Acts 10:36-38

Acts 10:36-38

In several respects the Greek of the Alexandrian text is harsh: (1) both sentences lack connecting particles; (2) avrxa,menoj cannot be syntactically construed; and (3) the abrupt apposition of VIhsou/n to.n avpo. Nazare,q to r`h/ma is far from idiomatic. Besides several scribal efforts at amelioration, modern attempts to account for the unusual Greek include (1) the theory that an Aramaic original was translated literalistically into poor Greek (see the following comments); and (2) the suggestion that the text, being unrevised, is a conflation of two different drafts of essentially the same sentence, namely (a) u`mei/j oi;date to.n lo,gon o]n avpe,steilen…(ou-to,j evstin pa,ntwn ku,rioj) and (b) u`mei/j oi;date to. geno,menon r`h/ma … VIhsou/n. ¹⁹⁸

Despairing of construing the text as it stands, Preuschen conjectured that originally the text may have run as follows, u`mei/j oi;date to.n lo,gon( o]n avpe,steilen toi/j ui`oi/j VIsrah.l euvaggelizo,menoj eivrh,nhn dia. VIhsou/ Cristou/ tou/ avpo. Nazare,q( w`j e;crisen auvto.n k)t)l) ¹⁹⁹

¹⁹⁸ C. F. D. Moule, Expository Times, LXV (1953—54), pp. 220 f.

¹⁹⁹ Erwin Preuschen in Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, ad loc.