Peter Spitaler, «Doubting in Acts 10:27?», Vol. 20 (2007) 81-93
The verb diakri/nomai occurs twice in the Acts of the Apostles. Many contemporary interpreters assert it means «hesitate/doubt» in 10:20 –a meaning of the middle and passive voices that, according to opinio communis, first surfaces in NT texts– and «contest/dispute» in 11:2, its classical/Hellenistic meaning. In this article, I first discuss and critique the criteria that guide scholars to render diakri/nomai in Acts 10:20 with a meaning that diverges from extra-biblical Greek meaning categories. Next, I investigate the verse within its immediate (10:9-20) and larger literary contexts (10:1-11:18) to show that interpretations of the phrase mhde\n diakrino/menoj that rely on a «NT meaning» of diakri/nomai (i.e., «doubting nothing») have no support in the text. Rather, the placement of Acts 10:20 within its literary context supports a rendering of diakri/nomai in accordance with classical/Hellenistic Greek conventions.
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“Doubting†in Acts 10:20?
cross-referencing their texts with other NT passages), διακÏίνομαι’s “NT
meaning†cannot be established successfully in these two texts.
4) ∆ιακÏίνομαι’s “NT meaning†cuts across grammatical form and
function: both the middle/passive (Rom 14:23, Jas 1:6, Jude 22) and the
passive voices (Matt 21:21, Mark 11:23, Rom 4:20) are thought to have
taken on the “NT meaningâ€. However, merging distinct grammatical
forms for the sake of establishing one coherent “NT meaning†less vali-
dates this new meaning category than leads to semantic unpredictability
because it assigns meaning indiscriminately: for indeterminate reasons,
the middle in Acts 11:2, the middle/passive in Jude 9, and the passive in
Jas 2:4 do not take on the “NT meaningâ€.
5) The main argument for a new meaning of διακÏίνομαι in NT texts
from literary context, that is, in Matt 21:21, Mark 11:23, Rom 4:20, 14:23,
Jas 1:6, and Jude 22 the words διακÏίνομαι and πίστις occur in close
literary proximity and establish a “faith–doubt†antithesis14, assumes that
these words’ co-occurrence unequivocally confirms διακÏίνομαι’s new
meaning. However, co-occurrence of particular words does not consti-
tute proof for a semantic shift of one of them and is especially irrelevant
for Acts 10:20 because πίστις, or a semantically related word, does not
occur in this verse’s literary context. Conversely, in Jas 2:4, διακÏίνομαι
occurs within a literary context that includes πίστις (2:1.5), but this
context apparently does not establish διακÏίνομαι’s “NT meaningâ€. Be-
sides, as Baumert shows, NT passages with διακÏίνομαι and πίστις can
be explained with the verb’s traditional range of meaning in mind; the
“faith–doubt†antithesis is exegetical conjecture15.
It appears 6) that once a cross-referencing circle is established, a new
meaning of διακÏίνομαι that is posited to have surfaced in NT texts can
be conferred relatively unchecked upon each passage that is designated to
participate in the circle, including Acts 10:20. Correspondingly, scrutiny
of claims made in commentaries and dictionaries about διακÏίνομαι’s
“NT meaning†decreases although the presumed new meaning is limited
to a few passages in the corpus of Greek literature and presupposes the
understanding that the “NT meaning category†transcends diverse NT
Cf. Dautzenberg, Wörterbuch 735; Dibelius/Greeven, James 136; Jaques Dupont, Gno-
14
sis: La Connaissance Religieuse dans les Épitres de Saint Paul (Louvain – Paris 1949) 270;
Gärtner/Bayer, „Unterscheidung/Zweifel“ 1719; Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT;
Grand Rapids – Cambridge 1996) 862 n. 882; Porter, Christian Word 479; Sanday/Headlam,
Romans 115.
Cf. “Wortspiel†22-31, 34. To my knowledge, Baumert (“Wortspiel†20-64) was first to
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analyze NT passages with διακÏίνομαι with the purpose of showing that “NT meaningâ€
approaches to the verb are unfounded.
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