Jesus, Peter and Reading the New Testament in Greek

In a recent article in First Things entitled 'Why Study Biblical Languages' Nicholas Frankovich offers an account of the dialogue between Jesus and Peter in John 21.15-17 in ways that will be familiar to anyone who has listened to sermons on this text. He writes:

For Christians, the most familiar locus classicus for the value of reading the New Testament in Greek comes toward the end of the Gospel according to John, just before the part where Peter points to John and asks Jesus, in effect, “So what great things do you have in store for him?” Peter sounds envious. Why Jesus’ rapport with John was so much greater is suggested by the passage leading up to this hint of a rivalry between Peter, the disciple whom Jesus appointed to the position of highest authority, and John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved” or, as we might say, counted as his closest friend, perhaps because John appreciated certain qualities of his mind that were lost on the others.

Jesus had asked Peter three times whether Peter loved him. The first two times, Peter replied, “Of course, Lord, you know I love you.” The third time, he replied with the same answer but now added a note of slight indignation that Jesus was repeating himself. Most translators don’t even try to convey the distinction between the two words for the two different kinds of love that are in play here.

Now consider the whole exchange again in light of what in the Greek defies easy translation into English. Jesus asks Peter, “Do you agapas me?” Peter replies, “Lord, you know I phil you.” Jesus tries again and gets the same result. So what does he do? He decides to be tactful. Conceding to Peter’s vocabulary, he now asks him, “Do you phileis me?” John writes that Peter was upset that Jesus was asking him “Do you phileis me?” yet a third time. The suggestion is that Peter was deaf to the difference between the two words, that he wasn’t sensitive to the subtle but significant distinction—and that Jesus, whose tongue was famously sharp and his wit quick, out of kindness deferred to his friend’s blunter intellect, as a father when talking to his child will sometimes adopt the child’s language.

Sound familiar? The thing is that one of the main reasons why I would suggest anyone should learn New Testament Greek is so that they can see this kind of interpretative hogwash for what it is. Leaving aside the all too easy assumption that Jesus and Peter had a real conversation in Greek (and not Aramaic), I would simply state the considered view of Raymond Brown:

[t]he present writer is forced to align himself with scholars ancient (the OL translators, Augustine) and modem (Lagrange, Bernard, Moffatt, Strachan, Bonsirven, Bultmann, Barrett, etc.) who find no clear distinction of meaning in the alternation of agapan and philein in vss. 15-17. The reasons for this are: (a) There seems to be a general interchangeability of the two verbs in John; see vol. 29, p.498; also Bernard. II. 702-4. (b) In Hebrew and Aramaic there is one basic verb for expressing the various types of love, so that all the subtlety of distinction that commentators find in the use of the two verbs in 1S-17 scarcely echoes the putative Semitic original. We note that LXX uses both verbs to translate Heb. aheb, although agapan is twenty times more frequent than philein. In the Syriac translations of 15-17 only one verb is used. (c) Peter answers "Yes" to the questions phrased with the verb agapan even though he expresses his love in terms of philein and thus shows no awareness that he is answering a request for a higher or more spiritual or more rationaltype of love (agapan) with an offer of a lower or more affectionate form of love (philein). (The Gospel According to John XIII-XX1: AB 29A; New York: Doubleday, 1970), 1103.

Learning New Testament Greek is not just a tool for seeing new things in the text, it is a tool for beginning to see why many of the things you have been taught to see might actually be bad interpretations.

Comments

[Peteslee.wordpress.com]

Two quick comments on this: First, Sean, I don't think learning New Testament Greek would solve the problem (in many people's minds it would equip them to make the very point Nicholas makes!)- this is much more likely to be found in commentaries, journals etc. Nicholas, I feel you may have missed Sean's point: if Jesus & Peter didn't converse in greek such nuances would not have been present - thus we're looking at someone else's interpretation of the conversation (though some would respond that the Holy Spirit had a hand in the writing!)

Very interesting.

[Nicholas Frankovich]

You've correctly affirmed that the distinction between "agape" and "philia" tends to be overstated, but beware of overstating that it's overstated -- and of seeing the particular distinction, between divine love and mundane love, where that was really never part of the conversation.

Jesus and Peter were talking at cross purposes, or so the repetition of the question-and-answer sequence suggests. Whatever the precise connotation Jesus had in mind when he used "agapas," it had to have been different from the connotation of Peter's "philo," if only because the two words obviously sound different. In his conversation with Peter, Jesus initially assumed a verbal sensitivity that Peter, alas, didn't share. What can he do? With respect to the vocabulary issue, he humors Peter, although on the substance of his message to Peter he does remain unwavering.

That's one interpretation of the curious exchange between Jesus and Peter in John 21. If it's a "bad" interpretation, as you suggest, is it worse, or better, than the opaqueness of the passage in the absence of that reading? I don't think we're meant to assume either that Peter was hard of hearing or that Jesus suffered from short-term memory loss. The A-P, A-P, P-P pattern naturally intrigues -- or intrigues many readers, at any rate. It intrigues me. What does it mean? The answer I described is not original to me, although it's not quite the one you assume it is either. In any case it's not an answer that I fabricated but one that naturally suggested itself to me, as it has to others who read the passage in Greek.

Astute commentators may indeed have better, more compelling answers. I would be grateful for direction here. I would enjoy reading them.

I appreciate and respect what I call calculative thinking about scripture. It's crucial for us to have a reliable text. What I attempted to sketch in my essay was the value of meditative thinking about scripture, a way of thinking about it that reading it in the original languages can foster. Good commentators such as yourself perform a necessary work. You not only keep the meditative reader from going astray but can also point out paths that he might have missed. Everyone who loves scripture strives to internalize both ways, to breathe with both lungs, to fly with both wings.