StrongerBible

kuriotēs

κυριότης

GreekG2963“dominion, authority, ...”

Appears 4 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Eph 1:21Col 1:162Pe 2:10Jud 1:8
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradekoo-ree-OH-tacenoun

What kuriotēs means

1

lordship itself: the rightful authority of the Lord to be obeyed

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This is the abstract sense of the word: not a person and not a being, but the quality of being lord, the authority that belongs to a master and is owed obedience. It is the noun form of the title Lord (κύριος), the way holiness is the noun form of holy.

In both places it appears this way it is something people refuse to honor. Jude and 2 Peter describe teachers who throw off all restraint and treat the Lord's authority with contempt. The word names exactly what they are rejecting: the right of the Lord to command them. Most scholars read this as the authority of Christ himself, the very lordship the false teachers deny by living as a law to themselves.

It is no accident that the same writers pair this rejection of lordship with insults flung at angelic beings. The picture is of people so sure of their own freedom that they will not bow to the Master above them or show respect to the powers around them.

2Pe 2:10Jud 1:8
2

a dominion: a class of ruling powers in the unseen world

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

Here the word does not name an abstract quality but a kind of being. In two of Paul's letters it appears in lists of unseen ruling powers, alongside thrones, rulers (ἀρχή), and authorities (ἐξουσία). English Bibles often translate it "dominions," the same word later tradition used for one rank of angels.

Paul is not handing his readers a map of the heavens or a fixed ranking of angel grades. The lists pile up overlapping titles on purpose, to make one sweeping point: whatever powers exist, named or unnamed, in this age or the next, Christ is far above all of them and every one of them was created through him and for him. The word for lordship sits in these lists to cover the powers that claim to rule.

Scholars still debate what kind of powers these are: real spiritual beings, the hidden force behind human institutions and systems, or both at once. What the passages themselves insist on is not their exact nature but their rank: they are creatures, and Christ is their Lord.

Eph 1:21Col 1:16

Disputed

What kind of entities the cosmic powers (including this term) actually are.

  • majorityReal supernatural beings, created good and now hostile, defeated by Christ.; C. E. Arnold, Ephesians: Power and Magic, SNTSMS 63 (Cambridge: CUP, 1989); P. T. O'Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, PNTC (Eerdmans, 1999)
  • minorityDemythologized structures of created social and political life rather than personal beings.; H. Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, trans. J. H. Yoder (Herald Press, 1962); W. Wink, Naming the Powers (Fortress, 1984)
  • minorityBenign ministering angels of God's court, with no first-century framework of cosmic hostility.; A. W. Carr, Angels and Principalities, SNTSMS 42 (Cambridge: CUP, 1981)

What scholars say about kuriotēs

κυριότης is a late, rare abstract noun (κυρι- + the -της abstract suffix), unattested in classical Greek, the LXX, Philo, Josephus, and the documentary papyri, and apparently a coinage of Hellenistic-Jewish or early Christian Greek (Foerster, TDNT 3:1096-98; Moulton-Milligan 365; Beekes s.v. κύριος). BDAG distinguishes an abstract sense (Jude 8; 2 Pet 2:10; Did. 4.1) from a concrete angelic-class sense (Eph 1:21; Col 1:16). In the Pauline catalogues the term joins ἀρχή, ἐξουσία, and δύναμις in a rhetorical assertion of Christ's total supremacy; the closest pre-Christian conceptual parallels are the angelic-rank lists of 2 Enoch 20.1 and the Testaments, with the fixed ninefold hierarchy (Dominions as the fourth rank) being the post-NT systematization of Pseudo-Dionysius. In Jude/2 Peter the singular anarthrous noun, contrasted with the plural δόξαι, denotes divine Lordship; this is the firm consensus since Bauckham, who ties Jude 8 to the denial of the δεσπότης and κύριος of Jude 4.

Where scholars disagree about kuriotēs

Whether the noun names a class of beings or an abstract quality, and how that splits across its four occurrences.

  • majorityThe same lexeme is concrete (a class of powers) in Ephesians 1:21 and Colossians 1:16 but abstract (divine lordship) in Jude 8 and 2 Peter 2:10, the syntax and context deciding the referent.; BDAG, 579, s.v. κυριότης; R. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, WBC 50 (Waco: Word, 1983), 52, 56-57
  • minorityThe Jude/2 Peter occurrences too refer to an angelic class, read back from Colossians 1:16.; A few older interpreters surveyed and rejected in R. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, WBC 50, 56-57
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

  • W. Bauer, F. W. Danker et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (Chicago, 2000), 579, s.v. κυριότηςlexicon
  • W. Foerster and G. Quell, "κύριος κτλ.," TDNT 3:1039-98, esp. 1096-98dictionary
  • R. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, WBC 50 (Waco: Word, 1983), 49-61, 261-62commentary
  • A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians, WBC 42 (Dallas: Word, 1990), 62-66commentary
  • P. T. O'Brien, Colossians, Philemon, WBC 44 (Waco: Word, 1982), 46-47commentary
  • C. E. Arnold, Ephesians: Power and Magic, SNTSMS 63 (Cambridge: CUP, 1989)monograph
  • G. L. Green, Jude and 2 Peter, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 76-78commentary

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

All attested forms of κυριότης

genitive f s

κυριότητος

Eph 1:21, 2Pe 2:10

accusative f s

κυριότητα

Jud 1:8

nominative f p

κυριότητες

Col 1:16