Kisah Para Rasul 10:22

10:22 They said, “Cornelius the centurion, ¹  a righteous ²  and God-fearing man, well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, ³  was directed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and to hear a message ⁴  from you.”

Kisah Para Rasul 17:18

17:18 Also some of the Epicurean ⁵  and Stoic ⁶  philosophers were conversing ⁷  with him, and some were asking, ⁸  “What does this foolish babbler ⁹  want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods.” ¹⁰  (They said this because he was proclaiming the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) ¹¹ 

[10:22]  ¹ sn See the note on the word centurion in 10:1.

[10:22]  ² tn Or “just.”

[10:22]  ³ tn The phrase τοῦ ἔθνους τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων (tou eqnou" twn Ioudaiwn) is virtually a technical term for the Jewish nation (1 Macc 10:25; 11:30, 33; Josephus, Ant. 14.10.22 [14.248]). “All the Jewish people,” while another possible translation of the Greek phrase, does not convey the technical sense of a reference to the nation in English.

[10:22]  sn The long introduction of Cornelius by his messengers is an attempt to commend this Gentile to his Jewish counterpart, which would normally be important to do in the culture of the time.

[10:22]  ⁴ tn Grk “hear words.”

[17:18]  ⁵ sn An Epicurean was a follower of the philosophy of Epicurus, who founded a school in Athens about 300 b.c. Although the Epicureans saw the aim of life as pleasure, they were not strictly hedonists, because they defined pleasure as the absence of pain. Along with this, they desired the avoidance of trouble and freedom from annoyances. They saw organized religion as evil, especially the belief that the gods punished evildoers in an afterlife. In keeping with this, they were unable to accept Paul’s teaching about the resurrection.

[17:18]  ⁶ sn A Stoic was a follower of the philosophy founded by Zeno (342-270 b.c.), a Phoenician who came to Athens and modified the philosophical system of the Cynics he found there. The Stoics rejected the Epicurean ideal of pleasure, stressing virtue instead. The Stoics emphasized responsibility for voluntary actions and believed risks were worth taking, but thought the actual attainment of virtue was difficult. They also believed in providence.

[17:18]  ⁷ tn BDAG 956 s.v. συμβάλλω 1 has “converse, confer” here.

[17:18]  ⁸ tn Grk “saying.”

[17:18]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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.

[17:18]  ¹¹ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.