εἰδωλολατρεία

From the study of Colossians 3:5

Range of meaning

"Service or worship of idols" (εἴδωλον, "image, phantom" + λατρεία, "religious service"). It means worshipping false gods and, by extension, giving ultimate devotion to anything other than the true God.

Against the English

Every major version says "idolatry." The word is translated accurately. The risk is that modern readers take "which is idolatry" as a figure of speech, when for Paul it was a literal charge.

Used elsewhere in the period

The compound is first found in Paul (1 Cor 10:14; Gal 5:20) and seems to have been coined in Greek-speaking Jewish or Christian circles. The Septuagint has the separate parts. Jewish polemic tied idolatry to sexual immorality (Wisdom 14:12: "the idea of making idols was the beginning of porneia") and to love of money. Compare Jesus: "You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matt 6:24). The parallel in Eph 5:5 reads "the greedy person, that is, an idolater."

From the study of 1 Corinthians 10:14

Range of meaning

A compound of eidōlon ('image, idol') and latreia ('cultic service, worship'). It means worshipping, serving or honoring the images of gods, and more broadly taking part in the cult of any god other than Israel's God. Eidōlon in ordinary Greek meant a phantom, shadow, reflection or unreal likeness; Homer uses it for the shades of the dead. Pagans called their own cult statues by a respectful word, agalma ('glory, delight, statue'). Jews and Christians chose eidōlon on purpose: a 'mere image,' an empty thing. Latreia is the vocabulary of temple service: sacrifice, offerings, cultic acts (Rom 9:4; 12:1).

Against the English

English 'idolatry' is a good match in its core sense. But modern speech uses 'idol' for a celebrity ('pop idol') or for anything a person loves too much, and that can make the word feel purely inward or metaphorical. Paul's word started from concrete cultic acts: bowing, sacrificing, pouring libations, and eating sacred meals before a god's image.

How it drifted

In modern English, 'idol' moved toward 'admired person or object' (from the 16th–17th century, and strongly in 20th-century pop culture). Christian preaching also often generalizes 'idolatry' to any misplaced priority. That extension has some basis in Paul, who calls greed 'idolatry' in Col 3:5. But it can hide the literal, social and ritual reference in this verse.

Used elsewhere in the period

The word is not found in the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) or in any surviving non-Jewish Greek before the New Testament. It seems to be a Jewish or early Christian coinage. NT: 1 Cor 10:14; Gal 5:20; Col 3:5; 1 Pet 4:3. The related eidōlolatrēs ('idolater') appears in 1 Cor 5:10–11; 6:9; 10:7; Eph 5:5; Rev 21:8; 22:15. Outside the NT: Testament of Judah 19:1; 23:1 (date and possible Christian editing are debated), and Didache 3:4 ('it leads to idolatry'). The idea behind it is old Jewish polemic. Wisdom of Solomon 14:12, 27 calls idol-worship 'the beginning of fornication' and the 'beginning, cause and end of every evil.' That pairing of idolatry and sexual immorality is the same one Paul draws from Israel's wilderness story in 10:7–8. The Septuagint's use of eidōlon for Hebrew words meaning 'nothings' (elilim) and contemptuous terms (gillulim) also shapes the word.