Acts 6:9

Acts 6:9 Liberti,nwn

Since the other synagogues mentioned in this verse are named from countries, and since there were freedmen in every country, many scholars from Beza onwards have suggested that instead of Liberti,nwn we should read Libisti,nwn or Libusti,nwn (“Libyans”). ¹⁵⁰ Schulthess proposed Libu,wn tw/n kata. Kurh,nhn (compare Acts 2:10). One of the Arabic versions reads “Corinthians.”

In Ropes’s opinion, the explanation “Libyans,” which is quoted from Chrysostom in the Armenian catena and is found in the Armenian vulgate text, may be an interpretation, not a variant reading. ¹⁵¹

On the other hand, it is possible, as Lake and Cadbury suggest (in loc.), that the Greek text refers to only one synagogue; thus, the NEB renders the verse: “But some members of the synagogue called the Synagogue of Freedmen, comprising Cyrenians and Alexandrians and people from Cilicia and Asia, came forward and argued with Stephen.” With this interpretation emendation is not necessary, and even on the usual view that several synagogues are intended, there is no compelling reason to depart from the text of the Greek witnesses.

¹⁵⁰ The history of this emendation is given by J. Rendel Harris, Expositor, Sixth Series, VI (1902), pp. 379—385.

¹⁵¹ The Text of Acts, p. 58; see also Conybeare, American Journal of Philology, XVII (1896), p. 152.