Discovery BoxActs 17:19-20 
Context17:19 So they took Paul and 1 brought him to the Areopagus, 2 saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are proclaiming? 17:20 For you are bringing some surprising things 3 to our ears, so we want to know what they 4 mean.”
Acts 17:32
Context17:32 Now when they heard about 5 the resurrection from the dead, some began to scoff, 6 but others said, “We will hear you again about this.”
1 tn Grk “him”; the referent (Paul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn Or “to the council of the Areopagus.” See also the term in v. 22.
sn The Areopagus has been traditionally understood as reference to a rocky hill near the Acropolis in Athens, although this place may well have been located in the marketplace at the foot of the hill (L&N 93.412; BDAG 129 s.v. ῎Αρειος πάγος). This term does not refer so much to the place, however, as to the advisory council of Athens known as the Areopagus, which dealt with ethical, cultural, and religious matters, including the supervision of education and controlling the many visiting lecturers. Thus it could be translated the council of the Areopagus. See also the term in v. 22.
3 tn BDAG 684 s.v. ξενίζω 2 translates the substantival participle ξενίζοντα (xenizonta) as “astonishing things Ac 17:20.”
4 tn Grk “these things”; but since the referent (“surprising things”) is so close, the repetition of “these things” sounds redundant in English, so the pronoun “they” was substituted in the translation.
5 tn The participle ἀκούσαντες (akousante") has been taken temporally.
6 tn L&N 33.408 has “some scoffed (at him) Ac 17:32” for ἐχλεύαζον (ecleuazon) here; the imperfect verb has been translated as an ingressive imperfect (“began to scoff”).
