Acts 8:40
Context8:40 Philip, however, found himself 1 at Azotus, 2 and as he passed through the area, 3 he proclaimed the good news 4 to all the towns 5 until he came to Caesarea. 6
Acts 17:18
Context17:18 Also some of the Epicurean 7 and Stoic 8 philosophers were conversing 9 with him, and some were asking, 10 “What does this foolish babbler 11 want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods.” 12 (They said this because he was proclaiming the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 13


[8:40] 2 sn Azotus was a city on the coast of southern Palestine, known as Ashdod in OT times.
[8:40] 3 tn The words “the area” are not in the Greek text but are implied.
[8:40] 4 tn Or “he preached the gospel.”
[8:40] 6 sn Caesarea was a city on the coast of Palestine south of Mount Carmel (not Caesarea Philippi). See the note on Caesarea in Acts 10:1.
[17:18] 7 sn An Epicurean was a follower of the philosophy of Epicurus, who founded a school in Athens about 300
[17:18] 8 sn A Stoic was a follower of the philosophy founded by Zeno (342-270
[17:18] 9 tn BDAG 956 s.v. συμβάλλω 1 has “converse, confer” here.
[17:18] 11 tn Or “ignorant show-off.” The traditional English translation of σπερμολόγος (spermologo") is given in L&N 33.381 as “foolish babbler.” However, an alternate view is presented in L&N 27.19, “(a figurative extension of meaning of a term based on the practice of birds in picking up seeds) one who acquires bits and pieces of relatively extraneous information and proceeds to pass them off with pretense and show – ‘ignorant show-off, charlatan.’” A similar view is given in BDAG 937 s.v. σπερμολόγος: “in pejorative imagery of persons whose communication lacks sophistication and seems to pick up scraps of information here and there scrapmonger, scavenger…Engl. synonyms include ‘gossip’, ‘babbler’, chatterer’; but these terms miss the imagery of unsystematic gathering.”
[17:18] 12 tn The meaning of this phrase is not clear. Literally it reads “strange deities” (see BDAG 210 s.v. δαιμόνιον 1). The note of not being customary is important. In the ancient world what was new was suspicious. The plural δαιμονίων (daimoniwn, “deities”) shows the audience grappling with Paul’s teaching that God was working through Jesus.