Re: AGAMOS in 1Cor. 7

Jonathan Robie (jwrobie@mindspring.com)
Thu, 02 Oct 1997 11:28:12 -0400

At 11:05 AM 10/2/97 -0400, David L. Moore wrote:
>At 07:05 AM 10/2/97 -0400, Jonathan Robie wrote:

>>Did you see anything on Perseus that would rule out the meaning "unmarried"
>>or "single", without unambiguously specifying whether the person had been
>>married?
>
> It isn't clear to me exactly what you are asking. What I did *not*
>find on Perseus is any instance of the meaning Paul clearly gives AGAMOS in
>1Cor. 7:11 - a meaning also echoed in the popular Koine of Moulton and
>Milligan. This suggests to me that, according to the data available to me
>(Perseus, not TLG), there has been a shift in the semantic domain of AGAMOS
>between the Greek of the Classical authors and the popular Koine of Paul and
>the papyri.

I think that it is clear that AGAMOS refers to people who are not married.
You suggest that the term also means that the person has never been married
when it appears in classical Greek. When you say this, do you mean only that
the uses you see seem to refer to someone who has never been married, or is
there evidence that the term clearly implies someone who has never been married?

Let me give some examples. Suppose we see this paragraph:

1. "She had never had a husband, and was AGAMOS"

That tells me that the woman had never been married, and was AGAMOS, but it
does not tell me that AGAMOS always means that the person has never been
married, and Paul's usage clearly refers to a woman who *has* been married,
so I would assume that the term means simply "unmarried". On the other hand,
if I found a use that says:

2. "Now we know that a person who is AGAMOS has never had a spouse"

That would tell me that the term, as used in this quote, clearly means that
the person has never been married.

In English, the terms "single" or "unmarried" do not say whether the person
has been married, but the terms "divorced", "separated", and "widowed" give
a clearer picture of the past. Terms like "virgin" or "never-married" are
necessary if we want to be clear about this. I do not know whether AGAMOS is
more like the English "single" or more like the English "never-married". Do
you know of any uses of the word which would make this clear?

Jonathan

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