StrongerBible

aselgeia

ἀσέλγεια

GreekG0766“sensuality, debauchery, ...”

Appears 10 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mrk 7:22Rom 13:132Co 12:21Gal 5:19Eph 4:191Pe 4:32Pe 2:22Pe 2:72Pe 2:18Jud 1:4
Word studyResearch-gradeah-SEL-gay-uhnoun

What aselgeia means

shameless excess: unrestrained conduct that openly flouts common decency, sin done in the open rather than hidden

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

The constant in this word is not what the sin is but how it is done: out in the open, with no shame and no attempt to hide. A person can do wrong quietly and cover it up, but this word names wrongdoing that has stopped caring who sees, the kind that dares anyone to object. What that shameless conduct actually consists of shifts from passage to passage.

At one end it is brazen moral abandon in general. In the list of things that defile a person from within (Mark 7:22), and in the picture of people who have given themselves over to every kind of impurity (ἀκαθαρσία) along with greed (Ephesians 4:19), the word is broader than sex: it is a whole posture of unashamed defiance. At the other end it is open sexual license, as in the nighttime revelry Paul warns against (Romans 13:13) and the teachers in Jude and 2 Peter who treat God's grace as permission to do whatever they please.

Because English has no single word that carries both the shamelessness and the range of content, translators reach for several: "licentiousness," "debauchery," "sensuality," "lewdness," "wantonness." Each captures part of it and misses the sharpest note, which is public, unblushing defiance. Scholars still debate how much the New Testament writers narrowed the word toward sexual sin specifically, and how much they kept its older, wider force.

Nuances

1abrazen moral abandon in general: shameless conduct flaunted openly, not limited to sexual sin
Mrk 7:22Eph 4:191Pe 4:3
1bflagrant sexual debauchery: sexual license practiced openly and without shame
Rom 13:132Co 12:21Gal 5:192Pe 2:22Pe 2:72Pe 2:18Jud 1:4

What scholars say about aselgeia

The standard lexica agree on a broad semantic range for ἀσέλγεια but weight its sexual element differently. BDAG defines it as "lack of self-constraint which involves one in conduct that violates all bounds of what is socially acceptable, self-abandonment" (debauchery, licentiousness, sensuality), noting it is used "especially of sexual excesses." LSJ distinguishes an older sense (licentiousness, wanton violence, paired with ὕβρις in Demosthenes 21.1) from a later Hellenistic sense narrowed to bodily desires (Polybius 36.15.4). Louw-Nida (§88.272) glosses "behavior completely lacking in moral restraint, usually with the implication of sexual licentiousness." The word is rare in the Septuagint (Wisdom 14:26, 3 Maccabees 2:26) and largely literary. Two interpretive camps divide the field: following Bauernfeind's influential TDNT article (that in the NT "only the older and sensual sense" is relevant), BDAG and Louw-Nida weight the term toward sexual excess; following Trench (Synonyms §XVI), Lightfoot's dictum that a man may be unclean and hide it but the ἀσελγής shocks public decency, and Barclay, many modern commentators (Lincoln, Best, France, Yarbro Collins, Elliott, Achtemeier) argue the core is shameless public defiance of which sexual sin is only the commonest instance. The current mid-line synthesis (Moo, Keener, Green, Davids, Jobes, Bauckham) treats it as a shame-word with elastic reference: the shameless manner is invariant, the content (sexual, drunken revelry, political outrage, verbal abuse, general moral abandon) is set by context. Jörg Frey adds a rhetorical-historical caveat that in the polemical passages of Jude and 2 Peter the sexual charges function as stereotyped anti-heretical language and may not describe the opponents' actual conduct.

Where scholars disagree about aselgeia

Whether ἀσέλγεια in the New Testament retains its broad classical sense of shameless, flagrant defiance of decency (of which sexual sin is only the commonest instance) or has narrowed largely to sexual debauchery.

  • majorityThe core sense is shameless, public defiance of what decency will tolerate; sexual sin is the most frequent but not the defining content. This underlies the current mainstream reading of the word as a shame-word with elastic reference whose content is set by context.; R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, §XVI; J. B. Lightfoot on Galatians 5:19, cited in Longenecker, Galatians (WBC 41, 1990); Andrew Lincoln, Ephesians (WBC 42, 1990), ad 4:19
  • minorityNew Testament usage has largely narrowed to flagrant sexual excess and debauchery, following the Hellenistic drift of the term toward bodily desires.; O. Bauernfeind, 'ἀσέλγεια,' TDNT 1:490-491; BDAG, 3rd ed. (2000), p. 141; Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains, §88.272
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • Bauer, Danker, Arndt, Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (Chicago, 2000), p. 141lexicon
  • Liddell, Scott, Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. (Oxford, 1940), s.v. ἀσέλγειαlexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (UBS, 1988/1996), §88.272lexicon
  • O. Bauernfeind, 'ἀσέλγεια,' in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Kittel and Friedrich, trans. Bromiley (Eerdmans, 1964), 1:490-491reference
  • R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, §XVI (London, 1854)reference
  • William Barclay, New Testament Words (Westminster/John Knox, 2000), pp. 60-62reference
  • Andrew Lincoln, Ephesians (Word Biblical Commentary 42, 1990), ad 4:19commentary
  • Richard Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (Word Biblical Commentary 50, 1983), pp. 38-39, 240-241, 252-253, 275-276commentary
  • Jörg Frey, The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter, trans. K. Ess (Baylor, 2018)commentary

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

All attested forms of ἀσέλγεια

dative f p

ἀσελγείαις

Rom 13:13, 1Pe 4:3, 2Pe 2:2, 2Pe 2:18

dative f s

ἀσελγείᾳ

2Co 12:21, Eph 4:19, 2Pe 2:7

nominative f s

ἀσέλγεια

Mrk 7:22, Gal 5:19

accusative f s

ἀσέλγειαν

Jud 1:4