ἄνοια

From the study of Luke 6:11

Range of meaning

Built from a- ('not') + nous ('mind, understanding'): literally 'mindlessness.' In Greek of the period it covers (1) folly, stupidity, lack of understanding, and (2) madness: a mind so overthrown that it acts in frenzy. Both senses share one core idea: reason has stopped working. So it can describe a fool's dullness or a wild, senseless fury, and context decides which is in front.

Against the English

BSB, WEB, NASB: 'rage'. ESV and NRSV: 'fury'. NIV: 'furious'. NLT: 'wild with rage'. KJV and YLT: 'madness'. The modern renderings name only the emotional heat. They lose the core idea of the word, which is that these men had stopped thinking straight. The KJV's 'madness' is closer, since in 1611 it meant 'loss of reason', but readers today may hear 'angry' (the American sense of 'mad') or a clinical condition.

How it drifted

Not drift over time so much as a translation choice. The context is plainly hostile, so translators pick the anger word. The Greek word, though, is about the mind, not the temper, and anger is how the mindlessness shows.

Used elsewhere in the period

Plato (Timaeus 86b) calls ἄνοια a disease of the soul and divides it into two kinds, mania (madness) and amathia (ignorance). That is exactly the double range seen here. In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) it is a wisdom word for folly (e.g. Prov 14:8; 22:15). In 2 Maccabees it describes the reckless senselessness of enemies of God's people (2 Macc 4:6; 15:33, Nicanor receiving 'the wages of his folly'). The only other New Testament use is 2 Tim 3:9, where it clearly means 'folly' ('their folly will be plain to all'). The Latin Vulgate renders Luke 6:11 insipientia, 'foolishness'.