Acts 11:21

Greek Koine and Biblical and Medieval Greek
1

There are (at least) two textual readings of this verse. Leaving aside such issues as which text-type is original and theological ramifications, is there a difference in meaning between the two readings:

Reading > A, > adjectival participle: καὶ ἦν χεὶρ κυρίου μετʼ αὐτῶν, πολύς τε ἀριθμὸς > ὁ > πιστεύσας ἐπέστρεψεν ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον.



Reading > B> , adverbial participle:καὶ ἦν χεὶρ κυρίου μετʼ αὐτῶν, πολύς τε ἀριθμὸς πιστεύσας ἐπέστρεψεν ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον.

In reading B, it’s clear that all who believed turned to the Lord. That’s also how I understand reading A. But some versions that translate reading A render something like “a large number who believed turned to the Lord” — the restrictive relative clause raising the possibility that those who turned are only a subset of those who believed.

This seems unlikely to me. I would expect a partitive genitive — something like πολύς τε ἀριθμὸς των πιστευοντων ἐπέστρεψεν — but I’d like to get some perspective from those with a deeper knowledge of Greek.

Thanks!

2

I will attempt to answer in the hopes that someone else can correct my errors. There are two separate questions here, I think.

First:

ἀριθμὸς ὁ πιστεύσας ἐπέστρεψεν – a quantity that believed converted

and

ἀριθμὸς πιστεύσας ἐπέστρεψεν – a quantity believed and then converted

Second:

πολὸς ἀριθμὸς: I suppose that it could mean most, but I assumed that it makes a great quantity. Here is a similar usage that I found from the LSJ:

(Aeschines, In Timarchum) 1.78

ἔνιοι μὲν γὰρ νέοι ὄντες, προφερεῖς καὶ πρεσβύτεροι φαίνονται, ἕτεροι δὲ πολὺν ἀριθμὸν χρόνου γεγονότες παντάπασι νέοι.

There it has to mean “great amount.”

3

Thanks, jeidsath.

My Greek isn’t up to the text you cited from Aeschines. Can you translate it?

It seems from your response that you feel strongly that the Acts 11:21 reading with the article is equivalent to a restrictive relative clause, implying that only a portion of those who believed also turned to the Lord. Can you elaborate on what leads you to read it that way?

4

ἔνιοι μὲν γὰρ νέοι ὄντες, προφερεῖς καὶ πρεσβύτεροι φαίνονται, ἕτεροι δὲ πολὺν ἀριθμὸν χρόνου γεγονότες παντάπασι νέοι. For some, though being young men, appear prematurely aged and old, but others, a great quantity of time after being born, are young in every way.

It seems from your response that you feel strongly that the Acts 11:21 reading with the article is equivalent to a restrictive relative clause, > implying that only a portion of those who believed also turned to the Lord> . Can you elaborate on what leads you to read it that way?

I didn’t say that anywhere. In fact I said the opposite.

5

My apologies for misreading your comments.

May I ask what leads you to understand πολύς τε ἀριθμὸς ὁ πιστεύσας ἐπέστρεψεν ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον as non-restrictive?

6

Well, I have already broken it apart into the individual pieces above. I’m not sure what further you want me to do.

I think that your difficulty may be with the English here. In your original post you are reading “a large number who believed turned to the Lord” as if it were “a large number of those who believed turned to the Lord.” Do you see the difference in meaning?

None of the two dozen English translations here on Biblehub suggest anything about a subset of those who believed.

7

Acts 11:21 SBLGNT καὶ ἦν χεὶρ κυρίου μετ’ αὐτῶν, πολύς τε ἀριθμὸς ⸀ὁ πιστεύσας ἐπέστρεψεν ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον.

jeidsath said:

… your difficulty may be with the English here.

If you want to learn to read greek, the sooner you quit reading multiple translations the better. The bible study habit of comparing XX # of versions (any language) is not conducive to gaining ground in greek comprehension. I am not saying avoid them altogether, just don’t focus on them because translation is all about problems with the target language.

Participles and the Greek Article are both advanced[1] topics that require a lot of study. Alford’s comment on the TEXT suggests ⸀ὁ was omitted because the scribe didn’t understand why it was important.

Culy-Parsons [2] point out that ⸀ὁ πιστεύσας is an attribute defining πολύς ἀριθμὸς. The resulting complex nominative phrase functions as a unit; the subject of the verb ἐπέστρεψεν.

Barrett (ICC, 1994,p.551) “ἀριθμὸς is a noun of multitude” in Acts 4:4, 5:36, 6:7, 16:5.

[1] Intermediate students who think they have mastered the article and the participle will eventually discover they haven’t.

[2]Acts Handbook, Baylor 2003, p.226

8

CS, thanks for your input.

I actually do read the Greek NT with pretty good facility; I’m not a novice. I just don’t have much traction outside the NT.

And I understand what the article is doing in this text. It’s making πιστεύσας into an attributive adjective modifying ἀριθμὸς rather than an adverbial participle relative to ἐπέστρεψεν.

And I agree with you and jeidsath that the resulting effect is non-restrictive, that the text means a certain group of people believed the gospel and turned to the Lord. επιστρεφειν is used numerous times in the NT to describe the conversion which belief in the gospel entails.

If the author had meant to indicate that those who turned were only a subset of those who believed, he could have used a phrase like πολύς τε ἀριθμὸς των πιστευοντων ἐπέστρεψεν.

I’m not comparing various translations to ascertain the meaning of the verse. I’m dealing with a friend who’s reading the NASB and interpreting it to the effect that only a subset of those who believed turned to the Lord. That’s not how I read the Greek. Majority Text, without the article, for sure cannot mean that; Critical Text, with the article, doesn’t read that way to me but I can’t put my finger on exactly why it can’t bear that meaning.

9

With or without the article, ὁ πιστεύσας seems to mean the same thing. Maybe it’s a question of stressing position in Christ, to have it anarthrous?

I looked up the verse in Bibleworks 9 (not on this computer, so I can’t paste results). Tischendorf, Tregelles, GNT (Bibleworks’ own critical edition, much like the UBS text), Westcott/Hort, Alford, Vaticanus (a), Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus (a), all have the article.

The newer manuscripts don’t. So that argues perhaps for the article’s inclusion, which after all would be the ‘normal’ construction. In any event, the immediate following of epistrephw (sorry, I don’t have the right Greek fonts on this laptop) means ALL who believed, ‘turned’ (Hebraism for shub, so not merely got saved but became positive thereafter).

Bolding above answers why it cannot have a subset meaning. The finite verb isn’t modified by a subset among those who believed.

So I don’t know how it can be read as a subset, unless my brain is out (distinct possibility at any moment, I need 1John1:9 like breathing). :laughing:

But the conundrum comes up, because there are two verbs, in effect: believing (which saves you), and turning (which expresses wanting to learn God, see God, be with God, etc). Had epistrephw been qualified, then MAYBE you could make an argument for subset. But it’s not modified.

Interesting how Luke puts epistrephw SECOND. So much for the crowd today claiming you must repent or say aloud Christ is Lord, to be saved!

He must be thinking of Romans 10:9-10, where Paul in Greek (not in any translation) uses eis chaining to show you CAN say you believed because you DID believe, stressing it’s the BELIEVING which saves you, not the saying out loud (which in context is a snipe, cuz the Jews were SAYING Scripture but not believing it, remote context being Deut 30).

10

I’m not comparing various translations to ascertain the meaning of the verse. I’m dealing with a friend who’s reading the NASB and interpreting it to the effect that only a subset of those who believed turned to the Lord. That’s not how I read the Greek. Majority Text, without the article, for sure cannot mean that; Critical Text, with the article, doesn’t read that way to me but I can’t put my finger on exactly why it can’t bear that meaning.

Perhaps your friend is mentally inserting a “of” in the NASB English text. Regardless, it’s easy to answer your question about the Greek. What are the meanings of the following phrases?

ὁ δοῦλος ὁ ἀγαθός
δοῦλος ὁ ἀγαθός
ὁ δοῦλος ὁ θρέξας
δοῦλος ὁ θρέξας
ὁ ἀριθμὸς ὁ ἀγαθός
ἀριθμὸς ὁ ἀγαθός
ὁ ἀριθμὸς ὁ θρέξας
ἀριθμὸς ὁ θρέξας

11

The art-noun-art-adjective example are simple noun phrases with attributive adjectives:

ὁ δοῦλος ὁ ἀγαθός the good slave • ὁ ἀριθμὸς ὁ ἀγαθός the good number

The art-noun-art-ptc examples are essentially the same, with the addition of the verbal element in the ptc, which I would render by relative clauses:

ὁ δοῦλος ὁ θρέξας the slave who ran (assuming θρέξας is a 1 aor ptc of τρεχω; I’m familiar only with 2 aor εδραμον, which would give δραμων) • ὁ ἀριθμὸς ὁ θρέξας the number who ran

The examples of noun-art-adjective are a little trickier for me. I’ve always taken this pattern as almost in between attributive and predicate modification, and rendered with relative clauses:

δοῦλος ὁ ἀγαθός a slave who is good • ἀριθμὸς ὁ ἀγαθός a number who are good

(The NT example I go by on this is Philippians 3:9, μὴ ἔχων ἐμὴν δικαιοσύνην τὴν ἐκ νόμου, ‘not having a righteousness of my own which derives from Torah-observance’ – to me, the anarthrous δικαιοσύνην modified by the articulated τὴν ἐκ νόμου has that sense.)

Finally, the noun-art-ptc forms I would render similarly:

δοῦλος ὁ θρέξας the slave who ran • ἀριθμὸς ὁ θρέξας the number who ran

Maybe the ambiguity in my friend’s mind stems from the singular but collective sense of ἀριθμὸς.

12

The confusion that arises by looking at translation can be illustrated by the comments in Culy-Parsons and the translation they offer. In regard to the syntax, ὁ πιστεύσας is attributive. Both Barrett and Culy-Parsons translate it as a relative clause: “who believed” or “who had believed” … which is pretty standard English for that construction. In traditional grammars you will find statements to the effect that ὁ with the participle is behaving like a relative pronoun, introducing a subordinate clause. If that were the case then we should mention subordination in the analysis; the relative clause has an attributive relationship to πολύς τε ἀριθμὸς. No mention is made of this in Culy-Parsons. Another analysis would be ὁ πιστεύσας is functionally adjectival and there is no subordination.

Apparently there is a disjunction between the analysis and the translation. That is only a problem if you try to work backward from translation to syntax analysis.

13

I was addressing the discussion, not you as an individual. The thread seemed to be focused on english versions. There really are some difficult questions surrounding the use of the greek article. Iver Larsen recommended looking at the treatment in the sixth chapter of Scenarios, Discourse, and Translation, Richard A. Hoyle, 2008 SIL International. This is a must read for any student of biblical greek. [pdf online]

14

I think Barrett agrees with you on this. The participle without the article becomes an event prior to the main verb. In which case everything: ἦν χεὶρ κυρίου μετ᾿ αὐτῶν, πολύς τε ἀριθμὸς πιστεύσας functions as a setting for ἐπέστρεψεν ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον. Some would argue that only πολύς τε ἀριθμὸς πιστεύσας is a setting for ἐπέστρεψεν. But it seems to me that ἦν χεὶρ κυρίου μετ᾿ αὐτῶν is background for πιστεύσας … ἐπέστρεψεν ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον.

15

ὁ δοῦλος ὁ θρέξας the slave who ran (assuming θρέξας is a 1 aor ptc of τρεχω; I’m familiar only with 2 aor εδραμον, which would give δραμων)

You are more correct than I am here. δραμών would be far more common.

δοῦλος ὁ θρέξας the slave who ran • ἀριθμὸς ὁ θρέξας the number who ran

Judging from the rest of your post, “the” in both of these sentences is just a typo. But otherwise I think we have the same understanding, more or less.

16

Yep, just my 21st century computerized version of a scribal error.

Thanks to you and the others for your help.

17

“ὁ δοῦλος ὁ θρέξας” seems like standard usage for Koine as well as extending into today’s usage. Pardon me if I misundertand and issue here, though.

18

So the turning (conversion) is stressed.

19

Yes. ἐπέστρεψεν ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον is the main point.

20

Thank you!