[B-Greek] AGAPAN and FILEIN in John 21

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Dec 8 19:45:55 EST 2009


I would hope that we could steer clear of talk for or against verbal inspiration in on-list discussion; it's a quick way to bring a thread to an early halt. We have had several discussions over the years of this question (the archives can be consulted) and there have always been proponents of a real distinction between usage of the two verbs in John 21 and others dubious that any such real distinction was intended by the author. As I recollect, key arguments against such a distinction have been (a) other apparently synonymous pairs in the same sequence: POIMAINE, BOSKE and ARNIA, PROBATA, and (b) usage of the verbs FILEIN and AGAPAN elsewhere in John's gospel where it is clear that each verb gets used in a context where proponents of a sharp distinction might expect the other verb. What underlies the view that the verbs are synonymous in John 21 (for those who hold that view) is observation that such a distinction does not seem to be consistently maintained throughout the text of John's gospel.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (ret)
 
On Tuesday, December 08, 2009, at 07:07PM, "David McKay" <davidmckay52 at gmail.com> wrote:
>Blue, if a person holds to verbal inspiration and notices that John seems to
>use a lot of words interchangeably, we would hope that this would be a clue
>to how a particular pair of words is used.
>
>One of the strongest advocates for the equivalence of AGAPAW and FILEW in
>John 21 is D A Carson, who is certainly one who has a high view of biblical
>inspiration.



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