Featured A Translation Conundrum

Again, apologies about the OP: I originally said "plural" after "or many," and it is a singular. (I fixed it.) However, it can present a plural concept if it is taken as "many" instead of "much." That would be where we get the rendering "words" rather than time. Of course we could say "many minutes" if we wanted to make it a matter of time.

 

Using a footnote is acceptable in such cases.

 

That's not a bad rendering; I like the HCSB generally (except that they seem to translate checed as "steadfast love" in the OT and ignore the "mercy" meaning).

 

A Greek prof friend pointed out to me that ἐν ὀλίγῳ is clearly about words in Eph. 3:3. In Dan. 11:23 in the LXX the phrase is "with a small people," (though the word for "people" is there, ἔθνει), though that is not strictly parallel, since the phrase in Acts only has the two words in the prepositional phrase. Again, in Wisdom 4:13 in the LXX Apocrypha, the phrase occurs as "in a short time" with nothing for ὀλίγῳ to modify, as in our Acts usage.

 

Let's look at the grammar in Acts 26 a little more. The word ὀλίγῳ (oligo) is an adjective. Now, if there were a definite article before the adjective (after the preposition), we could say that it was the substantival usage--that is, where the adjective is being used as a noun. Since there is no article, I have to say that the use is clearly just as an adjective. This means we have to look for an understood noun for the adjective to modify, since there is no noun to modify in the text.

To me, this leaves only two main possibilities: "a few words" or "a small amount of time." Paul's answer and the usage by Paul in Eph. 3:3 have almost convinced me that "a few words" is what is meant in our conundrum.

By Paul's answer, I mean in the Byzantine Textform, not the UBS4 (Alexandrian) reading of "great" instead of "many," which would allow for the possibility of "persuasion," as robustheologian has suggested.

 

Double post.

 

This is following the critical text, which has "great" (μεγάλῳ) rather than "many" (πολλῷ) in Paul's answer in v. 28. Never mind my Byzantine priority position, the Byz. reading just makes more sense to me, since there Paul's answer there is more sophisticated, using opposites.

 

Hi, Jon. Thanks for weighing in. ("In dis conaaaa,")

Indubitably.

Please note the further textual difference, with μεγάλῳ in the UBS, but πολλῷ in the Byz. I think your observation is accurate about the UBS text, but arguable about the πολλῷ.