μίασμα

From the study of 2 Peter 2:20

Range of meaning

Something that stains or defiles: pollution, contamination, especially religious defilement that makes a person unfit to approach the divine. In classical Greek it is used for blood-guilt and the uncleanness that follows murder or sacrilege, a stain that could spread to a whole city. In Jewish Greek it is used for idolatry, sexual sin and profaning what is holy.

Against the English

The KJV has "pollutions," and the WEB, ESV and NASB have "defilement(s)," which is close. The BSB and NIV have "corruption," which blurs it with the different word phthora ("decay, ruin") in 1:4 and 2:19. To a modern ear "corruption" suggests bribery or moral rot in general, not religious uncleanness.

How it drifted

The modern English "corruption" leans toward dishonesty in public life, and the purity frame of "defilement" has largely dropped out of everyday religious vocabulary.

Used elsewhere in the period

Classical Greek tragedy and law use it for the defilement of blood-guilt (see Robert Parker, Miasma, 1983). In the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) it appears in Jer 32:34 for the abominations set up in the temple, in Ezek 33:31, in Judith 9:2 for the violation of Dinah, and in 1 Macc 13:50 for the idols cleansed out of the Jerusalem citadel. This verse is its only New Testament occurrence.