ἀναίδεια

From the study of Sirach 25:22

Range of meaning

Shamelessness, the absence of the proper sense of shame (aidōs) that keeps people within accepted social limits. Depending on context it can be insolence, effrontery, or brazen persistence.

Against the English

'Impudence' (KJV, Brenton, WEB) fits well. 'Shamelessness' keeps the wordplay with aischynē, 'shame', at the end of the same list: a household without shame ends up full of shame.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Septuagint the related adjective describes the 'brazen face' of the seductress (Prov 7:13) and a 'fierce-faced' foreign nation (Deut 28:50). Ben Sira uses it of the beggar's 'shameless mouth' (Sir 40:30), in a passage on the disgrace of living off another person's table. In Luke 11:8 the friend at midnight gets bread because of his anaideia, his shameless persistence.

From the study of Luke 11:8

Range of meaning

Made from the negative prefix an- and aidōs ('shame, modesty, respect for what others think'). It names a lack of the healthy sense of shame that holds people to proper behaviour: impudence, effrontery, nerve, bold disregard for convention. In classical and later Greek it is nearly always negative. It describes brazen faces, rude demands and people who have no regard for decency.

Against the English

KJV has 'importunity' (troublesome, pressing urgency). BSB, WEB and NASB 1995 have 'persistence'. ESV has 'impudence'. NIV 2011 has 'shameless audacity'. NLT combines the two ideas as 'shameless persistence'. 'Persistence' brings in the idea of asking again and again, which neither the word nor the story contains: the man knocks and asks once.

How it drifted

The Latin Vulgate's improbitas (shamelessness, also stubbornness) and the KJV's 'importunity' both lean toward pushiness. Readers then filled the gap from the similar parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1–8, which really is about not giving up), and from the idea that the present imperatives in 11:9 mean 'keep on asking'. By the twentieth century 'persistence' had become the usual English rendering, although Greek evidence for that meaning before Luke is lacking.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) the related adjective anaidēs describes a 'nation fierce [lit. shameless] of face' (Deut 28:50), the brazen face of the adulteress (Prov 7:13) and shameless dogs (Isa 56:11). Sirach 25:22 lists anaideia among the disgraces of a household, and Sirach 40:30 says 'in the mouth of the shameless, begging is sweet'. Josephus and Greek moralists such as Plutarch use the word for impudent or brazen conduct. Studies of its usage (notably K. Snodgrass, JBL 1997) found no pre-Christian instance where it means simply 'persistence', and none where it means a positive 'sense of shame'.