From: Jim West (jwest@highland.net)
Date: Tue Aug 22 2000 - 14:14:29 EDT
At 12:57 PM 8/22/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Let me try to rephrase it. It appears to me that in Classical Greek EKKLHSIA
>was predominantly, if not altogether, a secular word--referring to political
>and, otherwise, secular assemblies. Did the use of the word with reference
>to a religious "assembly" have any effect on the way the word was used
>following the time of the New Testament?
What makes you think it had a specifically "religious" tone when used by the
writers of the NT? Isnt it possible that the NT writers merely used the
word they had at hand for "assembly" with nothing denoted thereby other than
the fact that folk gathered together? To be sure, the word later became
loaded as an ecclesiastical one - meaning "church assembly". But I dont
think this happened as early as the NT itself and im not anything near a
patristics scholar- so the exact date of that transformation is unknown to me.
>
>I hope that's clearer. If not, I may have to give up.
its not you- its me. im extraordinarily dense.
thanks for clarifying.
Jim
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"going around stirring up apathy "
Jim West, ThD
http://web.infoave.net/~jwest
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