[B-Greek] AGAPAN and FILEIN in John 21

Tony Pope borikayaama_tekiri at sil.org
Wed Dec 9 06:17:50 EST 2009


I agree I don't think it has a lot to do with verbal inspiration. But it seems to be popular these 
days to assume that different words that can be roughly translated into English by the same word are 
actually fully interchangeable in Greek. I have a sneaking feeling that this attitude derives from 
the observation by experts in the Greek of the Classical period that certain distinctions valid in 
that literature are not valid in Hellenistic Greek. Mistakes have been made in interpreting the New 
Testament as if it were classical, therefore it is no longer appropriate to make certain fine 
distinctions, and before long it is open season on all sorts of semantic distinctions. But the fact 
that false distinctions have been drawn by some does not mean there are no distinctions to be drawn.

Regarding John 3.35 and 5.20, given that "the father X the son" and "the father Y the son", it does 
not follow necessarily that X=Y. "I am sitting on M." "I am sitting on N." But M is not exactly 
equivalent to N, because M = "a piece of furniture" and N = "an office chair". One word can be more 
specific than the other but not fully interchangeable with it.

I support the view that FILEI is used in John 5.20 because the context is like that of a human 
father who is sharing intimate knowledge of his trade to his son, a social context entirely familiar 
to Jewish society of the period. The idea of being close enough to share private information comes 
also with the noun FILOS in John 15.15.

The context is not quite the same in 3.35 and so FILEI is not used there. In the classical period, 
AGAPAN was rare and had a rather specific meaning, but in later times it was evidently used more 
generally. FILEIN seems to have a restricted meaning in later times, in contexts of close friendship 
and family intimacy.

This approach can also be applied in John 21, rather than the approach traditionally advocated that 
AGAPAN is a special word for a divine sort of love, or the popular approach that says there is no 
difference intended.

(Sorry to old timers if this has all been said before. Dr Conrad says "the archives can be 
consulted", and indeed on the FAQ page there is mention of a powerful search engine. But I cannot 
see where to access it. Doubtless I'm missing something quite obvious, but if someone would be 
sufficient of a FILOS to point it out, I should be grateful. :)

Tony Pope

------------------

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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