Luke 22:2

Take up, Adopt

Translating ἀναιρέω in the New Testament merely as “kill” or “put to death” reflects a significant "covering up" of its true semantic range that is neither lexically nor contextually justified. The New Testament already employs a wide array of terms for lethal action, such as ἀποκτείνω (“to kill”), θανατόω (“to put to death”), φονεύω (“to murder”), and διαφθείρω (“to destroy”), which are used without euphemism throughout the corpus. The verb ἀναιρέω, by contrast, has a broader and more interesting semantic profile in classical and Hellenistic usage, which includes many positive senses. According to LSJ, these include:

• to take up (physically or symbolically), e.g., a child (παῖδα, Pind. Pyth. 9.61), bones (τὰ ὀστᾶ, Thuc. 1.126), or prizes (ἀέθλια, Il. 23.736);

• to raise up from the ground, e.g., a sacrificial victim (ἀνελόντες ἀπὸ χθονός, Od. 3.453);

• to undertake or assume responsibility, e.g., burdens (πόνους, Hdt. 6.108), warfare (πόλεμον, Hdt. 5.36), or public service (δημόσιον ἔργον, Pl. Lg. 921d);

• to receive, as in taking up a child to claim paternity or fosterage (Plut. Ant. 36; Men. Sam. 159);

• to adopt a view or opinion (γνώμην, Hdt. 7.16);

• to exact or collect, e.g., vengeance (ποινὴν, Hdt. 2.134), or tribute;

• to take up into one’s care, e.g., wounded persons or shipwrecked survivors (Xen. HG 1.7.4);

• to carry off, including in the sense of rescue or preservation;

• to contract a lease, undertake a task, or withdraw funds;

• to accept or entertain (emotion or thought), e.g., a thought (ἐπιφροσύνας, Od. 19.22) or a sense of good fortune (εὐδαιμονίαν, Pi. Nem. 7.56);

• to confute, in philosophical or rhetorical contexts (Arist. SE 176b36), or to annul and rescind formal declarations (νόμον, Aeschin. 3.39);

• to appoint or ordain, especially in reference to divine oracles (Pl. Lg. 865d; Hdt. 1.13).

This wide semantic field reflects a verb deeply embedded in religious, civic, juridical, and domestic contexts, often connoting not destruction but appropriation, assumption, or enactment of formal responsibility. When ἀναιρέω is used in the New Testament—e.g., Acts 7:21 (where Pharaoh’s daughter “took up” Moses), or Acts 23:15 (in a plot to “remove” Paul)—its meaning should be examined with sensitivity to these broader classical uses. Resorting to a reductive translation such as “kill” risks not only lexical imprecision but also theological and narratological distortion. A context-sensitive rendering, informed by both diachronic semantics and classical usage, is required to preserve the nuanced rhetorical and legal overtones that may be active in the New Testament text.