Matthew 28:17 reads; καὶ ιδόντες α?τὸν π?οσεκύνησαν, οἱ δὲ ?δίστασαν. I compared four translations all of which translate οἱ δέ ?δίστασαν as but some doubted.
I am wondering why some and not they.
It may seem a little bit of a strange situation; And when they saw him they worshiped him but they doubted but that is no justification to make it some is it? It could just as well be; they worshiped him, yet they doubted , in the sense of eventhough they doubted.
Or is eventhough not a waranted tranlation for δέ.
It’s possible. With oi being a relative pronoun as such, it has the flexibility to stretch. I can’t recall this in any other part of Matthew, so personally I’d do “they” instead of “some.” “Some” is too much interpretation.
Blass, Debrunner, and Funk refer to this verse in section 250 of their grammar. They say hOI DE means “but others” and states that unlike the other examples it list that start with MEN and then are followed by DE that:
I know that quite often in Classical DE is simply used to denote a new sentence or idea. It could be that Matthew is Atticizing here. Just a guess.
Small sidenote…I was just saying how great I thought BDF was…and here they are the only Koine Grammar that deals with this specific verse. It could be that since they are writing a Koine Grammar coming from a Classical standpoint, that this sort of thing stuck out a bit more to them than some of the other modern grammars. Bert…I’m telling ya…if you don’t own BDF you should!
I support Kopio. When reading the sentence, the οἱ δέ suggests immediately a leading μέν, so in Greek the turn of phrase suggests that the οἱ are others than the ones who “worshiped”. Otherwise, to render they worshiped him but they doubted it would have been rather like (καίπε?) π?οσκυνήσαντες α?τὸν ?δίστασαν, although other ways of expression are also possible.
χαί?ετε 
To have a full picture, one has to read the previous verses. From this short passage, the impression one gets is “some worshipped him, and some others doubted (hesitated)?. Generally, Kopio’s contribution is correct. It is an atticisim, having a poetical nuance. I wonder if the proper text spoken by ordinary people was “και/ενω αλλοι?.
Thanks to all of you.
Kopio, I have heard that BDF is very similar to Smyth except that it is geared towards koine.
You found οἱ δέ in BDF so I thought just maybe it will be in Smyth as well.
Lo and behold; There it is; Section 2838 b.
οἱ δέ, when opposed to a large number of persons or things, is often used without οἱ μέν, as ποελελυθότες ?πὶ χιλόν, οἱ δ’ ?πὶ ξύλα. having gone for fodder, and some for fuel X.C.6.3.9.
I suppose you are right, and Mt. 26.67 definitely is another example of such. There’s no way you can read the expected reading into that line.
I’m in a bit of a hurry now but I think I know the possible answer to this one.
You see, I opened my Bible to look at the previous lines and to my surprise in 28:17 it says that Καί ιδόντες αυτόν, π?οσεκ?νησαν αυτόν; τινές δε εδίστασαν. Myriobiblos (the on-line library of the Greek Orthodox Church) has hoi de etc.
My Bible seems to follow an edition of the Oxford University Press of (probably) 1921.
Hope that helps
For the record…what is your bible IreneY? You said that it follows the OUP version…I can’t find any support for the TINES to be in there at all.
I meant my copy of the bible.
Other than that I am afraid I don’t really understand the question
<?xml version="1.0"?>
well, similar. More like other worshiped while others…
as for Kai and tines, I just copied them out of the book
Bert: Do καί and τινές really have acute accents or did you mistype?
These signs are not accute neither grave accents, but signs where to put your stress in a syllable.
What I mean is…who is it published by. I am assuming it is a standard(?) modern Greek Bible. What version is it? Does that make sense? I guess it is a little different for me…I use a NIV (New International Version) for my day to day English Bible. I also really like the Philips translation, but then again, these are both translations…to where yours would be more of a version I guess. Do you own a critical Greek Text, like the NA27 or UBS4??
no, this is not a standard one. I don’t own one right now (the Bibles have been split between 4 houses) but myriobiblos covers my needs as it is the official site of the Greek Orthodox Church so I assume that they have the ‘approved’ version.
As a side note, while there are, I think, translations in modern Greek, I am not aware if there is one ‘approved’ by the official Church.
Anyway, this copy appears to be the one my grandpa owned when he was in high-school in 1925.
They were not really particular in noting the details of publishing and edition back then (in Greece I mean) so here’s what info I can give you.
It says on the first page that it was published in ΟΞΟ?ΙΑ 
(that must be Oxford or Oxfordshire) reducted (?) by the typesetter (prob) of the Academy, funded by the Brit Biblical Company for the purpose of spreading the word of God in GB and in Foreign countries
You’d probably understand all this better if I just write them in Katharevousa (still no accents so no accent means perispomeni, +H when needed and a rather ‘ancient’ way of writing the dative )
(Ε? ΟΞΟ?ΙΑ. Ετυπώθη δι’ επιμελείας του τυποθέτου της Ακαδημίας δαπάνηι της Β?εττανικης Βιβλικης hΕται?είας π?ος διάδοσιν του Θειου Λόγου εν τε τηι Μεγάληι Β?εττανίαι καί τη Αλλόδαπηι)
Second page says as I wrote before the in was Printed in England at the Oxford University Press