From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 14 2001 - 11:49:57 EST
At 7:50 AM -0800 1/14/01, Alan B. Thomas wrote:
>> > It was natural for Jesus to transfer this word to
>> the Church, God's new
>> > congregation.
>>
>> I agree with Harold's response, which addresses the
>> appropriateness of
>> EKKLHSIA's use. Still, the question remains why it
>> was chosen over the
>> alternative word, SUNAGWGH.
>
>D.W.
>
>Could it be because SUNAGWGH was almost universally
>thought of as a Jewish word, while EKKLHSIA enjoyed a
>universal, non-Jewish connotation of a gathering of
>people united by membership?
>
>I would think that in the first century, SUNAGWGH
>would bring to mind a Jewish worship place, while
>EKKLHSIA would bring to mind a picture of a gathered
>people, regardless of their national affiliation.
>
>Since the new church was not a "Jewish" thing,
>EKKLHSIA to me seems like the likely choice. Having
>said that, I do think that SUNAGWGH could have been
>used, since the church was not opposed to using Jewish
>terminology. But in the dominant Greco-Roman world, I
>think EKKLHSIA did not carry any "baggage."
Au contraire! EKKLHSIA is by no means infrequent in the LXX (I just found,
as I expected, 100 instances of it. EKKLHSIA has, if anything, political
baggage in Greek usage. I would disagree too with the notion that "the new
church was not a 'Jewish' thing; I think that at the outset it was very
much a 'Jewish' thing, and even if the testimony of Acts is relatively
late, yet it is based on sources, of which there is also plenty of evidence
in the Synoptic gospels, that the Gentile mission was strongly resisted by
those who did not want the gospel to go beyond Israel.
--
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
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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