human: belonging to people rather than to God, and so bounded by what people can make, judge, or bear
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
Greek could turn its noun for a human being (ἄνθρωπος) into an adjective, and this is that adjective. It never names a person. It labels something else as belonging to people: wisdom that people worked out, hands that people serve with, an arrangement that people set up. Nearly every time it appears it is doing contrastive work, marking off the human side of a line whose other side is God.
That contrast gives the word a quiet second edge. To call something human in this sense is also to call it small. A verdict handed down by people carries only human weight (1 Corinthians 4:3), and a testing that is human is one cut to a size people can stand (1 Corinthians 10:13). The word never says a thing is bad, only that it is bounded.
Two uses sit slightly apart from the rest:
In James 3:7 the line is drawn not against God but against the animals, so the word simply means our own kind, the species that has tamed every other.
In Romans 6:19 Paul turns it on his own speech, excusing himself for reaching after an everyday human comparison because his readers would not follow anything else.
Nuances
1acoming from people rather than from God: what human beings produce, supply, or set up
TranslatabilityDirect
Act 17:251Co 2:4*1Co 2:131Pe 2:13*
1bbelonging to the human race, as distinct from the animals
TranslatabilityDirect
Jas 3:7
1cmeasured on a merely human scale: kept within what people can bear or decide
TranslatabilityPartial
1Co 4:3*1Co 10:13*
1dput in everyday human terms, said of a speaker's own way of explaining something
Simply marks where something comes from, people rather than God, without passing any judgment on it. Paul calls a courtroom verdict a "human" one to say it is not the one that finally counts, not that it is wicked, and Peter tells readers to submit to every "human" institution for the Lord's sake, which would be strange advice if the word carried any blame.1Co 4:31Pe 2:13Act 17:25
Can mean ordinary, on the usual human scale: the sort of thing anyone meets or anyone would say. Paul reassures the Corinthians that the testing they face is nothing more than what people commonly face, and elsewhere he flags that he is about to put his point in everyday terms.1Co 10:13Rom 6:19
Names the human race as a class, set over against the animals, when James says every kind of beast and bird and sea creature has been tamed by humankind.Jas 3:7
Both
Both words attach to "wisdom" to put it on the human side of a contrast with God, so in that one role they come close. Paul refuses to preach in words taught by human wisdom, and swears he has lived not by fleshly wisdom but by God's grace. The difference is what each contrast is for: the first says the source is people rather than the Spirit, the second says the wisdom in question is the scheming kind that grace replaced.1Co 2:41Co 2:132Co 1:12
Delivers a verdict, not just a description. It ties what it labels to the weak, self-serving side of a person: jealousy and quarreling are the proof that the Corinthians are still living that way, the cravings it names are said to wage war on the soul, and weapons of that kind are dismissed as no use in the fight Paul is actually in.1Co 3:31Pe 2:112Co 10:4
Has a second, wholly unblaming use that the other word never takes: material goods, the food and money and practical support a body needs, named as the counterpart of what is spiritual. Paul says churches that received spiritual blessings owe help of this concrete kind in return.Rom 15:271Co 9:11
ψυχικόςdescribes a person living by natural life alone, without God's Spirit; this word describes anything at all as human in origin or in scale
It labels the things people make, supply, or set up, and it can do so with no criticism at all: hands that offer service to God, and an arrangement people have put in place that believers are told to obey for the Lord's sake.Act 17:251Pe 2:13
It can measure size rather than diagnose a spiritual condition, saying that something is only as heavy as people are: a verdict that carries merely human weight, and a testing cut down to what people are able to bear.1Co 4:31Co 10:13
It can draw its line against the animals instead of against God, meaning simply our own kind, the creatures who have tamed every other kind.Jas 3:7
It can describe a speaker's own way of explaining something, apologizing for reaching after an everyday comparison because the hearers would not follow anything else.Rom 6:19
Both
Both are used of wisdom, and in both places the point is the same: this wisdom did not come from God. One says the words were taught by people, the other says the wisdom never came down from above.1Co 2:13Jas 3:15
Both take their force from a contrast with God's Spirit, so within a few lines of the same argument they do parallel work: preaching that rests on people's own persuasion rather than on the Spirit's power, and a person who cannot receive what the Spirit gives.1Co 2:41Co 2:14
It names the ordinary living body we have now, the one animated by the life a person is born with, and it does that without blaming the body for anything: it is simply what comes first, before God raises it.1Co 15:441Co 15:46
Used of people, it is an accusation: they are running on that natural life alone and do not have God's Spirit, so they cannot take in what the Spirit gives.1Co 2:14Jud 1:19
Its opposite is fixed. Wherever it appears, the alternative it is measured against is named in the same breath, whether that is the Spirit of God or what comes down from above.1Co 2:14Jas 3:15
anthrōpinos in the other biblical languages
אָדָםHebrew“man”Hebrew has no ready adjective for "human" and uses this noun for humankind instead, in phrases such as "the work of human hands"
It is a describing word, never a name for a person. It hangs on some other thing and marks that thing as coming from people rather than from God: wisdom that people worked out, a court people convened, an arrangement people set up.1Co 2:41Co 4:31Pe 2:13
It can set a measure rather than point at anybody: a pressure held to what people can actually stand, or an explanation pitched at the level people can follow.1Co 10:13Rom 6:19
It can sort the world by kind, marking one side of the line between our own kind and the animals, without naming a single individual on either side.Jas 3:7
Both
Both are the everyday way of saying that something was made or supplied by people and not by God, and the phrase "human hands" shows it in each language. Greek says it with this one describing word, while Hebrew has to press the noun for humankind into the phrase, so the same idea reads as "the work of the hands of people".Act 17:25Psa 115:4Deu 4:282Ki 19:18
Both mark the human side of the line between people and God, and both are used to put the smaller side of that line in its place: what people teach, and what people can steer, are not what God does.1Co 2:13Jer 10:23
It names the creature itself: the one God shapes out of the ground and breathes life into, and the one God makes to look like himself.Gen 2:7Gen 1:27
It can stand for the whole race at once, every person alive, and it can equally stand for any one person, including as a way of addressing someone as a mortal.Gen 6:5Ezk 2:1
It carries the note of a short and fragile life, the creature whose days are few and whose breath is held by someone else.Job 14:1Isa 2:22
What scholars say about anthrōpinos
The standard lexica treat ἀνθρώπινος as a single adjective derived from ἄνθρωπος, meaning "human, belonging to human beings." BDAG separates the usage that opposes the human to the divine or to the animal (ἀνθρωπίνη σοφία, 1 Cor 2:13; χεῖρες ἀνθρώπιναι, Acts 17:25; φύσις ἀνθρωπίνη, Jas 3:7) from the usage that measures something by a human standard (ἀνθρωπίνη ἡμέρα, 1 Cor 4:3; πειρασμὸς ἀνθρώπινος, 1 Cor 10:13; the neuter used adverbially in ἀνθρώπινον λέγω, Rom 6:19). LSJ documents the same range across classical and Hellenistic Greek, where the adjective is common in ethical and philosophical writing for the human as opposed to the divine order. The live questions in the New Testament occurrences are exegetical rather than lexical: whether ἀνθρωπίνη ἡμέρα in 1 Cor 4:3 reflects a forensic idiom for a human court day; how πειρασμὸς ἀνθρώπινος in 1 Cor 10:13 relates to the assurance that follows; whether ἀνθρωπίνη κτίσις in 1 Pet 2:13 denotes an institution established among people or every human creature; and the text-critical status of ἀνθρωπίνης in 1 Cor 2:4, which the Nestle-Aland text does not print.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. ἀνθρώπινοςlexicon
LSJ, s.v. ἀνθρώπινοςlexicon
TDNT, s.v. ἄνθρωποςtheological-dictionary
Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000)commentary
Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996)commentary
Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994)textual-commentary