct what errors they see.
John Sanders
Suzhou, China
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