[B-Greek] Matthew 22:37: DIANOIA vs NOUS
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Oct 8 06:14:36 EDT 2007
On Oct 7, 2007, at 8:45 PM, Anthony wrote:
> Hello all
>
> In Matthew, when Jesus is referring to the great commandment, the
> Greek
> record refers to DIANOIA.
>
> Matthew 22:37 hO DE EFH AUTWi, AGAPhEIS KURION TON QEON SOU ... EN
> hOLHi THi DIANOIAi SOU
>
> In his rush to biblical 'precision' in translation, I have been
> challenged
> by a friend to identify why DIANOIA was chosen here, and not NOUS.
> I have
> responded in two ways:
>
> 1 I do not find guessing games into the possible thinking of the
> author
> overly productive, and
>
> 2 The two words seem to me to convey the same concept - the mind.
>
> His assertion is that DIANOIA refers to the centre of the
> willpower, not
> the mind in general.
>
> I have been looking through several lexicons and Greek
> concordances, and
> struggle to find any usage that might actually validate his
> impression.
> However, always open to correction, I am wondering if any readers
> here can
> point me to a work that shows there is a genuine difference between
> DIANOIA and NOUS.
I've rewritten the cited Greek above to conform to the standard B-
Greek transliteration.
DIANOIA is found 12x in the GNT, NOUS 24x. To a considerable degree
they overlap in sense, being used for the capacity of reasoning
(mind) and for the particular reasoning or thinking involved in an
instance of ratiocination).
L&N, usually pretty good in delineation of distinctions, where they
are discernible, between synonyms and near-synonyms, has three
entries for DIANOIA (apart from the special idioms
ἀναζώννυμαι τὰς ὀσφύας τῆς
διανοίας ANAZWNNUMAI TAS OSFRUAS THS DIANOIAS in 1 Peter 1:13
treated in L&N §27.55 and διανοίγω τὸν νοῦν
DIANOIGW TON NOUN in Lk 24:45 treated in L&N §27.49); rather than
citing all the examples, which I think interested parties ought to
check out carefully for themselves, I simply give the essential
distinctions which they note.
26.14 νοῦςa NOUS, m; νόημαa NOHMA, n; διάνοιαa
DIANOIA, f: the psychological faculty of understanding, reasoning,
thinking, and deciding — ‘mind.’ ... In some languages there is
no noun such as English mind, and therefore one must use a verb
expression meaning ‘to think,’ ‘to reason,’ or ‘to
understand,’ depending upon the particular context. In some
languages the closest equivalent of ‘mind’ may be a figurative
extension of a term meaning ‘head,’ but more often than not,
thinking is regarded as being in some other part of the body, for
example, ‘heart’ or ‘liver.’
30.5 νοῦςb NOUS, m; διάνοιαb DIANOIA, f; ἔννοιαa
ENNOIA, f: a particular manner or way of thinking — ‘way of
thinking, disposition, manner of thought, attitude.’ ... In a number
of languages it may be necessary to render ‘way of thinking’ by a
clause, for example, ‘how people think.’ In the case of 1Pe 4:1,
it may be necessary to translate ‘you too must strengthen yourselves
by thinking just like Christ thought.’
30.15 ἐνθύμησις ENQUMHSIS, f; νόημαb NOHMA, n;
διάνοιαc DIANOIA, f; διανόημα DIANOHMA, n: the
content of thinking and reasoning — ‘thought, what is thought,
opinion.’ ... In a number of languages it is simply not possible to
find noun-like words for thinking or reasoning and therefore it may
be necessary to use a verb equivalent throughout. For example, in Lk
11:17 one may translate as ‘but Jesus knew what they were thinking.’
I should note that I've read the response from Taylor Swendsen on
NOUS and DIANOHSIS and that I don't dispute what he says about
earlier usage.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Ret)
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