Bill Mounce

For an Informed Love of God

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Saturday, December 9, 2017

Can the Singular “Man” Refer to Mankind in General?

I am working through the definitions of the vocabulary in my textbook, Basics of Biblical Greek, and got to wondering about ἄνθρωπος. I am trying to lay out the vocabulary in a way that doesn’t mash all the different meanings of a word into one long definition but recognizes the categories of meaning most words enjoy.

I was surprised when I went to BDAG. It has nine categories of meaning, but the main two are:

Definition 1. “a person of either sex, w. focus on participation in the human race, a human being.” Glosses such as “person” (plural: “people”) and “human (being)” (plural: “humanity”) work well here.

Definition 3. “a male person, man.

To be sure, ἄνθρωπος in both the singular and the plural can refer to a human being(s) without reference to gender. That’s not the question. The question is, in the singular, can ἄνθρωπος refer to people in general as implied by the gloss “mankind”? What was surprising is that BDAG does not have a category for this meaning, and I can find no clear-cut example of this in the New Testament. The closest is John 2:25, but that does not prove the point.

Some of the references are to a single male who stands as an example to all people, but that still is not what I am looking for.

This is a really important issue, because the glosses we memorize tend to control our thinking about the basic meaning of a word and how we approach translation.

Help me out on this. Can anyone find a clear example of ἄνθρωπος in the singular referring to people in general and not to a single human being regardless of gender?

Comments

Submitted by Ogden on Sun, 2017-12-10 02:32
It's not NT but how about Gen 1.26 (LXX)?

Submitted by Marius Mateescu on Mon, 2017-12-11 13:00
1 Corinthians 1:25 because the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Anthropos in the singular referring to mankind in general regardless of gender . I may have more ....

Submitted by Paul Brown on Mon, 2017-12-11 13:37
Would this fit? ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΤΘΑΙΟΝ 4:4 1550 Stephanus 4 ο δε αποκριθεις ειπεν γεγραπται ουκ επ αρτω μονω ζησεται ανθρωπος αλλ επι παντι ρηματι εκπορευομενω δια στοματος θεου

Submitted by Greg Logan on Mon, 2017-12-11 14:27
Bill I appreciate word studies - and such efforts. With a Masters in TESOL - I have become convinced that language is really quite fluid and flexible - such different people use different words in different ways. These are the sorts of difficulties we have with language in both translation and exegesis. Just off the top of my head, I would suspect certain speakers (not too many writers then) would use it that way - at certain times - and likely others would not. Just look at the massive diversity of the so-called "English" language.... Regardless, such an effort as you have requested above may provide interesting material - I look forward to seeing some results. Greg

Submitted by bdye on Mon, 2017-12-11 15:45
Revelation 9.15, 9.18 and 9.20

Submitted by Jim Kenote on Mon, 2017-12-11 20:13
Try Heb 2:6 (quoting Ps 8:4)

Submitted by N on Tue, 2017-12-12 10:18
The problem with using Gen. 1:26 is that it could be understood as speaking of Adam only. But I agree, that seems to be the closest example of a singular anthropos referring to people in general, I will keep searching.

Submitted by Adam M on Tue, 2017-12-12 12:06
Ephesians 2:15?

Submitted by N on Sun, 2017-12-17 19:51
I do not mean to be rude to the effort of everyone else, but from what I am seeing is that Rev. 9:15, 9:18, 9:20; and 1 Corinthians 1:25 all seem to have anthropos in the genitive plural, that is, at least in the documents I am looking at, does anyone want to correct me if I am mistaken or have any documents that have anthropos in these verses in the singular? With that in mind, the only verses that have been suggested that have anthropos in the singular referring to people in general are the verses that are quoting from the Old Testament, which is interesting, to say the least. Anyway, everyone is giving some great suggestions.

Submitted by Victoria Vaughn on Mon, 2018-01-01 21:18
Micah 6:6?

Submitted by wavewalker on Wed, 2022-01-05 06:59
I'm not sure if my submision was accepted/posted, so I'll try again: The Old Testament employs the phrase "as one man" on several occasions. We understand this to mean that 'they all' were confederate in their purpose and intent. I put Bill's question to somebody else (just yesterday, before finding this site/forum/question), as the question arose in my own mind. The response I was given was characterized as something that would require or produce a Ph.D to answer, and that (in her opinion) I was comparing a semi-abstract concept (Hebrew OT) to that of another lanuage [i..e, the 'could anthropos in the singular masculine (translated as 'man') be referring to mankind as a whole' question]. But I won't be deterred in my search, and she heartily encouraged me to pursue it. But one phrase which stands out to me is in II Thessalonians 2:3- 'man of sin'. It's a theory I've been considering, putting the pieces together. Some concepts take years to comprehend with any sense of totality, despite the fact that many people employ the phrase 'The Bible means what it says, and says what it means.' Of course, this is an example of a bit of limited understanding, in my opinion.

Submitted by sandra.kunz@alu... on Mon, 2026-02-16 22:14
It seems to me that in the identical sentences in Mt. 19:6 and Mk. 10:9 - in which anthropos seems to be a nominative and/or vocative singular without an article - that both gospel writers might be using this form sans article to indicate all humanity. In theory I love the fact that Koine did, and modern Greek still does, have both tense and voice for imperatives. But even in the case of this theoretically straightforward present active imperative, I find the last half of this verse extremely hard to wrap my head around, much less translate.. I mean, who except God can address a command to all humanity throughout all time and space? But if this was indeed heard by this particular group of Judean Pharisees as sounding like an imperative to all humanity, I can understand why they seem to have decided at some point that Jesus had delusions of grandeur. I may, however, be missing something obvious here in the construction of this sentence. Can anyone else shed any light on this?

Submitted by sandra.kunz@alu... on Tue, 2026-02-17 00:19
After re-reading Bill Mounce's initial post, I'm realizing that most of the other NT examples of anthropos without a definite article or indefinite pronoun can be translated into English pretty well by inserting an indefinite article. No need to widen the scope to all of humanity. But I'm still stumped as to how to translate Mt. 19:6 and Mk. 10:9 in a way that preserves the flavor of the present active imperative that's 3rd person singular because anthropos is the subject. All of the old and new translations I've heard (e.g. . . . let no man separate . . . no one must separate . .. no one should separate . . . don't let anyone separate) sound like moral instructions or part of a legal code rather than like an imperative. In English a vocative 2nd person "you" is "understood" even when it's omitted in an imperative sentence, which is usually the case. So I'm tempted to translate it " . . . don't separate" with the imperative addressed to the listener/reader and anthropos simply omitted. But the Greek verb is 3rd person singular, and it does have a singular subject . . . This is why I'm tempted to translate anthropos as a collective singular: "humanity." But "What God has joined together, don't separate, humanity." sounds awful in my ear. I landed on this post on this blog via Google because I'm trying to help a former student who needs to resolve this before he defends.