[B-Greek] Question about Acts 17:25

Harold Holmyard hholmyard3 at earthlink.net
Sat Feb 23 08:55:04 EST 2008


Chad Bonawitz wrote:
> I am just studying Greek on my own and ran into a question I can't figure
> out when studying Acts 17:25 where the word therapeuo is translated as
> "worshiped" - I noticed that EVERY other place in the N.T. it is translated
> as "healing", "healed", "heal", "cure", "cured" except for this one place -
> Why is this? What is the meaning of this translation in this passage? Thank
> You - Chad
>   

You're looking at the King James Version, Modern translations do not 
think that word choice was very good, because they replace "worshiped" 
with "served" (NIV, NRSV, NASB, HCSB, ESV). The Greek word is the source 
for our word "therapeutic." It means "serve, be a servant" and is used 
of serving a divinity. It can also mean "care for, wait upon, treat 
(medically), heal, or restore." The KJV translation is probably due to 
the fact that there is a very common Hebrew verb in the OT that means 
"serve" but often also implies "worship." If one served a particular 
god, he also worshiped that god.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard




More information about the B-Greek mailing list