Greek love and English vindication

More likely than not, if you have been in the evangelical world for the past decade at least, you've heard some kind of comparison of the three different types of love that are found in the Bible - that you only have access to through the Greek language. Those loves are "eros" - "phileo" and "agapao". Depending on the level of adherence to the trend, you heard something to the effect that each has a different meaning and they constitute different stages or levels of love. You may have even had the joy of getting these explanations in a marriage seminar, where the teacher so craftily argued that a good marriage has an erotic love (eros) a friendly love (supposedly phileo) and a sacrificial / divine "like" love (supposedly agapao). While all this sound very good, and may in fact be quite helpful for marriage counseling - the problem is that it is wrong! flat out wrong!

In scripture the terms phileo and agapao are used interchangeably and the Scripture often defines the Love the Father has for the son - by the word (phileo). Use of the Septuagint brings even more questions as it says that "Now Absalom, David's son, had a beautiful sister, whose name was Tamar. And after a time Amnon, David's son, loved her." 2Sa 13:1 - and the word is none other than agapao!! - Certainly we cannot think that divine or sacrificial/unconditional love would motivate one to rape!?! No, what we see by the use of these words and the relation to our own languages is that every language is complex and full of nuance - it is impossible to get at the full meaning of discourses simply through the meaning of words. It is the contextual meaning that rules the day.

This means that the commonly held idea that the Greek mind had a better way of conceiving of "love", because of its tight and ridged differentiation of terms, and that their is more meaning and color buried in the language - to which the English suffers through its ambiguity to convey - is simply false. The Greek language is loaded with idiom and ambiguity too, and the more we study the language the more we see the lack of precision that grammar and word meaning actually have. It is context, built by grammar, syntax and discourse all together that bring more precision to the meaning - and also allow for more accuracy in translation. It is my belief that the more the Greek or Hebrew turns out to be ambiguous in word meaning, the more English translations are vindicated. Sure there is trouble in translating, and the concepts of one culture are not always compatible to another, but the symbols and morphology of language do not constitute her communication - and in that regard we should be comforted to know that there is nothing new under the sun. Man's language has not evolved - nor do I think it has devolved. The expression and the communication has remained within the scope of finite humanity grasping at the Divine condescensions. Though we may add to our vocabularies and to our refining of concepts within our context, we cannot utterly lose the ability to communicate - precisely because God condescends and communicates where ever the Word of God is preached.

Beware of anything that hints of secret or hidden meaning, now that God has made Himself known fully in Christ.