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Love in the New Testament...

  • Thread starter angellous_evangellous
  • Start date
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
I made a rather distressing discovery this afternoon. I looked up every instance in the New Testament for phileo and agape - the two words used for love - and in no case is the subject of these verbs a woman.

Indeed, Paul expresses precisely the opposite in Ephesians 5 when he tells husbands to love their wives and wives to fear their husbands.

There is one case of a phileo derivitive being used in Titus, which is a deutero-Pauline writing. If it were not there we would have no indication in the NT that women could love.

ESV Titus 2:4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children,​


BNT Titus 2:4 i[na swfroni,zwsin ta.j ne,aj fila,ndrouj ei=nai( filote,knouj

EDIT: I forgot about this one, which I think is a very late addition to the text.

Luke 7:44-47 44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven- for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little."
 
Sunstone

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Well, my dear Angellous, the reason for it is quite simple: Women are incapable of true love. You see, women do not really love -- they merely desire or lust or wish to possess. Men, on the other hand, can truly love. That's why homosexual relationships between men are superior to heterosexual relationships between men and women. It is also why marriage between a man and a woman should be outlawed and marriage between a man and a man legalized. The proof is the Bible itself.
 
Quagmire

Quagmire

Imaginary talking monkey
Staff member
Premium Member
I think you may be missing the point Sunstone;

We all know women are evil and that marriage itself is a crime against nature (or at least common sense), just as we know that if people would just stop procreating all of mankinds ills could be wiped out within a generation or two.

But I think what AE is getting at here is; If we have to humour women, shouldn't God have to too? After all, He made them.
 
Buttons*

Buttons*

Glass half Panda'd
I believe that the Bible in use today is that way because although it probably started as a way to describe what happens in the home (and makes sense for the context back in the day) has also been tweaked quite a bit and probably all "love" that isn't man to man taken out. Gnostic scripture happens to have a bit of stuff about Yeshua and love. Including love to Miriam of Magdala. He claims he will "make her male" in spirit, and then she can be loved and honored as a man would. COMPLETELY revolutionary for his time. Incredible.

What was this thread about?
 
Z

zombieharlot

Some Kind of Strange
Perhaps it seems this way because when the Bible says, "man," it often times does so to refer to mankind in general?

And could you please quote or reference what verse/es in Ephesians you are referring to?
 
Buttons*

Buttons*

Glass half Panda'd
zombieharlot said:
Perhaps it seems this way because when the Bible says, "man," it often times does so to refer to mankind in general?

And could you please quote or reference what verse/es in Ephesians you are referring to?
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Is that so? Got proof, boy-Harlot? :)
 
Z

zombieharlot

Some Kind of Strange
Buttons* said:
what other kind is there? :confused:
Click to expand...

Well, I assume you're asking me to find somewhere in the Bible where it actually says that sometimes, "man," refers to mankind. It doesn't say anything as concretely as that. It's more grammatical proof, which people tend to think is very shoddy for whatever reason. When the Bible says, "man," as a term to refer to a general group of people, it seems to be talking about mankind as it would gramatically be incorrect otherwise as man is a singular term. When the Bible actually says, "men," I believe it's only referring to males.
 
Buttons*

Buttons*

Glass half Panda'd
zombieharlot said:
Well, I assume you're asking me to find somewhere in the Bible where it actually says that sometimes, "man," refers to mankind. It doesn't say anything as concretely as that. It's more grammatical proof, which people tend to think is very shoddy for whatever reason. When the Bible says, "man," as a term to refer to a general group of people, it seems to be talking about mankind as it would gramatically be incorrect otherwise as man is a singular term. When the Bible actually says, "men," I believe it's only referring to males.
Click to expand...

I think it's all about context, naturally. According to Jewish custom, though, it's not as if women were equal to men. In either case if "man" did mean to say "mankind" ... then it's still all about the men, isnt it? In Jewish theology, women aren't much better off in terms of being considered as people and not property. At least, that's what I read in the good book. If we're going by tradition to determine the terminology, anyway.

So yeah, I think that women were only important for makin babies.... so why would it matter if they could love? How would they be included in "mankind?"
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
Sunstone said:
Well, my dear Angellous, the reason for it is quite simple: Women are incapable of true love. You see, women do not really love -- they merely desire or lust or wish to possess. Men, on the other hand, can truly love. That's why homosexual relationships between men are superior to heterosexual relationships between men and women. It is also why marriage between a man and a woman should be outlawed and marriage between a man and a man legalized. The proof is the Bible itself.
Click to expand...

Precisely. I think that's exactly the point of view that the Bible was written from... that women are so inferior that sex between males is idealized. The Bible doesn't quite take it this far, but that's what the Greek philosophers did who created and sustained the tradition of the inferiority of women that the NT obviously espouses.

I think that the church as the "bride of Christ" in Ephesians 5 is further evidence of this. It highlights the inferiority of Christ using the inferiority of women as an example.
 
Buttons*

Buttons*

Glass half Panda'd
angellous_evangellous said:
Precisely. I think that's exactly the point of view that the Bible was written from... that women are so inferior that sex between males is idealized. The Bible doesn't quite take it this far, but that's what the Greek philosophers did who created and sustained the tradition of the inferiority of women that the NT obviously espouses.

I think that the church as the "bride of Christ" in Ephesians 5 is further evidence of this. It highlights the inferiority of Christ using the inferiority of women as an example.
Click to expand...

Do you think the NT has more of a Greek feel than a Jewish one? I know about the greek Philosophers who slept together because they believed that knowledge could be passed through intimacy. (It kind of makes sense, I've been attracted to people I learn from...) But after what Yeshua did, I think it's almost ignorant to say that he enforced "guy love" :p
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
Buttons* said:
Do you think the NT has more of a Greek feel than a Jewish one? I know about the greek Philosophers who slept together because they believed that knowledge could be passed through intimacy. (It kind of makes sense, I've been attracted to people I learn from...) But after what Yeshua did, I think it's almost ignorant to say that he enforced "guy love" :p
Click to expand...

It's a mix. In my studies, I emphasize more the Greek aspects.
 
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