Paul’s Usage of the Anthropological Term νοῦς

Abstract

The lexeme νοῦς has received little attention in Pauline exegesis. The few relevant studies on Paul’s use of νοῦς rely solely on Josephus’ use of the term. In order to overcome this one-sidedness, this article understands νοῦς against both a Jewish-Hellenistic and a Graeco-Roman horizon by grasping the range of its meaning in terms of a semantic frame. From there it becomes clear that Paul uses the word in the sense of a psychic faculty and not in the sense of a single thought—a conclusion that is quite different from those of former approaches, which contend that he means both at the same time. These insights will be illustrated by Paul’s use of the lexeme in the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians.