Acts 22:16

Mark Wilson emory2002 at hotmail.com
Wed Jul 12 17:36:30 EDT 2000




In an attempt to understand how to approach a “problem” passage as this, I 
would like some help. To be honest, I have no idea how to even start, but 
this is how I arrived at an answer:


Based on the chronological sequence of these four actions/events elsewhere 
clearly identified in Scripture, I put together the following 
“Chronological” model:

Actual Chronological sequence of actions/events in Acts 22:16:

1 Call             (Aorist Participle)
2 Purification     (Aorist Imperative)

3 Arise		   (Aorist Participle)
4 Baptized         (Aorist Imperative)

For this exercise, I am assuming baptism is water baptism.

I have kept them paired as Luke has. Which I thought might be significant.

I then concluded:

The action of the Aorist Imperative (AI) is SUBSEQUENT to the action of the 
Aorist Participle (AP) with which it is paired, and further noted that each 
Aorist Imperative functions as “Causative” to its Participle.

Hence:

AP	Arise
AI	to bring about (causative) baptism

AI	Call
AP	to bring about (causative) purification


Since Call is first in sequence of these four actions, I started there and 
worked my way backward. Since the first set of AP AI (Arise, Baptize) occurs 
chronologically AFTER the second set (Call, Purify), one would need to 
supply the following:


AP	Arise
AI	to bring about (causative) baptism

(On what grounds, on the basis of what authority?)

AI	(Since) Having Called
AP	to bring about (causative) purification


Putting all the above together, I get the following conception:

Saul, Arise, in order to bring about or in order to receive water baptism. 
This is to be done on the basis that you have called on the name of the 
Lord, which brings about or so that you would receive the purification of 
sins.

END OF MODEL.

My justification for creating this model is based on the fact that QUANTITY 
should not be given more consideration than QUALITY. That is, simply because 
a word or phrase is “generally” translated a particular way most of the time 
(quantity), we must not make that the deciding factor. Similar expressions 
within different contexts often express a different idea (quality).

To put it another way, we do not translate every Genitive the same way every 
time, even if the usage is exactly the same as elsewhere. We do not 
translate the same Aorist Participle the same way every time.

Anyway, that’s the best I can do on my own. I would really appreciate any 
feedback. OFFLIST responses are welcome.

Thank you,

Mark Wilson








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