Paul's "Love" Letter - Thoughts about Philemon

#eros #agape #onesimus #philemon #newtestamentgreek #oneesis ##khreeston #love #usefulness #benefit

PAUL'S "LOVE" LETTER

THOUGHTS ABOUT PHILEMON

Valentines Day has been and gone and while people are thinking about "LURV"
 I want to direct your attention to a different kind of LOVE 

It may seem like trivia to most people but the noun Eros and the related verb #eraoo are not used in the New Testament. The most popular words for LOVE are derived from either AGAPE or PHILIA.

Paul certainly uses AGAPE and related words a lot in his Letter to Philemon.

Philemons name suggests affection - phile as stem and Paul addresses him as beloved coworker - agapeetooi sunergooi - and praises him for his love - apageen and faith - pistin. He thanks Philemon for the joy and comfort provided by Philemons agape.

Then a twist he says he could command Philemon to do something necessary but he would prefer Philemon did it for love - dia teen agapeen mallon.

What he wants him to do is forgive Onesimus and treat him not as a slave but as a beloved brother adelphon agapeeton !

There's also a pun on Onesimus being formerly useless but now useful akhreeston  eukhreeston as Onesimus name is derived from either the verb oniveemi or the noun oneesis also meaning useful.

This also suggests Paul was aware of people confusing the title Christos with the Greek word khreestos and is referring to Onesimus' conversion.

Paul clearly refers to Onesimus as a slave. Possibly Onesimus had been raised as a younger brother and companion to Philemon as a child then reduced back to being treated like a slave as an adult and taken something he felt entitled to and so was accused of being a thief wrongly or rightly? Maybe he owed the family money towards buying his freedom ?

It would appear Onesimus was told he was "useless" and ran away and somehow met Paul in Rome.

How he got from Asia Minor to Rome is unknown but he could have been pretending to be a freedman or accompanied some other group visiting Paul.

Paul asks Philemon not only to take Onesimus back but not to punish him but forgive him and again treat him as a brother which suggests he also wants Onesimus to be freed?

"receive him as you would receive me" 

"If he has wronged you or owes you" suggests Paul didn't believe Onesimus was a thief and knew both men?

Note Paul asks Philemon in the flesh and not just in the Lord to treat Onesimus as a brother so I think this was a call to free him. Had Onesimus been promised his freedom and not received it?

What a GREAT LOVE LETTER THIS

He's calling on Philemon to let go of Onesimus as a slave and accept him as a brother as an act of love! Possibly justice as well?

I think Philemon did free Onesimus and treat him as a brother again. WHY?

This is not certain. It may have been another Onesimus not this one as two dates have been suggested for their deaths but some decades later we read of of a BISHOP of EPHESUS called Onesimus.

And Onesimus becoming a church leader could explain why their letter of request survived.
People telling stories about Philemon and Onesimus and saying see here is the letter Paul sent!

ROMANCE IS NOT THE ONLY KIND OF LOVE.

Is AGAPE A LOAN WORD

Is AGAPE a loan Word from an West Semitic Afroasiatic language?

I've seen arguments for and against but I think yes for THREE reasons

ONE

There are no cognates to AGAPE in other IndoEuropean languages
even if you prefer the agape is aga with a verbal suffix added why no other cognates ?

TWO Hebrew Aramaic and Arabic have cognate words !

Aramaic has Chav / Hoeba etc KH-V
Hebrew has AHAV  HB
Arabic has H B B  hubb habba ahabba.

But Agape appears in Homer!
 Yes and so do Phoenician traders and stories about Greeks and Phoenicians intermarrying.

But Hebrew and Aramaic the Rkh M stem  more frequently!

So how do I explain this?

I think just as it is in modern standard colloquial Arabic likewise in ancient time it was a popular non literary term. Slang even !

It was brought to Greece maybe as early as the Mycenaean period by refugees from the collapse and defeat of the Hyksos dynasty described in myths as Egyptians and hearing it used by later Phoenician traders reinforced its usage plus there would have been Greek mercenaries who picked it up working in the Near East for the Assyrians and Persians alongside others who spoke West Semitic languages.

Frankly I expect there is a reasonable chance cognates to H B B will turn up on ancient tablets yet to be discovered.

One last point.

How did or could (a)H vowel B change to agape?

There is evidence many words or syllables starting with p or b may be been gw or kw sounds in older forms of Greek.

The sound written H in our alphabet in modern Western Semitic languages is an unvoiced version of AYN and ... we tend to hear ha but maybe greeks could only say gwa or hwa and changed the BB to a P the two Bs fusing into one P ?

We can't know for sure but this is what I speculate happened!

Your choice which you prefer!

If anyone reading this blog is far more fluent in Aramaic than me I've love to see and add some more examples that are NOT cited in the most common Google searches.

Eros and Agape 2018

February the Fourteenth day is a day in which we hopefully combine eros and agape to find some true love?

Hopefully the boy god willn't treat you too badly today!

Recommended reading The Tale of Eros and Psyche form Apuleius' golden ass.

Although written in Latin it incorporates elements from older folktales from Greece and elsewhere.

Penguin Classics has a translation.

AGAPE and NOMOS

#word study #greek #greeknewtestament #agape #nomos

Just a short post today.

AGAPE AND NOMOS 

LOVE AND LAW

I've been thinking about the differences between the Old and New Testament and I'm speculating if they can be summarized by two Greek words AGAPE and NOMOS.

NOMOS is Law but also ORDER and a case can be made the Old Testament describes the creation evolution and interactions of NOMOS as an ideal through myth and history and even in the Prophecy sections since there's an ongoing theme of flawed humans versus divine law? 

The New Testament even when its talking about SIN is about AGAPE the euaggelion the good message about LOVE overcoming SIN and leading to healing and forgiveness.

Something to bear in mind while you're doing weekend bible study? 

The most important word in the Greek new Testament is surely

#agape #font #specialcharacters #greek

The most important word in the #greeknewtestament is surely this one?

ΑΓΑΠΗ αγαπη

αγαπη ΑΓΑΠΗ

ΑΓΑΠΗ αγαπη

and oh its feminine gender so a perfect bump for #idw 2018

Scroll down for a #howto #diy note !

How to generate Greek letters? In this example I was in Open Office and the fonts used to display AGAPE in Greek, are Times New Roman , New Athena Unicode, and Lucida Sans Unicode, and the method is to select and then use the Special Characters dialog box, scrolling down to the Basic Greek subset. Then I copy and paste the text into Google blogger.

Come back next Saturday or Sunday depending on your time zone and join us for Mark's Gospel.

I take or try to a very ecumenical approach in my comments on New Testament Greek.

Mid week I post mainly on Classical Greek art and literature, language and philosophy, and related topics, so do consider following regularly?

EROS and AGAPE

With Valentine's day this Teusday I'm doing a hybrid post today comparing Classical and NT Greek usage.

#classicalgreek #eros #newtestamentgreek #agape #philia

One of the most striking differences between Classical Greek and New Testament Greek is the preference for AGAPE over EROS and PHILIA.

In Classical Greek Prose and Poetry, Drama and Comedy, Eros and Philia are the verbs most frequently loved to describe relationships of desire,  love and friendship, and familial affection is rarely discussed.

However in the NEW Testament GOD IS LOVE - AGAPE

Now one idea I have seen is that AGAPE is actually a loan word based on the AfroAsiatic HBB stem and given how the Greeks altered  other loan words from Egyptian and Phoenician that seems possible but I think another reason was cultural. The NT writers wanted to distance themselves at first from Greek philosophers' ideas about love, Platonic or other.

Eros even in its widest meanings refers to passionate love usually with  sexual or romantic element.

Philia is friendship

Storge Affection.

HBB / Agape covers all those things and more though we should bear in mind Aramaic also used other words.

A possible issue is people using Greek as a second language. Look at the differences between the declensions of EROS and Agape and their connected Verbs. People learn the simplest forms first.

With Latin usage starting to spread into the Eastern empire Philia could have caused confusion as the Romans had filius and filius to describe children  and since neither Greek or Aramaic used a F sound in the initial position  at that time period that I know of ...

Agapaa agape agapoo easy to pronounce and write and read no need to remmeber eroos has a T in other cases than nominative and the initial Consonant cluster in STORGEE plus an R next to a G .

AGAPE WINS! with so many advantages over other words, philosophical, semantic, theological, cultural, sociolinguistic, and artistic. The return of Eros to Western art though is a subject best discussed over on my Glyphika blog.

Paul on Love Your Neighbour

Yes this is related to last week's post!

#paul in #romans Romas Chpater 13 Verse 8 - 10 writes something that's a comment on last weeks passage Matthew 19: 16 - 22

These verses in Paul also suggest that someone was already compiling and recording Jesus' teachings into what would become the Gospels.

Now Paul writes

Verse 8
to nothing/one anything owe  if not the (in relations to) each other to love
he who for loving the other law fulfills (completely note that the Perfect form of verb pleroo used in greek!)
Verse 9 echoes verse 18 and 19 in Matthew's gospel
with the additional remark made by Paul that

and any other commandment 
are in this word anakephalaioutai

Anakephalaiow summarize sum up is literally "heads up" ana+kephalee

Each and Every of the 10 commandments Entolee or the whole of Mosaic Law Nomos are summarized as ... again a quote

You will love the person near / neighbour of you as yourself.

Verse 10
The Love to the nearby person evil not works
fulfilment therefore of law the LOVE!

Do no evil Love Your Neighbour is the fulfilment and summary of LAW.

Love Wins WHEN you ...

I should be posting about usages of mercy in matthew 18 but I feel I have  to write something about the consequences of #Orlando and other recent events and yes about #homophobia and #islamophobia.

People I'm seeing Conservatives and Bigots blaming Liberals and Progressives for certain events due to their calls for toleration and I'm seeing some Liberals going on and on and on about homophobia and meanwhile the extremists and terrorists on both sides profit from the bickering.

Please instead of arguing about causes and labels and start working together to try to find a way to detect and deter "Lone gun man" type shooters!

Posts about "evil Muslims" or gun control or with rainbows or even LOVE WINS all over them or replacing your usual avatar don't solve.

But wait you say I just just posted a LOVE WINS image!

Think about what 4 words I included in the image ?

AGAPE Compassion Philia Friendship Eros Passion Storge Affection

All these require action even if its just smiling reassuring or saying hello or being polite to a Muslim or LGBT neighbour. 

Working on these 4 forms of Love whether you give them Greek Latin or English names is how LOVE WINS. Give those words a workout! 

Do something!

A Valentines Day Message Think About AGAPE

NO Bible Study today just this reminder about the difference between Eros and Agape #stvalentinesday #agape #eros #love

You're welcome to download and share this !

Think about why the New Testament prefers agapoo over phileoo or eraoo or storgeoo as a verb. Is it because of the similar HVA HBB Aramaic Semitic stem?
Did they want a word that expressed love in general that was not more affection for family and friends only or a philosophical passionate friendship?

I think Agape / Agapoo win out over other Greek words because it includes love compassion friendship and charity.

LOVE WINS

With #lovewins being a trending social media topic let us remember there is more than one kind of love,

Charity or compassion, whichever translation of Agape you prefer, Philia, friendship, Storge, affection, and Eros, passion are all forms of love. 

Whichever kind of relationship you're in or partnership let desire become love.

Valentine's Day and Love

Its Sunday but I'm sure some of you are still celebrating Valentine's Day especially if you had to work on Friday and couldn't get together with your loved ones.

Some people say Valentine's day isn't just about romance anymore but should be used as an opportunity to show people you care about them.

Mmm isn't that Christmas or something you should strive to do ALL year around?

One of the most important verses in the bible about Love finishes 1 Corinthians 13.

νυνί δὲ μένει πίστις ἐλπίς ἀγάπη τὰ τρία ταῦτα

μείζων δὲ τούτων ἡ ἀγάπη

now and abides faith hope love these three things

and greater of these (3 is) love

Language notes

the iota added to now is for emphasis

Greek allows some conjunctives to go after the first word of a clause

Paul uses the comparative of μεγαnot a superlative he wants us to think of all three as linked

Now go and read the whole of 1 Cor 13 and if you got choclate or flowers or both share them!