[00:00:00] Hello, listeners. Welcome to my podcast. We will continue from yesterday, Acts, a commentary by E. M. Blaiklock, M. A. Additional notes, Acts 6, 1-8. The RV, on the strength of compelling manuscript authority, has removed verse 37 to the margin. It is most unlikely that it does not represent a genuine testimony taken of baptism, but it is
[00:00:29] the business of the lower criticism to discover and accept what the writer originally wrote, and neither to add to nor take away from it. R. B. Rackham's suggestion is likely. Can imagine that Luke, when revising his work, in his effort after conciseness, drew his pen through it. An author's erasure can easily account for a strong textual case against a logically appropriate but critically apparent intrusion.
[00:00:59] 1. Details in the story which may seem odd in a modern context are perfectly natural, indeed marks of authenticity, in the ancient setting. The Ethiopian, for example, would have been travelling with a considerable company, and it was accepted practice for a lonely stranger to attach himself to a caravan. After the ancient fashion, he was reading aloud.
[00:01:26] Additional notes, volume 20 and 34. Those interested in language, and the evidence of authentic reporting, which may sometimes be deduced from linguistic phenomena, should note revealing Hebraisms in these verses. Exceeding fair is literally, a Greek dative of reference. This renders a Hebrew mode of expression indicating a high degree of the quality of the adjective.
[00:01:56] Nineveh, for example, was a city great to God. Jonah 3, verse 2. I have seen, I have seen, 34. Renders the Greek, having seen, I have seen. Which is another Greek attempt to represent the emphatic use of the infinitive absolute, in Hebrew, noted above on 417, Acts 9, 1, 2, Assembly.
[00:02:24] It views Israel, assembled at Mount Sinai, through the eyes of Greek city organisation, Ville, 58. Young man is a term available for sepal up to the age of 40. Paul was probably at the time between 30 and 40 years of age. Some numerical discrepancies in chapter 6 are of the sort which once provided contradictions for the Ingersoll school of biblical criticism.
[00:02:52] It is obvious that Stephen could hardly have risked mistakes before his learned audience. Tradition was wider and fuller than the Old Testament story, as it has come down to us. This is one clear lesson of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In verse 4, and the parallel references in Genesis, there are difficulties over numbers, which suggest different readings in older texts which Stephen knew, but which no longer exist.
[00:03:19] Verse 6 agrees with Genesis 15, 13, but Exodus 12, 40 says 430. Stephen has given a round number, like Josephus. Verse 14 says 75, as against the 70 of Exodus 1, 5. This was an ancient variation between the Septuagint and the Hebrew text as we know it. A Qumran version of Exodus from the Dead Sea Scrolls,
[00:03:48] antedating the standardisation of the Hebrew text by two centuries, agrees with the Septuagint in reading 75. Isaiah in the Expositor's Bible, Birdmund, 1956 edition, 2, pages 799 FT. See also F.F. Bruce, opposite, pages 193 and 194. Oppsit, page 123.
[00:04:18] Thank you for listening to my podcast. Tomorrow we will go to Paul's journey on the Damascus Road, reported in Acts chapter 9.