My translation This one (ie Jesus) by the deliberate will and foreknowledge of God was given up to you and you using impious men attaching him (ie crucifying) killed him whom God raised up releasing from the agony of death inasmuch as it was not possible that he should be rulled by it(death)
I asume that προσπήξαντες applies to the “you lot” that Peter is addressing. They are are the only nominative plural though, given he is addressing Jews and in the inhabitants of Jerusalem who just happen to be hanging around, it is a very stark aνδ arguably a bit unfair accusation. On top of that the Good News translation has “and you killed him by letting sinful men nail him to the cross”. Is that softening justified? Perhaps there is an assumed relative ὅς that would allow προσπήξαντες to be attached to the impious men?
διὰ χειρὸς ἀνόμων looks to me like a general reference to Gentiles who were without the law of Moses. Take a look at the Gospel of Peter which lays the blame on the religious authorities (they didn’t wash their hands) and after the crucifixion and death of Jesus, Pilate proclaims his innocence. Post-Panama Supertankers full of ink have been spilled on the subject of who was responsible for what, in regard to the crucifixion. Publications on this topic became an industry after May of 1945.
Given the context I would have thought that it is the Romans who actually hammered in the nails that is intended. I am first of all concerned with what the Greek actually says. As I read it, given there is an instrumental dative, Peter is portrayed as claiming his hearers have actually hammered in the nails albeit using the godless Romans as their tool. However, at least several translators don’t go that far and it is safe to assume that they understand Greek better than me. Hence my hesitation in believing I have read it right.
I got confused when I wrote my reply - yes that’s the only dative here and not relevant to the bit I was focusing on.
This was the bit I actually had in mind. διὰ is being used in the sense of the by agency of which has a similar role as an instrumental dative - hence my confusion.
I am not up on the the different versions. Do these differ significantly from the text on Perseus which I am using.
Notwithstanding that, thanks for confirming that the subject προσπήξαντες must be the same as the subject of ἀνείλατε.
And I would expect the author of Luke-Acts is likely to have a similar point of view to Paul so, yes, that does reinforce that.
The only points of grammatical ambiguity here concern the adverbial phrases, τῇ ὡρισμένῃ βουλῇ καὶ προγνώσει τοῦ θεοῦ and διὰ χειρὸς ἀνόμων. Does “by the set plan and foreknowledge of the god” apply only to εκδοτον “handed over” or to the whole ball of wax, up to and including the killing? Likewise with “through hand of lawless (men).” Presumably both phrases are meant to apply to all three actions (handing over, affixing, and destroying), but that’s not quite unambiguously said.
On the other hand, as Stirling says, προσπήξαντες necessarily refers to the subject of ἀνείλατε: “this man … you nailed up and killed.”
I’m not sure if the ἄνομοι here is meant to mean the Romans.
If they were, the sentence would be saying that the Romans handed Jesus over, while you Israelites nailed him up. That’s too counter-factual for me to accept. After all, the Jews handed him over, while the Romans nailed him to the cross. I think that ἄνομοι here must mean lawless, wicked. As far as Peter is concerned here, the Romans don’t enter into the picture at all.
This would agree well with the overall picture in Luke, who – more than the other Evangelists – goes pretty far to absolve Pilate and Herod of any blame for the death of Jesus, preferring to lay the blame on the crowd and religious leaders. In fact, take a close look at Luke 23:25ff. Pilate surrenders Jesus to “τῷ θελήματι αὐτῶν.” In the next verse, the NIV helpfully says that “the soldiers” led him away. Which is good, because you might not have guessed that from the Greek.
As I understand it when Peter says to his listeners that they nailed Jesus up and killed him it is meant in the sense that you might say Hadrian built Hadrian’s wall. Hence his listeners are responsible for death of Jesus because those who actually hammered in the nails were doing their bidding.
Michael does state that is unclear from the Greek which of and how many of the three actions is intended to apply διὰ χειρὸς ἀνόμων. However, given that Luke has already described Jesus being crucified by Roman soldiers then the “by the means of the hands of unbelievers” must apply to them,
The New English Bible has “When he had been given up to you, by the deliberate will and plan of God, you used heathen men to crucify and kill him.”
When I first read it I wasn’t so sure. Now it seems pretty close to the Greek and it fits the bill in the sense that it fits with Luke’s aim to take as much as the blame as possible off the shoulders of the Romans and place it on the shoulders of the crowd and the religious leaders or in this case the inhabitants of Jerusalem as a whole.