StrongerBible

eris

ἔρις

GreekG2054“strife, rivalry, ...”

Appears 9 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Rom 1:29Rom 13:131Co 1:111Co 3:32Co 12:20Gal 5:20Php 1:151Ti 6:4Tit 3:9
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradeEH-risnoun

What eris means

strife: the open, competitive quarreling that fractures a community

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is Paul's word for a very specific kind of trouble: not honest disagreement, but the visible, public quarreling that breaks a community apart from the inside. It is always a competitive, jealousy-driven rivalry, one person or group pushing against another for advantage or standing, until the peace between them tears.

Every one of its appearances in the New Testament is Paul's, and every one is an accusation. He treats it as a symptom he can name on sight, and he places it in a chain: jealousy stirs it up, it hardens into rival camps, and the camps eventually split the group apart. So the same word covers several settings that feel different on the surface:

  • the general quarrelsomeness he lists among the works that ruin people and churches
  • the rival parties at Corinth who lined up behind their favorite leaders
  • the preachers who proclaimed the true message but did it to compete with Paul
  • the endless bickering over words and doctrine stirred up by false teachers

Underneath, it is one thing. The related passion is ζῆλος, the jealousy that lights the fire, and the self-seeking ambition behind it is ἐριθεία; this word is the fight itself, out in the open where everyone can see it.

Nuances

1aquarreling and contention in general, listed as a vice that ruins people and communities
TranslatabilityDirect
Rom 1:29Rom 13:132Co 12:20Gal 5:20
1bpartisan rivalry: quarrels organized around rival leaders or factions
1Co 1:111Co 3:3
1Co 1:11

Whether the Corinthian quarrels named by this word are civic-style power struggles between status-groups or theological parties divided over doctrine.

  • majorityThey are status-driven factions organized around prestige-figures, using the standard Greco-Roman vocabulary of civic faction, not doctrinal parties.; L. L. Welborn, "On the Discord in Corinth: 1 Corinthians 1-4 and Ancient Politics," Journal of Biblical Literature 106.1 (1987): 85-111; Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 2000), 121-125
  • minorityThe parties reflect genuine theological camps divided over teaching and allegiance.; Hans Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians (Hermeneia; Fortress, 1975), 32-33
1cpersonal rivalry driven by envy: competing against someone for standing
Php 1:15
1dwrangling over words and doctrine, stirred up by false teaching
1Ti 6:4Tit 3:9

What scholars say about eris

The major reference works converge on a stable definition. BDAG (3rd ed., 392) glosses ἔρις as "engagement in rivalry ... strife, discord, contention"; LSJ maps the full diachronic range from Homeric battle-strife through political and domestic discord to "wordy wrangling, disputation," alongside a frequently positive classical sense of wholesome rivalry that the NT never uses; Louw-Nida place it at 39.22, "Hostility, Strife." Buechsel (TDNT 2:877-879) traces the word from Homer and Hesiod's two-Erides doctrine into Stoic and Hellenistic-Jewish vice lists and concludes that Pauline usage conforms uniformly to the negative-sense tradition. The closest formal precedent in Jewish Greek is the vice-catalogue usage of Sirach (28:11; 40:5, 9). The word is exclusively Pauline in the NT and functions as a diagnostic term in a causal chain (jealousy generates strife, strife hardens into faction, faction shatters the assembly), applied across the Corinthian factions, the rival preachers of Philippians, and the doctrinal wranglers of the Pastorals. Modern lexicography (following Lightfoot, 1865) is unanimous that ἔρις must be kept etymologically and semantically distinct from the near-adjacent ἐριθεία (self-seeking ambition), despite their frequent side-by-side occurrence. On the Corinthian factions, Welborn's civic-factional reading (JBL 1987) has become the majority position, displacing the older theological-parties view.

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

  • F. W. Danker, ed., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (BDAG; University of Chicago Press, 2000), 392lexicon
  • H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. with Revised Supplement (LSJ; Clarendon, 1996), 689lexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (UBS, 1989), 39.22lexicon
  • F. Buechsel, "eris," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT), ed. Kittel and Friedrich, 2:877-879dictionary
  • J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, 10th ed. (Macmillan, 1890), 209-211commentary
  • L. L. Welborn, "On the Discord in Corinth: 1 Corinthians 1-4 and Ancient Politics," Journal of Biblical Literature 106.1 (1987): 85-111journal article
  • Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 2000), 121-125, 291-295commentary
  • P. W. Skehan and A. A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira (AB 39; Doubleday, 1987), 361-366, 460-465commentary

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

All attested forms of ἔρις

nominative f s

ἔρις

1Co 3:3, 2Co 12:20, Gal 5:20, 1Ti 6:4

accusative f p

ἔρεις

Tit 3:9

accusative f s

ἔριν

Php 1:15

dative f s

ἔριδι

Rom 13:13

genitive f s

ἔριδος

Rom 1:29

nominative f p

ἔριδες

1Co 1:11