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Sense of the Day: Lawless Person

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Sense: lawless person

n. — a person who breaks legal restrictions to fulfill their own desires.

For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted among the lawless’ [ὁ ἄνομος]; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.

Luke 22:37 (NRSV)

For I tell you that this which is written must be fulfilled in Me, ‘and he was numbered with transgressors’; for that which refers to Me has its fulfillment.

Luke 22:37 (NASB)

In today’s example verse, we see where several English translations obscure a difference between Hebrew and Greek. The NRSV renders the Greek noun phrase ὁ ἄνομος as “the lawless” in this verse. The Bible Sense Lexicon’s annotation also captures this as “lawless person.” These are fairly literal renderings based on the derivational morphology of the word ἄνομος—“without law, lawless.” The NASB, ESV, and NIV, however, render ὁ ἄνομος as “transgressors.” This is likely to correspond more closely to the quotation from Isaiah 53:12. The Hebrew word in that verse is פשׁע, which is often rendered as “transgress” and has no hint of the kind of derivational morphology in ὁ ἄνομος. At least in this instance, it appears as though the NRSV and BSL capture what the Greek text says instead of what the Greek text is supposed to be translating.

What is the Bible Sense Lexicon?

Sense of the Day is based on content from Logos’ Bible Sense Lexicon, which organizes biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words by meaning based on a variety of semantic relationships. Sense of the Day provides examples of senses in context, along with insight into their application for theology and interpretation.

The Bible Sense Lexicon is a Logos dataset available in Logos 5 Gold and higher base packages. If you’re enrolled in the Logos Academic Discount Program, you can also find the Bible Sense Lexicon in the Biblical Languages base package. Take your studies even further by exploring semantic domains, engaging the biblical text like never before.

Learn more about the Bible Sense Lexicon.

Comments

  1. I prefer the translation of ‘transgressors.’ It should be self evident why.