StrongerBible

archaios

ἀρχαῖος

GreekG0744“ancient, old, ...”

Appears 12 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 5:21Mat 5:27Mat 5:33Luk 9:8Luk 9:19Act 15:7Act 15:21Act 21:162Co 5:172Pe 2:5Rev 12:9Rev 20:2
Root family
Word studyar-KHAH-yossadjective

What archaios means

from the beginning: belonging to the time when the thing in view started, whether that is the far past or simply the first days of something recent

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

The word is built on the Greek noun for a beginning, and that is what it always points back to. It marks a person, a thing, or a state of affairs as dating from when the matter in view got started. The starting point can be the beginning of the world, or the beginning of Israel's story, or just the first days of a movement still within living memory.

Because that starting point shifts, English needs several different words for the one Greek word:

  • In the Sermon on the Mount it names the people of long ago, the generations who were given the commands Jesus goes on to quote.
  • In Acts it covers plain antiquity, the generations stretching back to Moses, and it also covers recent beginnings: Peter's "early days" were perhaps a dozen years back, and Mnason was an early disciple rather than an aged one.
  • In Revelation it fixes the dragon's identity by reaching back to Eden, naming him the serpent who was there at the start.
  • In Paul it marks a whole state of affairs as belonging to the time before, now finished and replaced.

What holds all of this together is direction rather than distance. The word looks backward to an origin, and how far back it looks is set by the context, not by the word itself. That is what separates it from the other common Greek word for "old" (παλαιός), which measures how long something has lasted and often hints that it is worn out or ready to be discarded.

Nuances

1athe people of an earlier age, spoken of as a group: those who lived and taught and were taught long ago
Mat 5:21Mat 5:27Mat 5:33Luk 9:8Luk 9:19
1bbelonging to the distant past, sometimes reaching all the way back to the beginning of the world
Act 15:212Pe 2:5Rev 12:9Rev 20:2
1cdating from the first days of something still recent: early, in from the start
TranslatabilityDirect
Act 15:7Act 21:16
1dbelonging to the state of things that has now ended and been replaced
2Co 5:17

What scholars say about archaios

BDAG glosses ἀρχαῖος as "old, ancient," pertaining to what has existed from the beginning or for a long time, and gathers under it the substantival οἱ ἀρχαῖοι of Matthew 5:21, 27 and 33, the προφῆται ἀρχαῖοι of Luke 9:8 and 19, ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος of Revelation 12:9 and 20:2, ἀρχαῖος κόσμος of 2 Peter 2:5, the temporally relative ἀπὸ ἡμερῶν ἀρχαίων of Acts 15:7 and ἀρχαῖος μαθητής of Acts 21:16, and τὰ ἀρχαῖα of 2 Corinthians 5:17 for the former state of things. LSJ documents the wider classical range: "from the beginning, ancient, primeval," the derogatory "old fashioned, antiquated" familiar from Attic comedy, and the financial τὸ ἀρχαῖον for an original capital sum, a usage Moulton and Milligan trace through the documentary papyri alongside ἀρχαῖος for a person of long standing, which is regularly cited on Acts 21:16. Delling's TDNT treatment of the ἄρχω group derives the adjective from ἀρχή and locates its force in origin rather than in elapsed duration; Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, section 67, draws the same contrast with παλαιός, which measures time gone by and can connote decay, though later lexical semantics (Barr, Silva) cautions against hardening such synonym contrasts into fixed lexical rules. On Matthew 5:21 the dative τοῖς ἀρχαίοις is taken as indirect object by Davies and Allison, Luz, Hagner and Nolland, against the older agent construal reflected in the KJV's "by them of old time." On Acts 21:16 Bruce, Barrett and Fitzmyer read ἀρχαίῳ μαθητῇ as a disciple from the earliest days of the movement, possibly from Pentecost, rather than simply an aged one. On 2 Corinthians 5:17 Furnish, Thrall and Harris weigh whether τὰ ἀρχαῖα denotes the individual's former existence or the old age itself, with the Isaianic pattern of former things and new things (Isaiah 43:18 and 19; 65:17) widely recognized as background. On Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 Beale, Aune and Osborne treat ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος as an identification of the dragon with the serpent of Genesis 3, and Bauckham reads ἀρχαίου κόσμου in 2 Peter 2:5 as the antediluvian world within the letter's argument about successive judgments.

Sources

  • BDAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (University of Chicago Press, 2000), s.v. ἀρχαῖοςlexicon
  • Liddell, Scott and Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. with revised supplement (Clarendon Press, 1996), s.v. ἀρχαῖοςlexicon
  • Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (United Bible Societies, 1989), s.v. ἀρχαῖοςlexicon
  • James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (Hodder and Stoughton, 1930), s.v. ἀρχαῖοςlexicon
  • Gerhard Delling, "ἄρχω, ἀρχή, ἀπαρχή, ἀρχαῖος, ἀρχηγός, ἄρχων," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, vol. 1 (Eerdmans, 1964)lexicon
  • Moisés Silva, ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis, 2nd ed. (Zondervan, 2014), s.v. ἀρχαῖοςlexicon
  • Richard C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, section 67 (Macmillan, 1880)monograph
  • James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford University Press, 1961)monograph
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC, T&T Clark, 1988), ad loc. 5:21commentary
  • Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7: A Commentary, rev. ed., trans. James E. Crouch (Hermeneia, Fortress, 2007), ad loc. 5:21commentary
  • John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew (NIGTC, Eerdmans, 2005), ad loc. 5:21commentary
  • Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 1-13 (Word Biblical Commentary 33A, 1993), ad loc. 5:21commentary
  • F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts, rev. ed. (NICNT, Eerdmans, 1988), ad loc. 21:16commentary
  • C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (ICC, T&T Clark, 1994 and 1998), ad loc. 21:16commentary
  • Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles (Anchor Bible 31, Doubleday, 1998), ad loc. 21:16commentary
  • Victor Paul Furnish, II Corinthians (Anchor Bible 32A, Doubleday, 1984), ad loc. 5:17commentary
  • Margaret E. Thrall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (ICC, T&T Clark, 1994), ad loc. 5:17commentary
  • Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC, Eerdmans, 2005), ad loc. 5:17commentary
  • G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (NIGTC, Eerdmans, 1999), ad loc. 12:9commentary
  • David E. Aune, Revelation 6-16 (Word Biblical Commentary 52B, 1998), ad loc. 12:9commentary
  • Grant R. Osborne, Revelation (BECNT, Baker Academic, 2002), ad loc. 12:9commentary
  • Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (Word Biblical Commentary 50, 1983), ad loc. 2:5commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of ἀρχαῖος

dative m p

ἀρχαίοις

Mat 5:21, Mat 5:27, Mat 5:33

genitive f p

ἀρχαίων

Act 15:7, Act 15:21

genitive m p

ἀρχαίων

Luk 9:8, Luk 9:19

nominative m s

ἀρχαῖος

Rev 12:9, Rev 20:2

dative m s

ἀρχαίῳ

Act 21:16

genitive m s

ἀρχαίου

2Pe 2:5

nominative n p

ἀρχαῖα

2Co 5:17