Greek word · G4658

Σκύθης

skythēs

Scythian

A member of the nomadic peoples of the Black Sea and Central Asian steppe. In literature it was the stock figure of the ultimate barbarian: wild, violent, near-bestial. A minority tradition also idealized the 'noble Scythian', such as the sage Anacharsis.

Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·

What it means

Σκύθης, -ου, ὁ

Scythian, an inhabitant of Scythia, i.e. Russia and Siberia, a synonym with the Greeks for the wildest of barbarians: Colossians 3:11.†

(AS)

From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Colossians 3:11

Range of meaning

A member of the nomadic peoples of the Black Sea and Central Asian steppe. In literature it was the stock figure of the ultimate barbarian: wild, violent, near-bestial. A minority tradition also idealized the 'noble Scythian', such as the sage Anacharsis.

Against the English

NLT renders it 'uncivilized', which conveys the stereotype but erases the actual ethnic name. Other versions keep 'Scythian', which most modern readers will not recognize.

Used elsewhere in the period

Herodotus, Histories book 4, gives the classic ethnography. Josephus (Against Apion 2.269) says Scythians 'differ little from wild beasts'. 2 Maccabees 4:47 says certain men would have been acquitted 'even before Scythians', and 3 Maccabees 7:5 uses 'Scythian savagery' as a byword. In the Holy Land, Beth-Shean was called Scythopolis.

Where it appears

Colossians · 1

  1. Colossians 3:11 Σκύθης, Scythian,

    Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free, but Christ is all and is in all.

    Here: A nomad from the steppes north of the Black Sea, and in the Greco-Roman imagination the byword for the wildest barbarian. Naming them pushes 'barbarian' to its furthest extreme: even the Scythian has no lower rank here.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.