[B-Greek] Etymological fallacy?

Leonard Isaksson leonardo1orchardcity at mac.com
Thu Nov 20 09:21:00 EST 2008


I suppose being 'called out of the world" is one way of looking at this 
word.

When I read in Ephesians 5.25,  χριστος ηγαπησεν την εκκλησιαν και 
εαυτον παρεδωκεν υπερ αυτησ,

XRISTOS HGAPHSEN THN EKKLHSIAN KAI EAYTON PAREDWKEN YPER AUTHS,

then it seems to me that given the context, you have the idea of the 
husband, who loves the bride, and who as the bridegroom, gives a shout 
when he goes to take his bride(like in Matthew 25), that this gives 
weight to the idea of called out, as you have the 'called out one'  or  
the Anointed loved the called out one.    One,  rather than plural.   
Now I do not know much about the Jewish marrying practices of the day, 
so what may one say about that.

May not the word at hand have more than one way of being seen by the NT 
writers, Paul anyway, in addition to an assembly of people called out 
for business, so to speak, also come to have a meaning in the hands of 
Paul that is affixed, which means the church, the bride.  Clearly in 
the context of Eph. 5 the gender of the church, pictured as Christ's 
wife, is feminine.  How else may one see this?

Sorry if this is not entirely within the protocol of this list.

Leonard Isaksson


On Nov 18, 2008, at 6:28 PM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:

> The etymological fallacy appears to be alive and well at the Koinonia
> blog in yesterday's "Word study on ekklesia ("church") — Monday with
> Mounce 15 " entry:
> http://zondervan.typepad.com/koinonia/2008/11/monday-with-mounce.html
> = http://tinyurl.com/5n9t54
>
> It's the old chestnut about EKKLHSIA being derived from EKKALEW and
> the word meaning that believers have been "called out of the world" to
> belong to King Jesus. It's worth consulting BDAG on this; the word is
> actually the standard ancient Greek political word for assembly of
> citizens. In the LXX EKKLHSIA was used to convey the Hebrew Qahal,
> "congregation" -- and it is pretty evident the word was carried over
> into early Christian usage for the congregation of believers.
>
> Warnings against the etymological fallacy don't seem to do much good.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Ret)
>
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