Fury or Folly? 'Greek Passage' in Luke 6.11

Abstract

In Luke 6.11, the scribes and Pharisees are filled with 'Greek Passage' after they witness Jesus' healing on the Sabbath. Modern English translations, beginning with the RSV, translate the word 'Greek Passage' as rage or fury, whereas older English translations render it as madness, and modern German translations follow Martin Luther by rendering the phrase with terms such as unsinnig ('wurden ganz unsinnig') or Unverstand ('wurden mit Unverstand erfÜllt'). This article argues that Plato's explanation of the word 'Greek Passage' in Timaeus 86b provides the typical semantic range of the word; it includes 'Greek Passage' (the folly of ignorance) and 'Greek Passage' (the folly of madness, or the loss of one's rational faculties), but not anger.1 This twofold usage is reflected in Greek literature from the fifth/fourth century bce through the fifth century ce, including in 2 Tim 3.9, the only other text in which 'Greek Passage' occurs in the New Testament. To say that the scribes and Pharisees are filled with rage in Luke 6.11, therefore, both exceeds the typical function of the word 'Greek Passage' and risks further dehumanising two groups of people who are too often dehumanised by Christian tradition.