StrongerBible

asebeia

ἀσέβεια

GreekG0763“ungodliness, godlessness, ...”

Appears 6 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Rom 1:18Rom 11:262Ti 2:16Tit 2:12Jud 1:15Jud 1:18
Root family
Word studyah-SEB-ay-ahnoun

What asebeia means

ungodliness: the refusal to give God the reverence he is owed, and the deeds that refusal produces

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Greek made this word by putting "not" in front of its family of words for reverence and worship. So it is not a general term for wickedness. It names one specific failure: a person gives God none of the awe, honor, and worship that belong to him. In the Greek cities that counted as a public offense rather than a private opinion, and it was the charge Socrates was tried on. The Greek Old Testament then took the word over to name the whole guilty way of life that stands opposite to being right with God.

Paul's most careful use of it puts it next to a separate word for wrong done to other people (ἀδικία), and says God's anger is revealed against both. That pairing shows what this word contributes: it looks up rather than sideways. Other New Testament words for sin measure a person against the law they broke (ἀνομία) or against the neighbor they harmed. This one measures them against God himself and finds nothing owed to him paid. Its exact opposite belongs to the same family: the devout life that does render God his due (εὐσέβεια), which is why Titus 2:12 can say believers are trained to renounce the one so they may live the other.

The word's two senses are simply the condition and its output. Usually it is the condition: something a person can be trained to renounce, something empty and profane talk drives people deeper into. Twice it goes plural and names the acts and cravings the condition throws up, which is why some English Bibles read "ungodly deeds" where the Greek has a plural noun. Nothing about the word's meaning changes when it does that.

Jude turns the whole family into a drumbeat. In one sentence the Lord comes to convict:

  • the godless people themselves (ἀσεβής)
  • the deeds their godlessness produced
  • the godless manner in which they did them

The repetition adds no new information. It is there for weight, and it makes the point that the fault is not one bad act but a whole way of standing toward God.

Nuances

1airreverence toward God: a settled way of living that gives him no awe, worship, or regard
Rom 1:182Ti 2:16Tit 2:12Jud 1:15
1bthe irreverent deeds themselves: the particular acts and cravings that irreverence throws up, named in the plural
TranslatabilityPartial
Rom 11:26Jud 1:18

What scholars say about asebeia

The lexica are unanimous on the sense and give the word a single entry. BDAG defines ἀσέβεια as a lack of reverence for deity and defiance of moral standards, godlessness, impiety, and registers the plural as denoting ungodly acts (Rom 11:26; Jude 18). LSJ documents the same value throughout classical Greek, where ἀσέβεια is an indictable public offense in Attic law, prosecutable by graphē asebeias, the charge brought against Socrates; the term covered failure of due reverence toward the gods, the dead, and parents. Muraoka and the Septuagint evidence show the noun rendering resha and rishah most often, with pesha behind a significant minority, including Isa 59:20, the text quoted at Rom 11:26. Foerster, treating the sebomai family in TDNT, emphasizes that the alpha-privative presupposes a relation that is owed, so the noun names withheld reverence rather than mere unbelief, and that the Septuagint broadens it from cultic irreverence into a comprehensive designation of guilt. EDNT registers the same and notes the New Testament's near-formulaic pairing with ἀδικία. On Rom 1:18 Cranfield and Moo both hold that ἀσέβεια and ἀδικία are distinguishable rather than a single undifferentiated phrase, the first naming the Godward failure and the second its outworking toward others, while granting that the two are inseparable in Paul's argument; Dunn treats the pair as effectively comprehensive of human sin. Bauckham (WBC) analyzes ἀσεβ- as the controlling catchword of Jude, whose verse 15 reproduces the fourfold repetition of 1 Enoch 1:9, and reads the genitive plural at verse 18 as attributive, hence renderings such as ungodly desires.

Sources

  • BDAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (2000), s.v. ἀσέβειαlexicon
  • LSJ, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. with revised supplement (1996), s.v. ἀσέβειαlexicon
  • T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Peeters, 2009), s.v. ἀσέβειαlexicon
  • W. Foerster, σέβομαι, εὐσεβής, ἀσεβής κτλ., in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT), vol. 7dictionary
  • Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (EDNT), vol. 1, s.v. ἀσέβειαdictionary
  • C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (ICC, 1975), on 1:18 and 11:26commentary
  • D. J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT, 2nd ed. 2018), on 1:18commentary
  • J. D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8 (Word Biblical Commentary 38A, 1988), on 1:18commentary
  • R. J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (Word Biblical Commentary 50, 1983), on Jude 15 and 18commentary

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

All attested forms of ἀσέβεια

accusative f s

ἀσέβειαν

Rom 1:18, Tit 2:12

genitive f s

ἀσεβείας

2Ti 2:16, Jud 1:15

accusative f p

ἀσεβείας

Rom 11:26

genitive f p

ἀσεβειῶν

Jud 1:18