[B-Greek] Acts 13:52 TE or DE
Iver Larsen
iver_larsen at sil.org
Thu May 6 08:03:38 EDT 2004
> Its not a significant variation issue, but the Received Text has hOI DE
> MAQHTAI and NA 26 has hOI TE MAQHTAI.
>
> Does DE or TE make for different implications as to who was
> filled with joy and holy spirit?
No.
> Might the choice of DE imply a change in subject from the
> preceding verse,
> meaning that the disciples who were left in Antioch were starting
> to be filled (imperfect)?
Sort of, but the subject in 52 is clearly shown to be hOI MAQHTAI whereas
the subject in 51 was Paul and Barnabas.
> And might the choice of TE imply that the same subject is
> retained from the preceding verse, meaning that Paul and Barnabas were
continuing
> to be filled (imperfect)?
No, TE does not imply the same subject.
> I have a friend who's GNT actually lists a variant that has GE
> instead of TE or DE.
P45 does have GE which is probably a careless mistake.
> My question is not concerned with textual criticism, but
> understanding likely nuances with TE and DE.
>
> The NEB, alone among the translations, seems to make a choice
> between Paul
> and Barnabas and the converts of Antioch. That translation
> implies the disciples
> remaining in Antioch. This choice would seem contrary to the
> nuance of the use of TE in the NA26, if TE should imply that the previous
subject is
> retained.
Whether you take the TE or DE reading, the subject for the event in v. 52 is
the disciples, that is the believers in Antioch. The verse says nothing
about Paul and Barnabas who had left the city.
TE and KAI commonly go together, in which case the meaning is "both and".
When TE occurs alone as here, the sense is a closely overlapping event with
the previous event. This use of TE is very common in Acts and very rare in
other parts of the NT. One might translate it as "and at the same time",
"while", "whereas" or something similar depending on context. One way of
doing that in English is to use "And" in the beginning of a sentence as RSV,
NEB, REB, NET and NLT do. Normally one does not begin a sentence in English
with "And", but it can be done in order to translate TE because it indicates
the close link between the events.
If the TE is original, the sense would be that while/whereas Paul and
Barnabas had left the city after the persecution, the local believers were
not dismayed, but were filled with joy through the filling of the Holy
Spirit.
If DE is original, I suspect the explicit contrast would be between the
anger of the local Jews who persecuted Paul and Barnabas and the joy of the
local believers in spite of the opposition. With TE, that contrast is still
there, but implicit in the context.
You may want to compare with TE in Acts 14:11 (v.l. DE), Acts 14:13 (v.l.
DE) and other places in Acts. There seem to have been a scribal tendency to
change Luke's TE to the more familiar DE.
Iver Larsen
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