Acts 14:27

Acts 14:27 evpoi,hsen

After o[sa o` qeo.j evpoi,hsen codex Bezae continues with a pleonastic combination of pronouns, auvtoi/j meta. tw/n yucw/n auvtw/n. It is generally recognized that the reading meta. tw/n yucw/n auvtw/n reflects Semitic influence and is linguistically equivalent to meta. auvtw/n in the usual text. The preceding auvtoi/j is less easy to account for, but it probably represents the Aramaic proleptic pronoun, which is superfluous in Greek.

Torrey thinks that the second-century editor wished to emphasize the twofold work of God (“for them” and “for the Gentiles”), and therefore wrote !whvpn !whm[ db[, “had done for them themselves,” which was then turned back more literally into the Greek of D. ²⁹²

²⁹² C. C. Torrey, Documents of the Primitive Church, p. 146. The suggestion, however, involves Torrey’s improbable theory of multiple translations (see above, pp. 231 f.).