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Bible Dictionaries
New Man
Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology
or Older translations use the expression "new man" to render the Greek words neos anthropos [ νέος ἄνθρωπος ], which actually convey the idea of new self or new human with no reference to gender. Later, politically correct translations reflect this fact with greater accuracy. For example, the New Revised Standard Version and the New International Version translate the words as "new self" in Ephesians 4:24 and Colossians 3:10 .
The appellation "new man" is not used in the New Revised Standard Version and appears only once in the New International Version where the expression is used in Ephesians 2:15 to refer collectively to the church, the body of Christ, which is an amalgamation of the many diverse and often discordant elements of society. Converts to Christ, whether Jew, Greek, male, female, slave, or free, have become part of one new person, the body of Jesus.
Speaking of Jews and Gentiles as disparate entities, Paul declares that Christ's "purpose was to create in himself one new man ("humanity" NRSV) out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility."
John McRay
See also Church, the; New Self; Paul the Apostle; Union with Christ
Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology. Edited by Walter A. Elwell
Copyright © 1996 by Walter A. Elwell. Published by Baker Books, a division of Baker Book House Company, PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49516-6287.
All rights reserved. Used by permission.
For usage information, please read the Baker Book House Copyright Statement.
Elwell, Walter A. Entry for 'New Man'. Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/bed/n/new-man.html. 1996.
