Has the meaning of "Love" changed enough to warrant substitutions in Bible translations?

Question

The culturally accepted uses of the word "Love" seem to be a trite shadow of its biblical meaning. Common use of "Love" is now interchangeable with "Like," "Enjoy," or "Emotionally attachment" of something. That is very different from what the virtue the Bible describes it to be:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV)
⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

1 Corinthians 13 ends by stating that Love is greater than Faith or Hope.

Surely faith and hope are greater than a momentary enjoyment such as a tasty dinner item that we often describe as something we "love."

Therefore I ask, what is to be done about this discrepancy?

Should the word "love" be replaced with another word or words?

The closest thing I could think of was "brotherly affection."

Answer 1

Sacred ἀγάπη

The idea that the Greek word "agape" (ἀγάπη) means "Godly love" is a very common misconception. Before I elaborate, one of my favorite sayings in hermeneutics is:

Words don't have meaning, people have meaning.

In fact ἀγάπη had a semantic range that included "Godly love," but the semantic range was much broader than this. The actual "meaning" of the word depended on what the author/speaker meant by their use of the word.

Proof:

[Jesus said:] If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. -Luke 6:32

Now look at the verse in Greek:

καὶ εἰ ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς ἀγαπῶντας ὑμᾶς, ποία ὑμῖν χάρις ἐστίν; καὶ γὰρ οἱ ἁμαρτωλοὶ τοὺς ἀγαπῶντας αὐτοὺς ἀγαπῶσιν. -Westcott / Hort (1881)

Here Jesus uses "agape" four times referring to the kind of love that a sinner has for others. Of course, Jesus is not claiming that a sinner has "perfect, sacrificial, pure, Godly love"... just that they are amiable toward those who are amiable toward them.

English love

The semantic range of the English word "love" also includes Godly love, among other things.

Conclusion

Our use of the English word "love" in 1 Cor. 13 is really no different than Paul's use of the Greek word "agape" in that passage. Both have a semantic range. Both can be used to refer to "Godly love." Both can be used to refer to other things. Regardless of whether you read "agape" or "love" or "perfect, sacrificial, pure, Godly love in the spirit of Christ our Lord" the reader will need to be careful to remain faithful to authorial intent and understand it in the way it was being used, by the context in which it appears.

Answer 2

The King James Version uses "charity" throughout the "Love Passage":

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (KJV)
⁴ Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
⁵ Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
⁶ Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
⁷ Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Of course, that's no better in modern English. The trouble is, as C. S. Lewis points out, there are four Greek words that can reasonably be translated "love". In the Bible the two most common are phileo <5368> and agape <26>. In this passage, agape is used throughout. At least when Paul uses agape, I think we should consider it a technical term that is defined in 1^st Corinthians 13. Perhaps the most accurate translation is to just transliterate agape.

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A Greek word that captures the idea of "I love waffles" is thelo <2309>, which the KJV occationally translates as love:

Mark 12:38-40 (KJV)
³⁸ And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces,
³⁹ And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts:
⁴⁰ Which devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation.

The Strong's definition is:

1) to will, have in mind, intend
1a) to be resolved or determined, to purpose
1b) to desire, to wish
1c) to love
1c1) to like to do a thing, be fond of doing
1d) to take delight in, have pleasure

The point is, we have a single word in English that covers a wide variety of positive attitudes toward something and that word is "love". Short of convinceing the entire English speaking world that we are diluting the meaning of the word when we talk about loving passing pleasures and so on, we'll need to come up with some way to translate the Greek words more emphatically. Here is my suggestion:

• thelo—"like" or "desire"
• phileo—"brotherly love"
• agape—"ulitmate love" or "sacraficial love"

The last comes from Jesus' even shorter definition of agape:

John 15:13 (ESV)
¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Answer 3

Love in the New Testament:

φιλέω, Strong's 5368, phileó: this family of words means to show warm affection in intimate friendship, or brotherly love

φιλόστοργος, Strong's 5387, philostorgos: (technically in the phileó family) that special affection shared betwee members of God's family (only used in Romans 12:10)

ἀγάπη, Strong's 26, agape: the agape family is not used much in greek literature, but is used a whole lot in the New Testament, love which centers in moral preference (the verb form agapaó means "to prefer"), or “a sober kind of love — love in the sense of placing a high value upon some person or thing, or of receiving them with favour”¹

It's true that having just one word in English has overloaded it, but 1 Corinthians 13 is really the definition of this word, so I think it's quite appropriate to use the word since it teaches the reader how to contextually understand the word. It brings the reader to rethinking his presuppositions.

Charity obviously isn't the precise definition, even for the time in which the KJV was translated, but as Charles Simeon points out²:

it is not possible for any one, who reads the chapter with attention, to imagine, that it relates exclusively to alms-giving: the most ignorant reader must see, that the principle, which is here called “charity,” is far more extensive, and can by no means have so limited a sense...all the properties which in this chapter are ascribed to love, shew it to have man, and man alone, for its object. And those who interpret the word as including love to God also, make the import of the whole chapter obscure and unintelligible. We therefore approve of the term “charity,” as giving to the passage its true, and definite, and more appropriate meaning.

¹_{Warnach, SacVb 518}
²_{Simeon, C. (1832-63). Horae Homileticae Vol. 16: 1 and 2 Corinthians (323). London.}

Answer 4

The term ἀγαπάω was relatively unused in literature contemporary to New Testament authors. To avoid confusion, they probably appropriated the word for in-group communication of in-group ideals/commands. Contemporary authors would have used φιλέω in not just the "brotherly love" sense in which Christians currently understand it, but also somewhat interchangeably with the emerging Christian use of ἀγαπάω. So, not only do we need to be careful of how we understand "love" in the NT, but we also need to be aware of the context and the author's intent. (NIDNTT)