Fury or Folly?: ἄνοια in Luke 6.11

In Luke 6.11, the scribes and Pharisees are filled with ἄνοια after they witness Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath. Modern English translations, beginning with the RSV, translate the word ἄνοια as rage or fury, whereas older English translations render it as madness, and modern German translations follo...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Eklund, Rebekah Ann (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press 2023
In: New Testament studies
Year: 2023, Volume: 69, Issue: 2, Pages: 222-229
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Bible. Lukasevangelium 6 / Greek language / Translation / Rage / Foolishness / Ignorance
IxTheo Classification:HC New Testament
Further subjects:B Translation
B Scribes
B Plato
B Ignorance
B Rage
B ἄνοια
B Madness
B Folly
B Pharisees
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Summary:In Luke 6.11, the scribes and Pharisees are filled with ἄνοια after they witness Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath. Modern English translations, beginning with the RSV, translate the word ἄνοια as rage or fury, whereas older English translations render it as madness, and modern German translations follow Martin Luther by rendering the phrase with terms such as unsinnig (‘wurden ganz unsinnig’) or Unverstand (‘wurden mit Unverstand erfüllt’). This article argues that Plato's explanation of the word ἄνοια in Timaeus 86b provides the typical semantic range of the word; it includes ἀμαθία (the folly of ignorance) and μανία (the folly of madness, or the loss of one's rational faculties), but not anger.1 This twofold usage is reflected in Greek literature from the fifth/fourth century bce through the fifth century ce, including in 2 Tim 3.9, the only other text in which ἄνοια occurs in the New Testament. To say that the scribes and Pharisees are filled with rage in Luke 6.11, therefore, both exceeds the typical function of the word ἄνοια and risks further dehumanising two groups of people who are too often dehumanised by Christian tradition.
ISSN:1469-8145
Contains:Enthalten in: New Testament studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0028688522000376