The noun πηλος (pelos) means mud or clay: the material used by potters, and by builders (i.e. mortar: the Septuagint version of Genesis 11:3 uses this word). Greek mythology held that humanity was created from clay, specifically by Prometheus, who continued to famously provide humanity with fire from the gods. Myths from Egypt and Persia told of the same event, and even the much younger Quran maintained that Allah created man from clay (Q.23.12), and that Jesus made a bird from clay and animated it (5.110). Entirely likewise, Israel's prophets declared that God is a potter and humans are his clay creation (Isaiah 64:8, Jeremiah 18:6, Romans 9:21).

Since Darwin, folks have sought for mankind's nature and thus origin somewhere among the animals, but the ancients obviously understood that the core nature of man is rather that which distinguishes him from the animals: not his material body (because all stones, plants and animals have those), nor his soul (because all animals have those: see our article on πνευμα, pneuma, for the details), but his mind, his ability to think in algorithms: his lawfulness.

Before man began to think in general rules and hence became lawful, a mere animal was, and man did not exist (Psalm 73:22, Ecclesiastes 3:18, 2 Peter 2:12, Jude 1:10). The creation of man was the creation of a lawful mind, not the creation of an ape body or a hunk of matter (compare Genesis 2:7 to Acts 2:4 via Genesis 13:16 and Galatians 3:7).

Paul wrote that Jesus was a son of David according to his human "flesh" (Romans 1:3), which Paul clearly understood to be a legal matter rather than a biological one (as Jesus' human genes solely came from Mary who was a niece of Elizabeth, who was a Levite). Likewise, the literary character Adam portraits a mind rather than a body. Likewise, Eve was a mental entity, the snake was mental and every Biblical character after them, likewise, were minds (stages of awareness and schools of thought), and not animated bodies or material objects

The Greeks obviously maintained a similar world view, with humans essentially minds (with a body attached, like a shadow) rather than bodies (with a mind swimming inside it). That is why the Greek deities could be reckoned both very real elements of human reality, and even human ancestors: they too were minds.

The ancients were also quite aware of the hydrological cycle (see our article on νεφελη, nephele, cloud), and even applied this same cycle to the mind, with "dry land" being the same as one's certainties (one's consciousness, one's words, one's knowledge), and "the waters" as one's uncertainties (one's subconsciousness, one's wordless thoughts, one's emotions). The Hebrews rightly considered their language and cultural library as pretty solid, and as they imported their alphabet into the Greek language basin to be adapted for the Greek tongue, so many terms and ideas went along with it (see our article on the Hebrew roots of the Greek language). The Greek language that developed out of this, became an intermediate phase between the dry land of the Hebrew mind and the waters of the animal mind (Greek became the dog to the shepherd that was Hebrew: see our article on κυων, kuon, dog).

The name Adam relates to the noun אדמה ('adama), meaning solid and arable land. The name Javan (that's the Hebrew name for Greece), however, comes from יון (yawen), meaning mire of mud.

Much of the frictions in Jesus' days was between Jews who wanted to stay "pure" and devoted solely to the Mosaic code, and those who recognized that Greek and other mythologies have their merit and may even be used in order to create a great human farm, in which a human shepherd (Hebrew) and his dog (Greek) governed vast herds (the Indo-European languages). Jesus and his disciples were obviously of the latter camp, and Jesus' healing of the blind man by means of mud made from his spittle rather obviously comments on that.

Our noun πηλος (pelos), mud, is of unclear origin. Here at Abarim Publications we surmise that it is one of the many Semitic terms that were imported into the Greek language basin along with the alphabet, and that it stems from the root פלל (palal), to pray or intercede, or even פלא (pala'), to be wonderful or extraordinary. Also note the mythological figure Peleus (Πηλευς, Mud-man), on whose wedding to sea-nymph Thetis, Eris created the Apple of Discord and set in motion what would become the Trojan War. The son of Peleus and Thetis was Achilles, and his story and the sack of Troy is obviously a Greek adaptation of the Hebrew story of Adam and the loss of Paradise.

Our noun πηλος (pelos), mud, is used 6 times in the New Testament; see full concordance.

The noun αφελοτης (aphelotes) means simplicity, or so it is assumed. It occurs in Acts 2:46 only and nowhere else in extant literature, but is clearly related to the noun αφελεια (apheleia), simplicity, which occurs about a hundred times in extant literature. These words in turn derive from the adjective αφελης (apheles), simple, which occurs more than two hundred times. If this word applies to objects, these objects are simple in the sense of not intricate or complicated or requiring attention. Issues that are described by this word are not demanding or requiring alertness. And humans whom this word describes are either simple in a negative sense (artless, shallow, boring) or in a positive sense (not demanding or drawing attention to themselves).

But where our word αφελης (apheles) comes from is a complete mystery. Traditionally, it was assumed to stem from the noun φελλευς (phelleus), which describes an uneven or stony ground, which perhaps relates to πελλα (pella), stone, so that αφελης (apheles) would mean stoneless. But that etymology is resolutely denied by later linguists (Robert Beeks, Etymology of Greek, 2010), albeit without replacing it with a better one.

Here at Abarim Publications we don't know either, of course, but if we were to guess, we would guess that our word derives from the Hebrew verb אפל ('pl), to disappear, depart or set (of the sun), which could easily assume a meaning of to be inconspicuous. We discuss this verb in the same article as the verb פלל (palal), we mention above.

The unique and most curious noun φελονης (phelones) is of unknown meaning. It exists in 2 Timothy 4:13 only, where Paul charges his young friend Timothy to hurry and come to him, but first travel 250 kilometers north through dangerous country to get the thing from the guy at the place. The guy was Carpus (means Fruit), and the place was Troas (means Of Troy), but what the thing was may have been clear to Timothy, or else Carpus, but certainly not to us, Paul's modern readers.

When Paul wrote his letter to Timothy, he was incarcerated in Rome, a vast and unequaled metropolis to which all roads proverbially led, and where he could have easily obtained blankets, robes and garments of any sort known to man. He could likewise just as easily have procured any kind of writing, or convened with any learned scholar about any imaginable topic. See our article on the noun μεμβρανα (membrana), the Latin word for parchment.

Our noun φελονης (phelones), meanwhile, is not used anywhere else in extant Greek text. This rather strongly implies that it doesn't simply describe some robe but rather some specific but highly unique item, an esoteric item even. Perhaps it even refers to some philosophy or conclusion that Paul had previously rejected but now accepted and desired. It wouldn't have been the first time that Paul changed his philosophical mind.

Many modern scholars have embraced the hypothesis that Second Timothy was written by someone other than Paul, specifically also because it is rather unlike other Pauline writings. Pseudepigrapha (writing under someone else's name) has nothing to do with deceit, particularly when one publishes nearly a century later, and in the name of someone very famous. It rather was a common way to write from some established point of view — in a "what would Paul do" or "what would Homer say" sort of way — without first having to declare how one leans. If Second Timothy is indeed by a Pseudo-Paul, then their purpose and intent would have been clear to their audience, just like it was immediately clear for most learned people in Shakespeare's time that his play Julius Caesar was about the 16th century British monarchy, and not about the 1st century BCE destroyer of the Roman Republic.

But that means that our mystery word may even refer to some military tactic, whose neglect proved disastrous in the uprising of 66 AD (which resulted in the horror of 70 AD), but which may have seemed a great idea in the early 130s CE, when Simon bar Kochba (means Star-Child) was considering his next move.

Most modern commentators confidently declare that our word φελονης (phelones) is a variant of φαιλονης (phailones), which in turn actually means φαιλονη (phailone), a.k.a. φαικολα (phaikola), which is what happens when a barely literate person tries to transliterate into Greek the Latin word paenula, which described a very common woolen full-body cloak or blanket that every traveler in the Roman empire had with them. Even when it rained in Rome, every citizen who had to cross a street would wear one. The idea that Paul (pseudo- or not) misspelled this common word for this common article, and that he asked Timothy (who was in Ephesus) to retrieve one from Carpus in faraway Troas, and carry it all the way to Rome, honestly does not merit further consideration.

As Paul and company would have known, the proper and current transliteration of our Latin word paenula is φαινολη (painole), which comes with an immediate pun, since it happens to be nearly identical to the noun φαινολις (phainolis), meaning light-bringing (as used in a Homeric hymn to Demeter). This word derives from the verb φαινω (phaino), to emit light, which in turn is not unlike the verb υφαινω (uphaino), to weave or network. The adjective υφαντος (uphantos), woven or networked, occurs only once in the New Testament, namely in John 19:23, where it describes Jesus' seamless tunic.

Another word of interest is the adjective φηλος (phelos), deceitful, from the noun φηλητης (pheletes), a cheat or deceiver — and remember that Troy had fallen because of the deceptive Great Horse filled with Greek soldiers (captained by Odesseus). As Virgil had explained, one of the Trojan princes, namely Aeneas, had escaped the slaughter of his people, fled to the insignificant hamlet that would be Rome and seeded the royal family of which the Caesars claimed descent (hence the "Fruit of Troy"). Was Paul planning a similar move? In Philippians 1:13, Paul revealed that his "imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole Praetorian Guard", and it needs to be remembered that in 41 CE, this same Guard had killed Caligula and installed Claudius, and in 65 CE tried to do the same with Nero (which failed).

Finally, the somewhat similar noun φελων (phelon) is a rare equivalent of αλαζων (alazon), the Alazon, a familiar comedic stock character in Greek theatre: some wanderer (not unlike Aeneas) who shows up out of nowhere with grandiose claims to his own grandeur, but who, by the end of the play, is thoroughly humiliated by his dramatic opposite, the Eiron, who rather conceals his analytic powers and whose verbal blows, though rare, are lethal (hence our English word "irony").