From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Jan 08 2001 - 08:55:21 EST
At 7:54 PM +0300 1/8/01, Steve Godfrey wrote:
>Dear Carl,
>
>I appreciate very much your reaction to my proposal.
>
>You wrote:
>
>>This may well be, but the difference between AGAPAW and FILEW may in fact
>>not be so much between higher and lower degrees of affection but in how one
>>thinks of one's affection; traditionally FILEW means to feel the sort of
>>affection one feels for a member of one's own family while AGAPAW tends to
>>mean "show a preferential feeling for" without reference to how one feels
>>about one's family. I don't mean to argue the case one way or the other in
>>John 21; I mean rather simply to show that Peter may well have felt that he
>>was making a more appropriate statement with FILEW: that's the love one has
>>for a brother or for an intimate friend; whereas AGAPAW might be used for
>>"have a preference for seafood over beef and pork." This is to say: yes, I
>>too think that there must be some element of difference really between
>>FILEW and AGAPAW in John 21; I'm just not so SURE that John intended AGAPAW
>>to mean a distinctly Christian kind of love preferable to initimate
>>affection of a close friend. Peter may have misunderstood the question. If
>>the question was, "do you have a care for me transcending the care that
>>these others have?" Peter may have thought that saying he thought of Jesus
>>as an intimate friend was the right way to respond.
>
>Louw & Nida distinguish the two terms this way: AGAPAW tends to refer to
>love based on
>unconditional high regard. FILEW tends to refer to love based on
>association. This, rather
>than a distinction between high love and lower love, is what I would like to
>serve as the basis
>for my supposition of Peter's shame. It's not that Peter was falling short
>of Christian
>love, so much as he was painfully aware that he had fallen short of
>unconditional high
>regard of his Lord in the great betrayal.
But don't you see, this is precisely where the problem lies; Although you
cite Louw and Nida, you fail to note that even THEY suggest there's NO
significant distinction in THIS PASSAGE. Here's the WHOLE note from L&N:
--------------
25.43 AGAPAW ; AGAPH, HS f: to have love for someone or something, based on
sincere appreciation and high regard - 'to love, to regard with affection,
loving concern, love.'AGAPAW : ENTOLHN KAINHN DIDVMI hUMIN, hINA AGAPAATE
ALLHLOUS 'I give you a new commandment, that you love one another' Jn
13:34; GAR TON hENA MISHSEI KAI TON hETERON AGAPHSEI 'for he will hate the
one and love the other' Lk 16:13; hO PATHR AGAPAi TON hUION'the Father
loves the Son' Jn 3:35; hOTI AUTOS PRWTOS HGAPHSEN hHMAS 'for he loved us
first' 1Jn 4:19.
AGAPH : hH AGAPH OUDEPOTE PIPTEI 'love does not fail' 1Cor 13:8; hH AGAPH
TWi PLHSION KAKON OUK ERGAZETAI 'a person who loves doesn't do evil to his
neighbor' Ro 13:10.
Though some persons have tried to assign certain significant
differences of meaning between AGAPAW , AGAPH and FILEW, FILIA (25.33), it
does not seem possible to insist upon a contrast of meaning in any and all
contexts. For example, the usage in Jn 21:15-17 seems to reflect simply a
rhetorical alternation designed to avoid undue repetition. There is,
however, one significant clue to possible meaningful differences in at
least some contexts, namely, the fact that people are never commanded to
love one another with FILEW or FILIA, but only with AGAPAW and AGAPH.
Though the meanings of these terms overlap considerably in many contexts,
there are probably some significant differences in certain contexts; that
is to say, FILEW and FILIA are likely to focus upon love or affection based
upon interpersonal association, while AGAPAW and AGAPH focus upon love and
affection based on deep appreciation and high regard. On the basis of this
type of distinction, one can understand some of the reasons for the use of
AGAPAW and AGAPH in commands to Christians to love one another. It would,
however, be quite wrong to assume that file÷w and fili÷a refer only to
human love, while AGAPAW and AGAPH refer to divine love. Both sets of terms
are used for the total range of loving relations between people, between
people and God, and between God and Jesus Christ.
----------------
>>I'm trying out alternatives here without making up my mind. I really do
>>think that the major element in the story is Peter's rehabilitation as the
>>shepherd of Christ's flock after the threefold denial on the night of the
>>arrest. I do think, as I said previously, that Steve (Godfrey) is right in
>>asserting that this is essentially a literary composition and that in using
>>the different verbs the author is well aware of what he's doing rather than
>>simply trying to translate into Greek an Aramaic conversation. And
>>therefore I do think that these "slightly distinguished" synonyms are used
>>deliberately, but I am not quite so very confident that the standard
>>reading of an earlier generation--namely, that Peter deliberately uses the
>>watered-down word FILEW instead of the word Jesus might have preferrred
>>AGAPAW--is the right way to understand the nuance of difference here (do I
>>dare to say 'the very SLIGHT nuance of difference'?).
>
>Thanks much for summarizing my basic approach so well. I appreciate the
>encouragement to
>continue thinking about John along these lines. I ran across one reference
>recently to John
>as the Dr. Seuss of the New Testament... hardly... more like Dostoyevsky.
As I said, I agree with you that the passage is a literary construction: an
interpretation, perhaps,of a remembered conversation rather than a
rendering into precise Greek of a conversation remembered exactly as it
took place in Aramaic. But although I may be offering something similar in
approach, I am nevertheless suggesting that Peter's FILEW is NOT, as he is
using it, an indication of a weaker love but rather of what he takes to be
a more intimate love, and that this in the end is quite enough for Jesus,
who doesn't use AGAPAW for the third question. As for the style, I'd rather
say that the Johannine style is unique than to compare it with either Dr.
Seuss or Dostoyevsky. There's something like Sophocles in the superficial
simplicity that masks intense depth, but it really is unique of its kind,
or to use a Johannine term, he's MONOGENHS.
>As for the precise meaning of these synonyms in this passage, it is indeed
>difficult to pin down. I hold my own view as a current opinion, subject to
>change by
>subsequent insights. This entire discussion has been helpful to me in
>understanding just
>how pliable language can be, and the extent to which context influences
>connotation.
Always worth while.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
cwconrad@ioa.com
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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