StrongerBible

aphtharsia

ἀφθαρσία

GreekG0861“immortality, incorruption, ...”

Appears 8 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Rom 2:71Co 15:421Co 15:501Co 15:531Co 15:54Eph 6:242Ti 1:10Tit 2:7
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradeaf-thar-SEE-ahnoun

What aphtharsia means

imperishability: the state of being free from decay, breakdown, and death

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

This word names a quality of being that does not wear out, rot, or come to an end. It is built by negating a Greek word for decay and ruin (phthora), so at root it means "not able to fall apart." Greek philosophers had used it for whatever stands outside the world of things that come into being and pass away: the gods, the unchanging heavens, the eternal realities behind the physical world. Jewish writers in Greek then borrowed it for the deathless future God grants the righteous, and the New Testament writers borrowed it again to describe the risen Christ and everything joined to him.

In the New Testament the word always points the same direction, even as it lands on different things. Paul uses it most for the resurrection body, the form of life God raises that can no longer break down or die. He also uses it for the future that God holds out to his people, a life of incorruption that overlaps with eternal life itself. And in a few places the same word stretches to name a quality of love or character that does not fade.

The senses below are facets of that one idea, not separate words. What ties them together is the claim that something has been lifted out of the realm of decay and death and given a permanence that belongs, finally, to God.

Nuances

1athe imperishable quality of the resurrection body, which can no longer decay or die
1Co 15:421Co 15:501Co 15:531Co 15:54
1bthe undecaying life God grants the righteous as their future reward, close in sense to eternal life
Rom 2:72Ti 1:10
1can enduring, unfading quality of love or character that does not break down over time
Eph 6:24Tit 2:7

Disputed

In 1 Corinthians 15:53-54 Paul places this word (imperishability) in parallel with a near-twin word for deathlessness. Whether the two name one quality stated twice for emphasis or two genuinely distinct qualities is disputed.

  • majorityThe two are synonymous parallelism: Paul piles up vocabulary for force, one term stressing freedom from decay and the other freedom from death, but they describe a single transformed condition.; Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC); Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT); David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (BECNT)
  • minorityThe technical distinction holds: deathlessness denies death, while imperishability denies substantial dissolution and is the broader, stronger quality; Paul uses both because the present body must be freed from both decay and death.; Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, commentary in the Anchor Bible series

What scholars say about aphtharsia

ἀφθαρσία is formed from the alpha-privative + the φθείρω/φθορά family (decay, dissolution, ruin). BDAG glosses it "the state of not being subject to decay/dissolution/death, incorruptibility, immortality"; Louw-Nida files it under domain 23.129. Harder (TDNT IX, 93-106) notes the noun is itself late, fixed only after Epicurus and Aristotle, who systematized the γένεσις/φθορά contrast. Spicq's Theological Lexicon presses a genuine classical distinction from its near-twin ἀθανασία: ἀθανασία negates θάνατος (death, applied to living beings), while ἀφθαρσία negates φθορά (substantial dissolution, applied more broadly to forms, heavenly bodies, the cosmos). Hellenistic Jewish texts (Wisdom of Solomon 2:23; 6:18-19; 4 Maccabees 9:22; 17:12; Philo) relocated the word to the divinely bestowed destiny of the righteous beyond death, a usage deSilva, Winston, Kolarcik, Collins, Nickelsburg, and Wright read along a Platonic-to-apocalyptic spectrum. In Paul the word concentrates in 1 Corinthians 15. On 15:53-54 the dominant modern reading (Thiselton, Fee, Garland, Hays, Ciampa and Rosner, Conzelmann, Wright) takes ἀφθαρσία and ἀθανασία as synonymous parallelism and rejects the patristic body/soul mapping; Spicq and Fitzmyer preserve a real decay-versus-death distinction. Recent commentary (esp. Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God) has shifted decisively toward a Jewish-apocalyptic frame (Hellenistic vocabulary, apocalyptic concept, resurrection-body referent), with Dale Martin's refined-materiality reading and Conzelmann the notable minority. Eph 6:24's syntax is famously contested (Hoehner, Lincoln, Best take it adverbially with the verb; O'Brien with grace), and the KJV's "in sincerity" reflects an obsolete sense now rejected.

Where scholars disagree about aphtharsia

Whether Paul deploys this word within a Greek philosophical frame of immortality or within a Jewish frame of bodily resurrection. The choice shapes what imperishability is taken to refer to: a finer, more stable substance, or a transformed bodily life in the age to come.

  • majorityThe conceptual frame is Jewish apocalyptic: the vocabulary is Hellenistic but the referent is the transformed resurrection body of the coming age, not escape from physicality.; N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God; Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC); Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT)
  • minorityPaul's argument is best heard through Greco-Roman physiology: the resurrection body is a refined material substance, a transformed materiality rather than a contrast of matter and spirit.; Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body; Hans Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians (Hermeneia)
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

  • BDAG, s.v. ἀφθαρσίαlexicon
  • Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. ἀφθαρσία / ἀθανασίαlexicon
  • Günther Harder, "φθείρω κτλ.," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT), vol. IX, 93-106dictionary
  • Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC)commentary
  • Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT)commentary
  • David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (BECNT)commentary
  • N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of Godmonograph
  • David A. deSilva, 4 Maccabees (commentary)commentary
  • Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentarycommentary

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

All attested forms of ἀφθαρσία

accusative f s

ἀφθαρσίαν, ἀφθορίαν

Rom 2:7, 1Co 15:50, 1Co 15:53, 1Co 15:54, 2Ti 1:10, Tit 2:7

dative f s

ἀφθαρσίᾳ

1Co 15:42, Eph 6:24