# ἐπίστευσαν



## disciple

Greeting to you all,

I am a layman of Greek and seek verification of my understanding of the Biblical Greek.

In the NT of the Bible, Acts 13:48 Ἀκούοντα δὲ τὰ ἔθνη ἔχαιρον καὶ ἐδόξαζον τὸν λόγον τοῦ κυρίου καὶ ἐπίστευσαν ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον· 

The King James version translated the sentence as : "And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. "

But actually the word "believed"(ἐπίστευσαν) was placed before the relative clause"as many as were ordained to eternal life "(ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον). And the subject is probably the gentiles 
(τὰ ἔθνη ). The latter part of the translation may be rendered as “they believed ,as many as were ordained to eternal life” (Construction A)

The construction A seems like apposition of two noun phrases. But now there are two clauses. And the relative clause “as many as were ordained to eternal life” serves to modify the main subject "they" of the main clause"they believed ". "they " of course refers back to the gentiles in the first part of the verse. In other words, the relative clause may not be the subject of the verb "believed". Then the translation actually gives two pieces of information concerning the gentiles: 


1. They believed. 
2. They were all who were ordained to eternal life. 

Can we draw such conclusion from Construction A? 

If such conclusion can be drawn, then the text seems only to delineate the above two pieces of information concerning the gentiles. 


Informaion 2 - being ordained to eternal life does not has a causal relationship with informaion 1 - the fact of believing, but just two facts which are placed side by side together. But the translation of The King James version(KJV) was "as many as were ordained to eternal life believed" that gave the impression that those being ordained was the cause of their belief. And Construction A does not gives such impression.
Which translation can get across the real meaning of the text, KJV or Construction A ?


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## elineo

_All (those)_ who were ordained to eternal life _believed_


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## Akritas

This is definitely an interesting case and although my knowledge of ancient or biblical Greek is long gone (a few years at school long time ago) I would dare say that the translation does not seem right.
I believe there are 2 ways to translate the original excerpt:
1. ...(the ones who were ordained) believed in eternal life
2. ...the ones who were ordained to eternal life, believed.

The lack of commas in the original text does not help either, however I agree that 'believed' does not refer directly to eternal life.
I welcome comments.


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## Akritas

Further to my post I would like to add that if I had to select I would go with translation number 2.


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## cougr

disciple said:


> Which translation can get across the real meaning of the text,KJV or Construction A ?



Hi disciple and welcome to the forum,

If we set aside the argument pertaining to the meaning of the word τεταγμένοι, which may or may not mean ordained, then I would argue that the KJV rendition of the phrase is correct. That is, that being ordained precedes ones belief or believing.
If construction A, as proposed by yourself, were to be valid, then the Greek text would have read ".... καὶ ὅσοι ἐπίστευσαν ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον·" rather than " καὶ ἐπίστευσαν ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον·".


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## disciple

If KJV is correct in the rendition of the phrase, then can we simply understand the two clauses in a separate manner? That is to say the expression simply gives two facts (1) They were all who were ordained to eternal life. (2) They believed. Fact (1) does not necessarily cause Fact(2). Just as the former part of the verse denoting two reactions: glad (ἔχαιρον) and glorified ( ἐδόξαζον ). Gladness does not necessarily cause glorifying or vice versa.


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## cougr

disciple said:


> If KJV is correct in the rendition of the phrase, then can we simply understand the two clauses in a separate manner? That is to say the expression simply gives two facts (1) They were all who were ordained to eternal life. (2) They believed. Fact (1) does not necessarily cause Fact(2). Just as the former part of the verse denoting two reactions: glad (ἔχαιρον) and glorified ( ἐδόξαζον ). Gladness does not necessarily cause glorifying or vice versa.



My understanding of the phrase is that the relative clause “as many as were ordained to eternal life” is intricately linked to the verb "believed", ie it is the subject of this verb. Hence, καὶ ἐπίστευσαν ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον in my opinion translates to " all whom were ordained to eternal life (consequently) believed. This of course does not necessitate a causal connection (even though it is highly suggestive of it), as it may simply be a matter of correlation, but in any case the phrase implies that the believing was subsequent to the ordination.


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## ireney

Hello disciple,

I too believe that, syntactically speaking at least (I don't want into a theological argument here so...) it is a correct translation. The word "όσοι" by itself makes that clause "need" something to relate to. Consider it in any language whether translated as "those" or "as many":
"Those/as many as drink coffee". Don't you automatically go "Yes? What about them?"
Theoretically, it could be linked to something else. What though? 

The other possibility, going for a translation that would mean that first they believed and then (or because of that) they were ordained, doesn't hold water because of the tense of "επίστευσαν" (It wouldn't have been in Aorist in that case).

My two cents.

P.S. Here you can see many translations of this sentence. While the "τεταγμένοι" seems to cause some contention, they all seem to agree when it comes to the overall structure of the sentence.


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## ireney

Moderator's note: Please keep the discussion focused on "επίστευσαν". You can open a different thread for any other word.


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## disciple

> The word "όσοι" by itself makes that clause "need" something to relate to. Consider it in any language whether translated as "those" or "as many":
> "Those/as many as drink coffee". Don't you automatically go "Yes? What about them?"
> Theoretically, it could be linked to something else. What though?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> For example if the relative clause "as many as those who drink coffee" is linked to a verb "speak", then the sentence becomes "as many as those who drink coffee speak". The sentence discloses the information that the people who speak are the people who drink coffee. But it does not necessarily mean that drinking coffee causes the people to speak. So for Acts 13:48, those being ordained to eternal life does not necessarily cause their belief. Being ordained to eternal life is one thing. And belief is another thing. In the same way for the former part of the verse, gladness does not necessarily cause glorifying or vice versa. Can we say that gladness, glorifying, being ordained to eternal life and belief were 4 descriptions to be juxtaposed in a lengthy sentence?
Click to expand...


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## XiaoRoel

If we analyzed the text, we will see that there are three verbal nuclei of he himself morfosyntactic level, united by *καὶ*: *ἔχαιρον, ἐδόξασον, ἐπίστεθσαν*, two imperfects with a same subject, and an aorist (with a clearly precise sense: momentary aspect) with its own subject.
These three verbs are nuclei of verbal predicates, both first referred to the subject *ἀκούοντα τὰ ἔθνη*, noun phrase with a nominal nucleus *ἔθνη*, a determiner *τὰ,* and a modifier (verbal adjective) *ἀκούοντα,* and the third a its subject that is a adjective oration used as a noun: *ὅσοι… αἰώνιον*.
As far as the three verbal predicates, first it is an intransitive verb, *ἔχαιρον* without more complements; the second, *ἐδόξασον,* is a transitive verb and its direct object is the noun phrase *τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ* (noun nucleus *λόγον*, determiner *τὸν* and a complement of noun in genitive that is other noun phrase, nucleus *θεοῦ* and determiner *τοῦ*); the third verbal predicate is a transitive verb, used in absolute sense like intransitive, and its subject is the sentence *ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον*, relative sentence without antecedent, which turns it substantive (is a type of substantivation of the relative phrases) and thus analyzes subject *ὅσοι* and a verbal predicate, the attributive *ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον*, the verb *ἦσαν* is the verbal nucleus and *τεταγμένοι* the attribute, that as it is a verbal adjective has a circumstantial or adverbial complement, *εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον*, that is sintagma prepositional with the preposition eis of purpose or direction that introduces noun phrase with nucleus noun *ζωὴν* and a modifier, the adjective *αἰώνιον*.
Therefore the translation only can be: _*and the gentile ones which they listened they were glad and they believed the God word, and had confidence all those that were arranged to the eternal life. *_(Spanish: _*y los gentiles que escuchaban se alegraban y creían la palabra de Dios, y tuvieron confianza todos los que estaban dispuestos para la vida eterna.)*_


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## forever_young

Hi to all,

Ἀκούοντα δὲ τὰ ἔθνη ἔχαιρον καὶ ἐδόξαζον τὸν λόγον τοῦ κυρίου καὶ ἐπίστευσαν ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον·

And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word  of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

To me it seems that *syntactically* the two options that Akritas wrote are correct.
1. ...(the ones who were ordained) believed in eternal life
2. ...the ones who were ordained to eternal life, believed.

Let's see, the word ''ὅσοι'' in both options refers to some people  from the Gentiles, not to all of them, so whatever the translation is ,  the sentence is about some of them not all of them. So the conclutions  you wrote :
a. They believed. 
b. They were all who were ordained to eternal life.

are  not correct in my opinion . Not all of them believed (or) Not all of  them were ordained (or) Not all of them were ordained to eternal life ,,  and that's only cause of the word ''ὅσοι''.
The   KJV syntactically is correct (it doesn't matter if the word  ''believed'' is placed in the end, it can be placed before or after and  have the same meaning) for example as you see it you would say that it  should be translated as ''...and they believed, those that were ordained  to eternal life'' instead of '' .. and those that were ordained to  internal life, believed'' ,, this doesn't bring much of a confusion  cause it doesn't change the meaning of the sentence.

 As for the  theological meaning of the sentence although i don't have that kind of  knowledge, it's just the lessons taken at school years ago etc my  personal opinion is if we accept this translation is like saying that  God promised eternal life to some people and only those who were offered  that promise, believed. That doesn't make sense to me, it seems to me  that this text as other similar ones want to pass the message that God  has a calling for all people in general and asking for all of them to  believe in him and to achieve eternal life.

Since in this case a  translation needs a* combination of words and meanings* *i think the  correct one would be a translation like this :
* *'' and as many as were ordained, to eternal life believed. "*
*The comma here makes the meaning like this : '' those that were ordained, believed in eternal life''.*
As of where the word ''ordained'' refers to, could be many things, such as ''those ordained to God etc''.
If you write the same sentence with the comma after the word ''life'' , it's a totally different thing.

I hope that i cover what you are asking


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## XiaoRoel

There is a problem here: the syntax says to a thing and the religious exégesis another one. I cannot to take responsibility for a very dull English translation, but what puts in the Spanish version it is one quite faithful reproduction of which it says in neotestamentary Greek.
For me, like classic linguist, it is evident that the translations that the different religions do of their sacred books (except for rare exceptions) are vitiated by a theological paradigm to which they are due to adapt, at risk to even say something different from original but the agreed one to the theology that represents.


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## disciple

The three verbs rejocing (ἔχαιρον), praising(ἐδόξαζον) and believed (ἐπίστευσαν) linked by the conjunction and (καὶ) described the three reactions of the gentiles. The aorist verb (ἐπίστευσαν) expresses a culminating event, whereas the preceding imperfect verbs (ἔχαιρον, ἐδόξαζον ) depict an action that is still in process. 

Can we say that the relative clause “ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον·” actually relates to all the above three reactions of the gentiles (τὰ ἔθνη ) after hearing a message?

And does the verse of Acts 13:48 actually express the idea that after hearing a message, the gentiles who were ordained to eternal life were rejoicing, were praising the word of the Lord and committed in faith?


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## XiaoRoel

The structure is:
*[τὰ ἔθνη (S) ἔχαιρον + ἐδόξασον τὸν λόγον τοῦ κυρίου** (OD) ] + [ἐπίστεθσαν* *ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον (S)].*


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## forever_young

I don't exactly get what you're asking in your last message, I am afraid that you do a basic mistake though. Only the verbs εχαιρον, εδοξαζον describe actions of the gentiles (all of them). The verb επιστευσαν describes action made by only some of them, something that has been mentioned before. As you see there isn't a standard explanation for the sentence,but whatever you chose the things that remain the same are: the gentiles εχαιρον and εδοξαζον and some of them επιστευσαν. Though it doesn't really matter , the two actions happen first (they words are also at the same tense) and επιστευσαν comes after.


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## XiaoRoel

forever_young said:


> I don't exactly get what you're asking in your last message, I am afraid that you do a basic mistake though. Only the verbs εχαιρον, εδοξαζον describe actions of the gentiles (all of them). The verb επιστευσαν describes action made by only some of them, something that has been mentioned before. As you see there isn't a standard explanation for the sentence,but whatever you chose the things that remain the same are: the gentiles εχαιρον and εδοξαζον and some of them επιστευσαν. Though it doesn't really matter , the two actions happen first (they words are also at the same tense) and επιστευσαν comes after.


Yes, exactly.


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## disciple

forever_young said:


> Since in this case a translation needs a* combination of words and meanings* *i think the correct one would be a translation like this :*
> *'' and as many as were ordained, to eternal life believed. "*
> *The comma here makes the meaning like this : '' those that were ordained, believed in eternal life''.*
> As of where the word ''ordained'' refers to, could be many things, such as ''those ordained to God etc''.
> If you write the same sentence with the comma after the word ''life'' , it's a totally different thing.


 
What is the difference between "*and as many as were ordained, to eternal life believed. "* and " "*and as many as were ordained to eternal life, believed. "*? And can we place the comma as we like in the translation from Greek to English?


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## ireney

Hello again disciple,

It looks as if you are asking two different things, as I see it.

a) are these 4 things that are stringed together? The answer is no. Look at the messages above for a more detailed explanation.
b) i. Is "ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι" related to "ἐπίστευσαν" or not? The answer yes, it is. Look at the prior answers again for a more detailed explanation.
ii. How do we break down "ἐπίστευσαν ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον"?
Is it "those who were ordained to internal life, those were those who believed" or is it "those who were ordained believed in internal life"? (note: I am not in any way ascribing to one or another translation for "τεταγμένοι"; this is a whole different story and its analysis has no place in this thread)
Theoretically speaking yes, it is possible that "*ἐπίστευσαν *ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι *εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον* " can be translated the second way (therefore the bold letters).
By that I mean that grammatically there's nothing in the Ancient Greek syntactical form that would forbid such a construction. 
In practice however (and I am not talking from a theological point of view) it is highly unlikely to say the least. Commas or other means of making the meaning more clear, less dubious would be used it such cases. The mere fact that word positioning was so flexible in ancient Greek, meant that words were put in a specific order for a specific reason. 
So, in a nutshell: Yes, it is possible but no, I don't think it is likely.


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## forever_young

disciple said:


> What is the difference between "*and as many as were ordained, to eternal life believed. "* and " "*and as many as were ordained to eternal life, believed. "*? And can we place the comma as we like in the translation from Greek to English?



1) as many as were ordained, to eternal life believed. It's the same like :
    as many as were ordained, believed in eternal life.
2) as many as were ordained to eternal life, believed.

To be easier for you , syntactically you don't have to change the order  of the words. If you want to specify a meaning out of the sentence just  place the comma either of the 2 ways.

First option, gives the impression that those who trully had faith inside, believed that they could achieve eternal life.
Second option, gives the impression that those who were predestined for eternal life, believed to God.

*BUT* *these are the meanings one get without having read* the text or anything(at least me), that is just by given the sentence.

Since there's much confusion i read a few lines before and after the line 48

Let's see:
First,* lines before 48* actually give the information that there was in general the *choice* of *accepting* eternal life and the possibility of *rejecting* it and the Jews rejected it, being jealous etc
Then, *lines after 48 *give the information ''The word of the Lord spread through the whole region'', that i guess means *everyone* had the choice of eternal life*.*

Now, the options mentioning about the meaning, may be transformed and we might say:
First option, gives the impression that those who trully had faith inside, believed that they could achieve eternal life.
 Second option, gives the impression that those (not specific people  chosen by chance,but all those who have accepted the word of the  Lord,since there was a choice for everyone) who were pointed(?) for  eternal life, believed in God.

So mainly the arguement is around the option 2 and what it means.
Since both options are equally correct i think you shouldn't lead to something just like that cause as we said *we don't actually have the knowledge* in that case, *we* *just say opinions and talking hypothetically about the meanings*. Sometimes when trying to analyze every detail of a text we lose the whole purpose of our reading.

That being said i think the first question is completely covered by  everyone. Further details i guess are better to be found in a *forum  concerning religion* etc


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## disciple

Apart from the translation, can we say the clause“ καὶ ἐπίστευσαν ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον•” has the following meanings?

1) explicit meaning
Those who had been ordained to eternal life believed.

2) implied meanings
a) Those who had not been ordained to eternal life did not believe.
b) Those who believed were those who had been ordained to eternal life.


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## Akritas

disciple said:


> Apart from the translation, can we say the clause“ καὶ ἐπίστευσαν ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον•” has the following meanings?
> 
> 1) explicit meaning
> Those who had been ordained to eternal life believed.
> 
> 2) implied meanings
> a) Those who had not been ordained to eternal life did not believe.
> b) Those who believed were those who had been ordained to eternal life.


 

I believe that with your latest question we are moving increasingly more towards the interpretation rather than the translation itself, which means that it is also incresingly difficult to offer a clear suggestion of the intentions of the author. In other words, is there enough *syntactic emphasis* to suggest an implied meaning? If there is, is it because the author wanted to add implied meanings to the sentence or because he wanted to underline the explicit meaning? Or perhaps both as 1 (in your quote) is almost directly opposite to 2a. I honestly can not see a de facto answer to it. My only suggestion would be reading the rest of the verse (or book) in order to perhaps acquire a better understanding of the whole tone of the text along with the underlying intentions.


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## Ben Jamin

XiaoRoel said:


> : _*y los gentiles que escuchaban se alegraban y creían la palabra de Dios, y tuvieron confianza todos los que estaban dispuestos para la vida eterna.)*_


 
Hello
Taking into account that επίστευσαν is an aorist form, should not the Spanish translatiomn then be: "*y los gentiles que escuchaban se alegraban y creyeron la palabra de Dios"?*
_In a corresponding latin translation one would expect __crēdidḗrunt_,_ I suppose._
The English _"they believed"_ does not signalize if the verb means "a state of believing" or the act of "acquiring the belief", but in Spanish it should be possible to express the difference.


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## orthophron

Ben Jamin said:


> Hello
> Taking into account that επίστευσαν is an aorist form, should not the Spanish translatiomn then be: "*y los gentiles que escuchaban se alegraban y creyeron la palabra de Dios"?*
> _In a corresponding latin translation one would expect __crēdidḗrunt_,_ I suppose._
> The English _"they believed"_ does not signalize if the verb means "a state of believing" or the act of "acquiring the belief", but in Spanish it should be possible to express the difference.





XiaoRoel said:


> *y los gentiles que escuchaban se alegraban y creían la palabra de Dios, y tuvieron confianza todos los que estaban dispuestos para la vida eterna.*


I guess "_επίστευσαν_" corresponds to "_tuvieron confianza_" in Spanish, while "_creían _la palabra de Dios" possibly renders "_εδόξαζον* _τον λόγον του Θεού". Let's wait for a native Spanish speaker like XiaoRoel to verify.
* "_εδέξαντο_" in Greek Orthodox version


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## forever_young

@disciple

1)It has already been answered in some posts
2)a)No matter what the language is, you cannot come to a conclusion for things that you don't have enough information. This sentence by itself doesn't give this information.
2)b)Again you are trying to give a rather strict explanation of the sentence.

Implied meanings are a subject of discussion in every language. For a example if what you imply in number 2, is wrong or right the way you are asking it in english, it's the same in greek too. So your second question is to be answered by anyone having a translation of the text in owns language and is no longer a matter of the greek translation. I really don't know what else to say.


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## Ben Jamin

orthophron said:


> I guess "_επίστευσαν_" corresponds to "_tuvieron confianza_" in Spanish, while "_creían _la palabra de Dios" possibly renders "_εδόξαζον* _τον λόγον του Θεού". Let's wait for a native Spanish speaker like XiaoRoel to verify.
> * "_εδέξαντο_" in Greek Orthodox version


 I can't say anything about the meaning of the original Greek text, as my knowledge of Koine is minimal, but I see the disrepancy between the English BKJ translation and the Spanish translation. I understood from disciple's explanation that _επίστευσαν_" means "believed". The corresponding word in Xiao roel's Spanish version is "creían", which I felt was not in a tense corresponding to aorist. 
Xiao roel's Spanish text differs from the BKJ version as it has "creían" and "tuvieron confianza", when the BKJ has "glorified" and "believed".


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