Acts 2:29

2:29 “Brothers, ¹  I can speak confidently ²  to you about our forefather ³  David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

Acts 3:12

3:12 When Peter saw this, he declared to the people, “Men of Israel, ⁴  why are you amazed at this? Why ⁵  do you stare at us as if we had made this man ⁶  walk by our own power or piety?

Acts 6:14

6:14 For we have heard him saying that Jesus the Nazarene will destroy this place and change the customs ⁷  that Moses handed down to us.”

Acts 7:40

7:40 saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go in front of us, for this Moses, who led us out of the land of Egypt ⁸  – we do not know what has happened to him!’ ⁹ 

Acts 10:41

10:41 not by all the people, but by us, the witnesses God had already chosen, ¹⁰  who ate and drank ¹¹  with him after he rose from the dead.

Acts 11:13

11:13 He informed us how he had seen an angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and summon Simon, who is called Peter,

Acts 11:17

11:17 Therefore if God ¹²  gave them the same gift ¹³  as he also gave us after believing ¹⁴  in the Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁵  who was I to hinder ¹⁶  God?”

Acts 16:9

16:9 A ¹⁷  vision appeared to Paul during the night: A Macedonian man was standing there ¹⁸  urging him, ¹⁹  “Come over ²⁰  to Macedonia ²¹  and help us!”

Acts 16:16-17

Paul and Silas Are Thrown Into Prison

16:16 Now ²²  as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave girl met us who had a spirit that enabled her to foretell the future by supernatural means. ²³  She ²⁴  brought her owners ²⁵  a great profit by fortune-telling. ²⁶  16:17 She followed behind Paul and us and kept crying out, ²⁷  “These men are servants ²⁸  of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way ²⁹  of salvation.” ³⁰ 

Acts 28:2

28:2 The local inhabitants ³¹  showed us extraordinary ³²  kindness, for they built a fire and welcomed us all because it had started to rain ³³  and was cold.

Acts 28:15

28:15 The brothers from there, ³⁴  when they heard about us, came as far as the Forum of Appius ³⁵  and Three Taverns ³⁶  to meet us. When he saw them, ³⁷  Paul thanked God and took courage.

[2:29]  ¹ tn Since this represents a continuation of the address beginning in v.14 and continued in v. 22, “brothers” has been used here rather than a generic expression like “brothers and sisters.”

[2:29]  ² sn Peter’s certainty is based on well-known facts.

[2:29]  ³ tn Or “about our noted ancestor,” “about the patriarch.”

[3:12]  ⁴ tn Or perhaps “People of Israel,” since this was taking place in Solomon’s Portico and women may have been present. The Greek ἄνδρες ᾿Ισραηλῖται (andre" Israhlitai) used in the plural would normally mean “men, gentlemen” (BDAG 79 s.v. ἀνήρ 1.a).

[3:12]  ⁵ tn Grk “or why.”

[3:12]  ⁶ tn Grk “him”; the referent (the man) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:14]  ⁷ tn Or “practices.”

[7:40]  ¹⁰ tn Or simply “of Egypt.” The phrase “the land of” could be omitted as unnecessary or redundant.

[7:40]  ¹¹ sn A quotation from Exod 32:1, 23. Doubt (we do not know what has happened to him) expresses itself in unfaithful action. The act is in contrast to God’s promise in Exod 23:20.

[10:41]  ¹³ tn Or “the witnesses God had previously chosen.” See Acts 1:8.

[10:41]  ¹⁴ sn Ate and drank. See Luke 24:35-49.

[11:17]  ¹⁶ tc Codex Bezae (D) and {a few other Western witnesses} here lack ὁ θεός (Jo qeo", “God”), perhaps because these scribes considered the Holy Spirit to be the gift of Christ rather than the gift of God; thus leaving the subject implicit would naturally draw the reader back to v. 16 to see the Lord Jesus as the bestower of the Spirit.

[11:17]  ¹⁷ sn That is, the same gift of the Holy Spirit.

[11:17]  ¹⁸ tn Or “gave us when we believed”; or “gave us after we believed”; or “gave us who believed”; or “gave them when they believed the same gift as he also gave us.” The aorist dative plural participle πιστεύσασιν (pisteusasin) can be understood in several different ways: (1) It could modify ἡμῖν (Jhmin, “us”) or αὐτοῖς (autois, “them”). Proximity (it immediately follows ἡμῖν) would suggest that it belongs with ἡμῖν, so the last option (“gave them when they believed the same gift he also gave us”) is less likely. (2) The participle could be either adverbial or adjectival, modifying ἡμῖν. This decision is primarily a contextual one. The point Peter made is not whether or not the Gentiles believed, since both groups (“us” and “they”) had believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. The point was whether or not the Gentiles received the Spirit when they believed, just as Jewish Christians had received the Spirit on the day of Pentecost when they believed. Translated as an adjectival participle, πιστεύσασιν only affirms the fact of belief, however, and raises somewhat of a theological problem if one realizes, “Would God have given the Gentiles the Spirit if they had not believed?” (In other words, belief in itself is a theological prerequisite for receiving the Spirit. As such, in the case of the Gentiles, it is assumed.) Thus in context it makes more sense to understand the participle πιστεύσασιν as adverbial, related to the time of belief in connection with the giving of the Spirit. (3) The participle πιστεύσασιν as a temporal participle can refer to action antecedent to the action of the main verb ἔδωκεν (edwken) or contemporaneous with it. Logically, at least, the gift of the Spirit followed belief in the case of the original Christians, who had believed before the day of Pentecost. In the case of Cornelius and his household, belief and the reception of the Spirit were virtually simultaneous. One can argue that Peter is “summarizing” the experience of Jewish Christians, and therefore the actions of belief and reception of the Spirit, while historically separate, have been “telescoped” into one (“gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed”), but to be technically accurate the participle πιστεύσασιν should be translated “gave them the same gift as he also gave us after we believed.” A number of these problems can be avoided, however, by using a translation in English that maintains some of the ambiguity of the Greek original. Thus “if God gave them the same gift as he also gave us after believing” is used, where the phrase “after believing” can refer either to “them” or to “us,” or both.

[11:17]  ¹⁹ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

[11:17]  ²⁰ tn Or “prevent,” “forbid” (BDAG 580 s.v. κωλύω 1.a). Peter’s point is that he will not stand in the way of God.

[16:9]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “And a.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[16:9]  ²⁰ tn The word “there” is not in the Greek text, but is implied.

[16:9]  ²¹ tn The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant and has not been translated.

[16:9]  ²² tn Grk “Coming over.” The participle διαβάς (diabas) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

[16:9]  ²³ sn Macedonia was the Roman province of Macedonia in Greece.

[16:16]  ²² tn Grk “Now it happened that.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[16:16]  ²³ tn Or “who had a spirit of divination”; Grk “who had a spirit of Python.” According to BDAG 896-97 s.v. πύθων, originally Πύθων (Puqwn) was the name of the serpent or dragon that guarded the Delphic oracle. According to Greek mythology, it lived at the foot of Mount Parnassus and was killed by Apollo. From this, the word came to designate a person who was thought to have a spirit of divination. Pagan generals, for example, might consult someone like this. So her presence here suggests a supernatural encounter involving Paul and her “spirit.” W. Foerster, TDNT 6:920, connects the term with ventriloquism but states: “We must assume, however, that for this girl, as for those mentioned by Origen…, the art of ventriloquism was inseparably connected with a (supposed or authentic) gift of soothsaying.” It should also be noted that if the girl in question here were only a ventriloquist, the exorcism performed by Paul in v. 18 would not have been effective.

[16:16]  ²⁴ tn Grk “who.” Because of the awkwardness in English of having two relative clauses follow one another (“who had a spirit…who brought her owners a great profit”) the relative pronoun here (“who”) has been translated as a pronoun (“she”) and a new sentence begun in the translation.

[16:16]  ²⁵ tn Or “masters.”

[16:16]  ²⁶ tn On this term see BDAG 616 s.v. μαντεύομαι. It was used of those who gave oracles.

[16:17]  ²⁵ tn Grk “crying out, saying”; the participle λέγουσα (legousa) is redundant in English and has not been translated. The imperfect verb ἔκραζεν (ekrazen) has been translated as a progressive imperfect.

[16:17]  ²⁶ tn Grk “slaves.” See the note on the word “servants” in 2:18. The translation “servants” was used here because in this context there appears to be more emphasis on the activity of Paul and his companions (“proclaiming to you the way of salvation”) than on their status as “slaves of the Most High God.”

[16:17]  ²⁷ tn Or “a way.” The grammar of this phrase is a bit ambiguous. The phrase in Greek is ὁδὸν σωτηρίας (Jodon swthria"). Neither the head noun nor the genitive noun has the article; this is in keeping with Apollonius’ Canon (see ExSyn 239-40). Since both nouns are anarthrous, this construction also fits Apollonius’ Corollary (see ExSyn 250-54); since the genitive noun is abstract it is most naturally qualitative, so the head noun could either be definite or indefinite without being unusual as far as the grammar is concerned. Luke’s usage of ὁδός elsewhere is indecisive as far as this passage is concerned. However, when one looks at the historical background it is clear that (1) the woman is shut up (via exorcism) not because her testimony is false but because of its source (analogous to Jesus’ treatment of demons perhaps), and (b) “the way” is a par excellence description of the new faith throughout Acts. It thus seems that at least in Luke’s presentation “the way of salvation” is the preferred translation.

[16:17]  ²⁸ sn Proclaiming to you the way of salvation. The remarks were an ironic recognition of Paul’s authority, but he did not desire such a witness, possibly for fear of confusion. Her expression the Most High God might have been understood as Zeus by the audience.

[28:2]  ²⁸ tn Although this is literally βάρβαροι (barbaroi; “foreigners, barbarians”) used for non-Greek or non-Romans, as BDAG 166 s.v. βάρβαρος 2.b notes, “Of the inhabitants of Malta, who apparently spoke in their native language Ac 28:2, 4 (here β. certainly without derogatory tone…).”

[28:2]  ²⁹ tn BDAG 1019 s.v. τυγχάνω 2.d states, “δυνάμεις οὐ τὰς τυχούσας extraordinary miracles Ac 19:11. Cp. 28:2.”

[28:2]  ³⁰ tn Or “because it was about to rain.” BDAG 418 s.v. ἐφίστημι 4 states, “διὰ τ. ὑετὸν τὸν ἐφεστῶτα because it had begun to rain Ac 28:2…But the mng. here could also be because it threatened to rain (s. 6).”

[28:15]  ³¹ sn Mention of Christian brothers from there (Rome) shows that God’s message had already spread as far as Italy and the capital of the empire.

[28:15]  ³² sn The Forum of Appius was a small traveler’s stop on the Appian Way about 43 mi (71 km) south of Rome (BDAG 125 s.v. ᾿Αππίου φόρον). It was described by Horace as “crammed with boatmen and stingy tavernkeepers” (Satires 1.5.3).

[28:15]  ³³ sn Three Taverns was a stop on the Appian Way 33 mi (55 km) south of Rome.

[28:15]  ³⁴ tn Grk “whom, when he saw [them], Paul.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the relative pronoun (“whom”) was replaced by the personal pronoun (“them”) and a new sentence begun here in the translation.