Acts 8:5

Acts 8:5 @th,n# {C}

It is difficult to decide the textual problem involving the presence or absence of the article. Since in the New Testament Samaria denotes the district, not the city of that name, the phrase eivj th.n po,lin th/j Samarei,aj means “to the [main] city of Samaria.” But which city did Luke intend by this circumlocution; was it Sebaste, the name given by Herod the Great to the city previously called Samaria, or was it Neapolis (Nablus), the ancient Shechem, the religious headquarters of the Samaritans? ¹⁶⁹ And why did he choose to refer to it without mentioning its name? It is not probable that he thought that Samaria had only one city.

On the other hand, the reading without the article (“to a city of Samaria”) makes excellent sense in the context, and is the natural antecedent for the reference in ver. Acts 8:8, where the author states that “there was much joy in that city.” ¹⁷⁰

The Committee was of the opinion that the external evidence supporting the article (î⁷⁴ a A B 69 181 460* 1175 1898) was so strong that the word ought not be omitted from the text altogether. Yet because internal considerations favor the absence of the article, it was considered best to enclose it within square brackets.

¹⁶⁹ For a discussion favoring the latter possibility, see Julius Boehmer, “Samaria Stadt oder Landschaft?” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, IX (1908), pp. 216—218.

¹⁷⁰ It is because of this verse that C. C. Torrey rightly hesitated to solve the problem by assuming that the phrase h` po,lij th/j Samari,aj is a mistranslation of !yrmX tnydm “the province of Samaria”; see his Composition and Date of Acts, p. 18, n. 2.