StrongerBible

eidōlolatrēs

εἰδωλολάτρης

GreekG1496idolater, one who worships idols

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

1Co 5:101Co 5:111Co 6:91Co 10:7Eph 5:5Rev 21:8Rev 22:15
Compound of
Word studyee-doh-loh-LAH-tracenoun

What eidōlolatrēs means

an idol worshipper: a person who gives a false god the service that belongs to God alone

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Greek built this word by joining the word for an idol (εἴδωλον) to the word for the service a worshipper renders to a god (λατρεύω). So it does not describe someone holding wrong opinions about God. It describes someone who shows up: who eats at the table of a false god, joins its festival, and hands over the honor God asks for himself. Notice too that it names a kind of person, not a practice, which is why it turns up in lists of people rather than lists of behaviors.

Six of its seven appearances sit in exactly such a list. Paul sets it beside the sexually immoral, the greedy, and swindlers when he tells the Corinthian church whom it may and may not sit down to eat with, and again when he names the kinds of people who will not inherit God's kingdom. Revelation repeats the pattern twice, leaving idol worshippers outside the city with murderers, liars, and those who deal in magic. In 1 Corinthians 10:7 the word becomes a warning instead of a label: do not become what Israel became at the golden calf, where eating, drinking, and playing were the whole of the worship.

The seventh use bends the word onto a target no one expects. Ephesians 5:5 says the greedy person is an idol worshipper, and Colossians 3:5 makes the same move with the word for the practice (εἰδωλολατρεία). This is not a softening of the charge into a figure of speech. It is the claim that a settled hunger for more behaves like a god: it is served, it is trusted, and it collects the life that belongs to God.

Nuances

1aa person who actually worships a false god, at its altar, its table, or its festival
TranslatabilityDirect
1Co 5:101Co 5:111Co 6:91Co 10:7Rev 21:8Rev 22:15
1ba greedy person called an idol worshipper, because wanting more has taken the place of God
Eph 5:5

What scholars say about eidōlolatrēs

εἰδωλολάτρης is a compound of εἴδωλον with the -λάτρης element of λατρεύω / λατρεία, and it is unattested in pagan Greek before the New Testament; BDAG and Moulton and Milligan treat it as a Hellenistic Jewish or early Christian coinage formed on the analogy of other compounds in -λάτρης. All seven occurrences are Pauline or Johannine, and six stand in catalogues of vice (1 Cor 5:10, 11; 6:9; Rev 21:8; 22:15), with 1 Cor 10:7 the one hortatory use, applying Exod 32:6 to the Corinthian situation. Fee reads the Corinthian occurrences against actual participation in temple meals rather than as an abstract moral category. Eph 5:5 identifies the πλεονέκτης as εἰδωλολάτρης, and Col 3:5 makes the parallel identification with the cognate εἰδωλολατρεία; Rosner argues at length that this is a substantive metaphor rooted in Jewish moral tradition, in which greed is construed as service rendered to a rival master, rather than rhetorical exaggeration.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. εἰδωλολάτρηςlexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. εἰδωλολάτρηςlexicon
  • TDNT, s.v. εἴδωλον κτλ. (F. Büchsel)theological-dictionary
  • Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Eerdmans, 1987)commentary
  • Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, WBC 42 (Word, 1990)commentary
  • Brian S. Rosner, Greed as Idolatry: The Origin and Meaning of a Pauline Metaphor (Eerdmans, 2007)monograph

All attested forms of εἰδωλολάτρης

nominative m p

εἰδωλολάτραι

1Co 6:9, 1Co 10:7, Rev 22:15

dative m p

εἰδωλολάτραις

1Co 5:10, Rev 21:8

nominative m s

εἰδωλολάτρης

1Co 5:11, Eph 5:5