MISCELLANEOUS BIBLICAL STUDIES CHAPTER THIRTEEN LUKE’S MISINTERPRETATION OF THE HEBREW QUOTATION IN ACTS 26:14 Thomas F. McDaniel, Ph.D. © 2009 All Rights Reserved XIII LUKE’S MISINTERPRETATIONO F THE HEBREW QUOTATION IN ACTS 26:14 In a previous study on the contradiction between Luke 10:27, “Love (avgaph,seij) your neighbor/kin as yourself,”1 and Luke 14:26, “If any one comes to me and does not hate (misei)/ his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple,” I concluded that Luke misunderstood the verb anXy/hnXy in his Hebrew source for Jesus’ statement which appears now in Luke 14:26. Luke read the unvocalized anXy/ hnXy as an"f.yI/hn"f.y I “he hates,” but it should have been read as an<v.yI/hn<v.y I“he forsakes.”2 A similar misinterpretation probably occurred in Acts 26:14, where Luke reports that Paul told King Agrippa that Jesus had spoken to him in Hebrew, which included what most scholars recognize as a well known Greek aphorism. The verse which ends with the aphorism reads: pa,ntwn de . katapeson, twn h`mw/n eijv thn. gh/n( h;kousa fwnh.n lalou/san pro,j me kai. le,gousan th/| ~Ebrai<di diale,ktw|( Saou,l( Saou,l( ti , me diw,keijÈ sklhro,n soi proj. ken, tra laktiz, einÅ KJV And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. This last phrase in the Greek text of 26:14 was translated quite literally by Robert Young (1862) as “hard for thee 206 LUKE’S MISINTERPRETATION OF THE against pricks to kick,” whereby he read (a) sklhro,n as a singular nominative neuter adjective, (b) ken, tra as an accu- sative plural noun, and (c) lakti,zein as a present active infinitive. The Hebrew phrase spoken by Jesus and quoted by Paul— which Luke translated as sklhro,n soi pro.j ke,ntra lakti,- zein, “hard for thee against goads to kick”—was probably ~yXrpb j[b $l hXq . If so, Luke read the phrase as ~yvir"p.B i j[ob . ^l. hv,q' , “it is hard for you to kick against goads.” However, what Jesus said may well have been ~yviruP.B ; j[ob . ^l. hv,q' , “it is hard for you to resist/reject the Pharisees.” j[;B' Marcus Jastrow (1903: 180) cited the Qal , stem II, to mean not only “to trample, to strike, to kick,” but also “to resist, to reject”; and the Picel j[eB ito mean “to rebel, to kick against, to be contumacious.” Jastrow (1903: 1243) also cited aX'r"P. the Aramaic “goad,” which appears in the Targum of Judges 3:31 for the dm;l.m ;“goad” in the MT.3 The verb vr:P' ynI[op.cik.W %V'yI vx'n"K. “to sting” appears in Prov 23:32, vrIp.y: , “it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder.” One vr"P' vrePo can assume that the noun “goad” and participle “stinger” were used in Hebrew as well as in Aramaic and in Syriac (J. Payne Smith, 1903: 466). After Paul recited before King Agrippa the Hebrew words of Jesus there must have been a written record which had the ~yXrp ~yviruP. ~yviWrP. word (= / ) “Pharisees,” which Luke ~yvri "P. read as “goads,” even though Paul had bragged about his being a zealous Pharisee, as in • Acts 22:3, VEgw , eimv i . . . para . touj. pod, aj Gamalih.l pepaideumen, oj kata. avkrib, eian tou/ patrw|o, u no,mou( HEBREW QUOTATION IN ACTS 26:14 207 zhlwth.j u`par, cwn tou/ qeou,/ “I am . . . brought up at the feet of [the famed Pharisee] Gamaliel, educated according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers”; • Acts 23:6, evgw. Farisai/o,j eimv i( uio` j. Farisaiw, n( “I am a Pharisee and the son of Pharisees”; and • Acts 26:5, o[ti kata. th.n akv ribestat, hn air[ esin thj/ hm` e- te,raj qrhskei,aj ez; hsa Farisaio/ j, “I lived as a Pharisee according to the strictest sect of our religion.” The proj. ken, tra in the Greek text lacks the definite arti- ~yXrpb ~yXrpb cle. Were its Hebrew Vorlage this could be read ~yvir"p.Bi ~yvirup.Bi • as the indefinite “against goads” or as “against Pharisees,” or ~yvir"P.B; ~yviruP.B; • as the definite “against the goads” or as “against the Pharisees.” But in Aramaic there would have been no ambiguity. The indefinite “against goads”or “againstPharisees” would have !yXrpb been , and the definite “against the goads”or “against ayXrpb the Pharisees” would have been , with the conspic- ! a uous shift from the final with the indefiniite to a final with the emphatic definite. Although most commentators interpret the Greek th/| ~Ebrai<di diale,ktw | “in the Hebrew dialect” in 26:14 to mean “in the Aramaic dialect,” the absence of a definite article before ken, tra is more easily explained as being h due to the ambiguity created when the of the Hebrew defi- nite article is elided when a preposition is prefixed to the definite noun. Before surveying some of the exegetical gymnastics re- quired to explain Luke’s reporting that Paul cited Jesus’ using a Greek aphorism, a comment on the adjective sklhro,n “hard” is in order. Martin Culy (2003: 495) noted that there 208 LUKE’S MISINTERPRETATION OF THE was an implicit verb used with the predicate adjective sklhro,n. He cited Stanley Porter (1994: 85) who argued that the nominative by itself can be used to form a nominal clause, like the af; wnoj “is silent” in Acts 8:32. (In 26:14 the infinitive lakti,zein “to kick” is also subject to an implicit verb.) The implicit verb would be one in the present tense, not a future tense. If the sklhro.n referred to a future situation one would expect to find sklhron. es; tai, the same phrase which appears hv,q.yI in Deut 15:18 as the translation of the verb “it will be hv,q' hard,” not the adjective “(it is) hard.” Although sklhro,n means “difficult, hard, harsh, un- pleasant” (Arndt and Gingrich, 1957: 763; Liddell and Scott, 1966: 1612) the RSV (1952) and the NRS (1989) translated sklhro,n soi as a verbal phrase “It hurts you,” and similarly the NET (1996) has “You are hurting yourself.” Surprisingly, the NLT (1996, 2004) paraphrased the five Greek words as “It is useless for you to fight against my will,” and Pervo’s paraphrase (2009: 623), “you can’t swim against the flow,” is even more surprising and well off target. However, it is not surprising that the vulgarism in English slang which uses “prick” for the penis resulted in the termi- nation of translating ken, tra as “pricks,” which had been the customary translation of ken, tra in the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries—appearing in these well known Bibles: • Tyndale Bible (1534) “It is harde for the to kicke agaynste the pricke,” • Bishops Bible (1595) “It is harde for thee to kicke agaynste the prickes,” • Geneva Bible (1599) It is hard for thee to kicke against pricks,” • King James Bible (1611) “it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. HEBREW QUOTATION IN ACTS 26:14 209 Contemporary translations now have the plural “goads” for the plural ken, tra. The Vulgate’s singular stimulum “goad” may account for Tyndale’s singular “pricke,” and it definitely accounts for the singular “goad” in the DRA (1899), as well as the singular “goad” in the ERV (1885), the NJB (1985) and the NAB (1986). Other English translations rightly render ken, tra as a plural, but take the liberty to make the indefinite ken, tra into a definite by translating it as “the goads.” The proverbial phrase “kicking against the goad” is cited by Liddell and Scott (1966: 429, 1025) in their definitions of ken, tron “goad” and lakti,zw “to kick,” including its appear- ance in Acts 26:14.4 The classical Greek texts of the sixth to fifth centuries B.C. in which this proverb appears include: • Pindar, Pythian Odes 2.95:5 One must not fight against a god, [89] who raises up some men's fortunes at one time, and at another gives great glory to others. But even this [90] does not comfort the minds of the envious; they pull the line too tight and plant a painful wound in their own heart before they get what they are scheming for. It is best to take the yoke on one's neck and bear it lightly; kicking against the goad [95] makes the path treacherous. I hope that I may associate with noble men and please them. • Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1624:6 You speak like that, you who sit at the lower oar when those upon the higher bench control the ship? Old as you are, you shall learn how bitter it is [1620] at your age to be schooled when prudence is the lesson set before you. Bonds and the pangs of hunger are far the best doctors of the spirit when it comes to instructing the old. Do you have eyes and lack understanding? Do not kick against the goads lest you strike to your own hurt. • Euripides, The Bacchae, 795:7 Pentheus, though you hear my words, you obey not at all. Though I suffer ill at your hands, still I say that it is not right 210 LUKE’S MISINTERPRETATION OF THE for you to raise arms against a god, [790] but to remain calm. Bromius will not allow you to remove the Bacchae from the joyful mountains. . . . I’d sooner make an offering to that god than in some angry fit kick at his goad—a mortal going to battle with a god.8 Lothar Schmidt (1966: 666) in his comments on the use of ken, tron in the New Testament concluded, It thus seems that Christ’s warning to Paul not to attempt futile and harmful resistance takes the form of a suitable Greek proverb. To be quite blunt, Paul or Luke puts a Greek proverb on the lips of Jesus. . . . There is little point in labouring the minor flaw that a Greek proverb is put on the lips of one who speaks Hebrew or Aramaic. (italics added) Schmidt rightly challenged the opinion of the scholars who argued that the plural ken, tra “goads”—which was required by the meter in The Bacchae but optional for Luke’s prose —pointed to a direct quotation from The Bacchae.9 He sur- mised, It might well be, then, that there is at least an allusion to the famous play. But this cannot be proved, since . . . the proverb had passed into the common stock of quotations of the educated Greek. Because this proverb “does not occur at all in the Jewish sphere,” Schmidt, as noted above, attributed its quotation to Paul or Luke, rather than to Jesus himself. Johannes Munck (1967: 242) translated ,“It hurts you when you kick against the goad,” and stated . . . the sentence is a very common Greek proverb which means: “from now on it will be difficult for you to kick against the goad,” or in other words: “the call of Christ will from now on constrain you.” In this interpretation the plural ken, tra “goads” was translated unnecessarily as a singular and the adjective sklhro,n “hard” HEBREW QUOTATION IN ACTS 26:14 211 became a verb in the future tense (will be difficult / will con- strain) rather than being in the present tense. William Neil (1981: 243) was of the opinion that the apho- rism “kicking against the goad” expresses vividly Paul’s growing doubts before his conversion as to the justice of his course of action in persecuting the Nazarenes, his increasing conviction that Stephen may have been right and himself wrong, and his redoubled fury against Christians in an attempt to kill his conscience. Similar to the way that Schmidt challenged the opinion of the commentators who argued that the proverb was a direct quotation from The Bacchae, F. F. Bruce (1988: 466) chal- lenged the scholarly opinions, like those of Lewis, that this proverb addressed the “prickings” of Paul’s uneasy con- science. His interpretation of Acts 28:14 was as follows: This homely proverb from agricultural life has been thought to suggest that Paul had already begun to suffer from pricks of an uneasy conscience, from a half-conscious conviction that there was more in the disciples’ case than he was willing to admit. But there is no hint . . . he was subject to any such inward conflict. . . . The “goads” against which he was told it was now fruitless for him to kick were not the prickings of a disturbed conscience but the new forces which were now impelling him in the opposite direction to that which he hitherto pursued, the new “necessity” which was henceforth laid upon him (I Cor 9:16, [“. . . Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!]).10 Following the translations of the RSV, NRS, and NET, which refer to sklhro,n as “hurts/hurting,” some commen- tators have made the aphorism “it is hard to kick against the goads” speak to Saul’s experience of physical pain as a result of his persecution of Christians—despite the fact that Saul was untouched or oblivious to any goading directed at him by Christ or by Christians. As Ajith Fernando (1998: 296) rightly 212 LUKE’S MISINTERPRETATION OF THE noted, “. . . while Saul was hitting the church, Jesus was actually feeling the pain.” Pharisees like Saul actually had an easy time hurting others, and it was easy for Saul to goad Christians into prisons and pits for execution by stoning. The ~yviWrP. goaded Christians ( ) did not kick at their goaders ~yvir>AP ~yviWrP. ( ). The Pharisees ( ) had convinced them- selves they were on a godly mission to kill infidels—as re- quired in the Torah (Exod 22:20, Deut 13: 1–20, and Deut 18:20) and exemplified by Moses and the Levites (Exod 32:25–29). A glimpse, in chronological order, at some of the comments from over the past twenty years will suffice to show how varied have been the interpretations the aphorism “hard for thee against pricks to kick.” The first comment to be noted is that of Luke Johnson (1992: 435) who stated, The idea is that God has been pushing Paul to become a Messianist and he has resisted. The phrase skl(cid:37)eron soi should not be read in the sense of “difficult,” however, but as pointing to Paul’s stubbornness in resisting the goad,11 echoing the theme of “hardness” (skl(cid:37)eros) in Torah. When it comes to interpreting sklhro,n as “hurt,” the comments of Ronald Witherup (1992: 82–83) are noteworthy: In vv. 9–11 Paul describes his activities as opposing the name of Jesus, shutting up in prison many of the 'saints' ((cid:34)(cid:40)(cid:92)(cid:84)(cid:60)), participating in their condemnation to death, punishing them in synagogues, trying to make them blaspheme, raging in fury against them, and even persecuting them abroad. Thus, by this description the irony of Paul’s situation is even more prominent. He, who now identifies with ‘the saints’, is undergoing the very persecution which he himself had perpetrated prior to the Lord’s call on the road to Damascus. This also helps to explain the expansion of Jesus’ words to Paul in the form of a proverb. The saying, ‘It hurts you to HEBREW QUOTATION IN ACTS 26:14 213 kick against the goads’ (26.14), not only means that Paul cannot escape the power of God calling him to a mission, but that he will also suffer for the sake of that mission. In the same year John Pohill (1992: 502–503) discounted any idea that Paul’s “kicking against the goads” referred to his having a guilty conscience for persecuting Christians. He succinctly stated, “He was fighting the will of God (cf. Acts 5:39) . . . It as a futile, senseless task.” A few years later Ben Witherington (1998: 743) also discounted the idea of Paul’s having a guilty conscience and simply stated similarly, “It was fruitless for Paul to resist God.” Ajith Fernando (1998: 296, 595) again discounted any idea that Paul’s “kicking against the goads” referred to his having a guilty conscience for persecuting Christians. He stated, as noted above, “. . . while Saul was hitting the church, Jesus was actually feeling the pain.” and “it is now futile for him to try any longer to work against Christ as it would be for an ox to kick against the plowman’s goad.” Joseph Fitzmyer (1998: 758), in agreement with F. F. Bruce, commented: Though the risen Christ addresses Paul in Aramaic, he quotes a common Greek proverb, which is otherwise not found in Jewish literature. . . . So that from that moment on Paul is being pressed into the service of the risen Christ. It does not express a reflection on Paul’s past life or conduct, or indicate a crisis of conscience. Five years later Beverly Gaventa (2003: 343) noted that “The aphorism [“kicking against the goads”] reveals the crisis: Paul has been acting upon his own perception of God’s will, all the time resisting God’s will.” Darell Bock (2007: 716) simply stated, “Saul is kicking against God’s discipline and direction.” J. Bradley Chance (2007: 489), in a slightly longer statement, concluded,