Acts 15:18 standing alone

[Alan Patterson]

Acts 15:

17ὅπως ἂν ἐκζητήσωσιν οἱ κατάλοιποι τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὸν κύριον, καὶ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ἐφ' οὓς ἐπικέκληται τὸ ὄνομά μου ἐπ' αὐτούς, λέγει κύριος ποιῶν ταῦτα 18γνωστὰ ἀπ' αἰῶνος. 19διὸ ἐγὼ κρίνω μὴ παρενοχλεῖν τοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν ἐθνῶν ἐπιστρέφουσιν ἐπὶ τὸν θεόν,

What is the syntactical reason for verse 18 standing by itself? It seems like vs 18 has to be a part of vs 17, "the Lord, the one who makes these things γνωστὰ... of "the Lord who makes γνωστὰ these things..." This whole quote is apparently an allusion to Isa 45:2 [which reads: εἰ ἀναγγελοῦσιν ἐγγισάτωσαν ἵνα γνῶσιν ἅμα τίς ἀκουστὰ ἐποίησεν ταῦτα ἀπ' ἀρχῆς τότε ἀνηγγέλη ὑμῖν ἐγὼ ὁ θεός καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλος πλὴν ἐμοῦ δίκαιος καὶ σωτὴρ οὐκ ἔστιν πάρεξ ἐμοῦ]. Is there something in the Hebrew (of which I have no knowledge] or this LXX text that explains this strange break/pause in the middle of a clause?

[cwconrad]

Acts 15:

17ὅπως ἂν ἐκζητήσωσιν οἱ κατάλοιποι τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὸν κύριον, καὶ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ἐφ' οὓς ἐπικέκληται τὸ ὄνομά μου ἐπ' αὐτούς, λέγει κύριος ποιῶν ταῦτα 18γνωστὰ ἀπ' αἰῶνος. 19διὸ ἐγὼ κρίνω μὴ παρενοχλεῖν τοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν ἐθνῶν ἐπιστρέφουσιν ἐπὶ τὸν θεόν,

What is the syntactical reason for verse 18 standing by itself? It seems like vs 18 has to be a part of vs 17 ...

You are right to suppose that verse 18 completes the clause in verse 17. It is an error to suppose that syntax bears any necessary relationship to verse-numbering -- or chapter number either. Verse-numbering is a relatively late (16th century, I think), development, and it is in general more a hindrance than a help to understanding the written text. The only real utility of verse-numbering that I can see is that it enables two or more individuals to refer conveniently to the same textual units in discussion. It's probably no accident that the verse-numbering originates about the time of the invention of printing and the publication of printed versions of the Biblical text. Given the fact that the verse-divisions are not syntactical and are distracting, some biblical software packages and (I think) even some publishers of Biblical texts have tried to make the chapter-and-verse-numbers as unobtrusive as possible in order to facilitate connected rather than disjointed reading.

You might want to consult one of the standard books on the text of the (Greek) New Testament for a fuller discussion, but you'll glean something from the Wikipedia article at https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... _the_Bible

[Stephen Carlson]

IIRC, verse numbering was invented by Robert Estienne in the 1550s in order to assist readers of his Greek-Latin New Testament match up the Greek with the Latin translation. The joke is that he indicated the verses by making a tick mark in his text during a carriage ride on the way to Paris and, every time it hit a bump, another verse came into being.

Stephen

[cwconrad]

IIRC, verse numbering was invented by Robert Estienne in the 1550s in order to assist readers of his Greek-Latin New Testament match up the Greek with the Latin translation. The joke is that he indicated the verses by making a tick mark in his text during a carriage ride on the way to Paris and, every time it hit a bump, another verse came into being.

Stephen

Aha! That will have been your namesake, "Stephanus" -- also responsible for the arbitrary cataloging and subdivision of the Greek text of Plato, commonly referred to as "Stephanus numbering" -- and of equal renown with the "Köchel Verzeichnis" of Mozart's works.

The "joke" is as good an explanation as any of the arbitrary nature of the NT chapter-and-verse-divisions.

[Mark Lightman]

The joke is that he indicated the verses by making a tick mark in his text during a carriage ride on the way to Paris and, every time it hit a bump, another verse came into being.

Hey, if the road to Paris had not been so bumpy, I would never have memorized any Bible verses. Jesus wept!