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What does the Bible mean by…

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“atonement”

Greek / Hebrew Both Testaments Romans 5:11

The Hebrew kaphar / kippur (Yom Kippur) is associated with covering, cleansing, or expiation — scholars debate which of these best describes its core meaning. The Greek katallagē emphasises reconciliation — restoring a broken relationship. The English word 'atonement' was coined by William Tyndale (1525) from 'at one ment' — his interpretive English coinage rather than a direct translation of either underlying word. The legal, ritual, and relational dimensions are all present, with different emphases in different language layers.

The word itself

כִּפֻּר · καταλλαγή kippur · katallagē

Lexicon citation

HALOT s.v. כָּפַר (kaphar) records the verbal root with multiple proposals — 'to cover,' 'to cleanse,' 'to wipe / expiate' — and notes that the precise core meaning is debated among scholars. The related noun kippurim gives us Yom Kippur. BDAG s.v. καταλλαγή: the reestablishment of an interrupted or broken relationship, reconciliation. The two underlying concepts are not identical.

The English word is a 16th-century coinage

“Atonement” did not exist as a single English word before William Tyndale’s 1525 New Testament. Tyndale, working to translate the Greek of the New Testament into the English of his day, faced a vocabulary gap: there was no English word for the concept Paul was naming with katallagē. He coined one — combining “at” + “one” + the suffix “-ment” — to produce at-one-ment: the state or act of being at one. The word stuck. Five hundred years later it carries the connotations Tyndale built into it.

The OED (s.v. atonement, etymology) traces the formation explicitly. “Atonement” is one of a small number of English words specifically coined for biblical translation that has remained in the language.

The Hebrew layer: kippur

The Hebrew kippur (כִּפֻּר) — best known as the name of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16, 23:27-32) — derives from the verbal root kpr (כפר). HALOT s.v. kpr documents the underlying senses:

  • To cover — physical or metaphorical covering
  • To wipe, cleanse — removing contamination
  • To make atonement — the technical ritual sense

The lexicographical question of whether the primary meaning of kpr is “cover” or “wipe/cleanse” is debated. Both senses produce “atonement” as an outcome: the offence is covered or cleansed, the relationship between people and God is restored.

In the Levitical sacrificial system, kippur names the act and the day. On Yom Kippur the high priest sprinkled blood on the kapporeth (the lid of the ark — translated hilastērion in the Septuagint; see our entry on propitiation). The covering / cleansing happened at a specific place, at a specific time, through a specific ritual.

The Greek layer: katallagē

Katallagē (καταλλαγή) is a different concept. From kata (down, thoroughly) + allassō (to change, exchange). The basic sense is to exchange one state for another — specifically, the state of estrangement for the state of reconciliation. BDAG glosses it: “the reestablishment of an interrupted or broken relationship.”

Paul uses katallagē and its verb katallassō in 2 Corinthians 5:18-21, Romans 5:10-11, and elsewhere for the restoration of the God-human relationship in Christ. The image is relational, drawn from ordinary human experience — the ending of a quarrel, the restoration of a friendship.

What the words emphasise differently

ConceptEmphasisImage
Hebrew kippurCovering / cleansingLevitical ritual at the kapporeth
Greek katallagēReconciliation / restored relationshipExchanged states, ended quarrel
English atonement (Tyndale)Being at oneA composite — “at-one-ment”

The English “atonement” Tyndale coined intentionally synthesised the underlying concepts. It is a translation choice, not a transparent rendering.

What this site does not do

We do not adjudicate among the various theological theories of atonement (penal substitution, Christus victor, moral influence, satisfaction theory, ransom theory, recapitulation). Each draws on different aspects of the underlying biblical vocabulary. We document what the words say at the lexical level; the theological models are constructed on top of that base.