Greek word · G97
ἄδολος
adolos
pure
'Without dolos': without trickery, guile or deceit. In trade it meant goods that were 'unadulterated', not mixed with cheaper filler: pure grain, unwatered wine, undiluted oil or milk.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
ἄδολος, -ον,
1. guileless (Pind., Thuc).
2. Of liquids (Æsch., Eur., and late prose writers), genuine, pure (in π. and in MGr. of wine, also of corn: MM, VGT, see word; Milligan, NTD, 77): of milk, metaphorically, 1 Peter 2:2.
† SYN.: ἀκέραιος (which see), ἄκακος, ἁπλοῦς. (AS)
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
'Without dolos': without trickery, guile or deceit. In trade it meant goods that were 'unadulterated', not mixed with cheaper filler: pure grain, unwatered wine, undiluted oil or milk.
- Against the English
Modern versions: 'pure'. KJV: 'sincere'. 'Pure' is accurate but loses the wordplay with dolos in 2:1. 'Sincere' meant exactly 'unadulterated' in 1611 but now means 'heartfelt', which misleads modern readers.
- How it drifted
English 'sincere', from Latin sincerus ('clean, unmixed'), originally described substances: sincere wine, sincere milk. By the 1700s–1800s it had shifted almost entirely to a person's honest feelings. So the KJV's 'sincere milk' now sounds like milk with good intentions.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Moulton and Milligan cite papyri using adolos of wheat and other goods meaning 'unadulterated'. Wisdom 7:13 uses the adverb adolōs, 'without guile', of how Wisdom was learned.
Where it appears
1 Peter · 1
-
1 Peter 2:2 ἄδολον pure
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,
Here: Literally 'without dolos'. Merchants used the word for goods that had not been watered down. It answers 2:1 directly: put away all dolos (deceit), and drink milk that has no dolos in it.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.