Skip to content

“shields-up”

The truth lies half way down the slippery slope…

Menu
  • Home
  • about
  • warp speed
Menu

is agape (ἀγάπη) love specially divine?

Posted on Monday, 13th February, 2012 by martin

This last weekend I heard a talk in which it was claimed that the word ἀγάπη (agapē) was little used prior to the New Testament in Greek and was infused with new and special meaning by the writers of the NT, a meaning that reflects a divine, selfless, love. This is not a new claim, and any search for the term “agape” across the internet will uncover many making exactly this claim. Indeed, if you venture to view the Wikipedia entry on the term agape you will find some similar claims.

From what I can tell, however, the special divine meaning for the term ἀγάπη (agapē) is spurious.

Indeed, my immediate response to reading the Wikipedia entry was that perhaps the best thing to do would be to scrap it altogether and start over again!

So what are the problems?

First, although the term does appear frequently in the New Testament, it is not at that time a neologism. It appears in the LXX almost as many times as other words commonly meaning “love,” frequently translating אהב, the most common Hebrew word for “love” which isn’t usually supposed to have any special connotations. It appears elsewhere in Greek literature predating the NT. And it appears to mean “love” in a fairly generic sense, not in a special divine sense. It is worth noting what Don Carson has written of the verbal cognate to this word:

Convincing evidence has been advanced that the verb agapaō was coming into prominence throughout Greek literature from about the fourth century BC onward, as one of the standard verbs for ‘to love’. One of the reasons for this change is that phileō has taken on the additional meaning ‘to kiss’, in some contexts.1

Second, even within the NT the word is not exclusively used of some type of divine love — in 2 Tim 4:10 it is used to describe Demas’ love for the world which leads him to abandon the Way. Similar examples of non-divine, selfless contexts can also be added from the LXX and other ancient Greek literature.

Where I think readers have gone astray is in failing to note that most of the references to love in the Bible are in reference to God’s love, or at least to love derived from or reflecting God’s love. So it ought to be unsurprising that ἀγάπη mostly refers to divine love in the Bible. This does not, however, substantiate the claims frequently made for the term itself.

Ultimately it is best understood as a generic word for ‘love’ in the NT. To be sure, it is invested with special significance in many of the contexts in which it is employed by the content of those contexts, but it is illegitimate to then transfer those nuances into all contexts in which the term appears. To do so is to impute meanings to texts which are not necessarily present.


1. Carson footnotes that this semantic shift occurred as a result of the decline of an older verb for ‘to kiss’ (κυνεω, kuneō) due to that verb’s similarity to the verb κυνω (kunō) which meant ‘to impregnate’ which could have resulted in “salacious puns” and so prompted the adoption of a term less open to double entendre. See D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, p. 676; cf. D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (Baker, 1984) 51–54; Robert Joly, Le vocabulaire chrétien de l’amour, est-il original? Φιλειν et ’Αγαπαν dans le grec antique (Presses Universitaires de Bruxelles, 1968).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • 1 timothy
  • 1kings
  • Accordance
  • Apple
  • archaeology
  • bible
  • blogging
  • Book Review
  • Books
  • dead sea scrolls
  • deuteronomy
  • exercise
  • genesis
  • greek
  • hebrew
  • isaiah
  • jeremiah
  • job
  • judges
  • languages
  • matthew
  • mellel
  • music
  • new testament
  • old testament
  • physics
  • proverbs
  • psalms
  • qohelet
  • sci fi
  • science
  • song of songs
  • theodicy
  • theology
  • translation
  • uncategorized
  • weather
  • wikipedia
  • wisdom literature
  • January 2023
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • October 2015
  • August 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • February 2014
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • March 2013
  • May 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
© 2023 “shields-up” | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme