ἀσώτως

From the study of Luke 15:13

Range of meaning

An adverb from ἄσωτος, built from a- ('not') and the root of σῴζω ('save, keep safe'). The basic idea is a person who does not save, or who cannot be saved: a spendthrift, a wastrel, someone ruining himself. In use it covers (1) extravagant, wasteful spending and (2) the self-indulgent, dissolute life that usually goes with it: feasting, drinking, revelry. It does not specifically mean sexual sin, though such a life could include it.

Against the English

KJV 'riotous living' and WEB 'riotous living' used 'riotous' in its older sense of 'given to revelry and excess', not 'violent'. BSB and NIV 'wild living' and ESV 'reckless living' are fair, but 'wild' can push a modern reader toward partying or sex, while 'reckless' captures the money side better. NASB 'loose living' leans toward moral looseness. The English adjective 'prodigal' (from Latin prodigus, 'lavish, wasteful') was originally an exact match: someone who spends lavishly and wastefully.

How it drifted

'Prodigal' never appears in the verse. It comes from later Latin and English titles for the parable. In popular use it has drifted to mean 'a wayward person who leaves and comes back', so the idea of waste has dropped out. Separately, 'wild living' is now often heard as sexual immorality, partly because readers carry the older brother's accusation in v.30 back into this verse.

Used elsewhere in the period

Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics 4.1, 1119b–1120a) defines ἀσωτία (prodigality) as excess in spending. He says 'we call prodigals those who are incontinent and spend lavishly on self-indulgence', and plays on the word's makeup: 'the prodigal (ἄσωτος) is one ruined (ἀπολλύμενος) by his own fault, and the wasting of one's property (οὐσία) seems a kind of ruin of oneself.' This is the same set of words Luke uses: ἀσώτως, οὐσία, and 'lost' (ἀπολωλώς, 15:24, 32). In the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament), Prov 28:7 says 'he who tends ἀσωτία dishonours his father'. 2 Macc 6:4 describes the temple under Antiochus filled with 'ἀσωτία and revelling' by Gentiles. In the New Testament the noun ἀσωτία appears in Eph 5:18 (paired with drunkenness), Titus 1:6 and 1 Pet 4:4.