(May 6, 2012 at 11:57 am)Drich Wrote: You seem to be looking to commentary to define a word. When did commentary superceed reference material?
When I couldn't find an online version of the BDAG lexicon. I didn't want to use Thayer's because it's out of date.
(May 6, 2012 at 11:57 am)Drich Wrote: http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexi...=G25&t=KJV
This is the Thayer's lexicon supported by the Strong's concordance.
FYI these are reference books, and not commentaries based on doctrinal beliefs. all three of your links are commentaries.
I thought it was more likely that people today would be using more up-to-date sources than Thayer's lexicon. In the interim, however, I was able to find a quotation from BDAG for agape, which is as follows:
"the quality of warm regard for and interest in another, esteem, affection, regard, love" (BDAG, 6; BAGD, 5; LN 25,43)
The above is copied verbatim from here: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=K_mN...pe&f=false
The meaning provided differs from Thayer's, but not fatally as I'd expected it to. The source immediately above (the link, not the quotation) further defines it as "unconditional", however that appears to be the author's commentary rather than being drawn from the BDAG lexicon (I don't have access to it, so I don't know whether what they quoted is the whole definition or not). Given that the cite note appears before the term "unconditional" I'm inclined to think it's not part of the definition.
Since I'd read Thayer's lexicon was outdated, and a review of BDAG had commented on the differing definition of "agape", I came to the conclusion that the differing definitions I provided were different due to more sound input from a source like BDAG. I was wrong.
