PRAYERS - THE PRACTICE OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS

WHAT A SIMPLE DEFINITE ARTICLE ["the"] AND A PLURAL ["...s"] CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE PRACTICE OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS

"And they continued steadfastly in … THE prayerS" (Act 2:42).

Something gets left out of most Evangelical Protestant translations of the last phrase in Act 2:42. Most recent Evangelical Protestant translations have "prayer," when the Greek text has a definite article and a plural TAIS PROSEUKHAIS ("THE prayerS"). Do the translators "de-definitize" or "de-pluralize" "teaching of THE ApostleS"? No. "Breaking of THE bread"? No. But many of them de-definitize (and de-pluralize) "THE prayerS" so that they become in translation the generic "prayer."

Why? I can't read minds, and I am just as guilty as any of theological bias. But I'd bet my two crooked front teeth that it sounded too "liturgical" and too "Jewish" for some of the "low-church" Evangelical Protestant Christian translators. They couldn't imagine the Apostles and friends doing Jewish liturgical "prayers" (what "THE prayerS" implies … see below) so they simply omitted the definite article and the plural. An editorial decision. Based on an anti-Jewish bias.

But the meaning got changed!

If the article remains and the plural remains, one has to ask, "To which of 'THE prayerS' is Luke referring?" And, as far as I can see (and I'm not alone on this, by the way) "THE prayerS" (TAIS PROSEUKHAIS) means "THE [set liturgical] prayerS" that all pious Jews of that period participated in: "THE [temple] prayerS."

If one sees a definite article (THE) in Scripture, the first thing a person should do is look for what the definitive means in relation to the verses before and/or after it. If there is no place to go with that line of reasoning, then of course it is natural to look for another answer. Greek does not always follow the same grammatical rules as English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or Tagalog. So there are times when in fact, there is a definite article that cannot be translated as a definitive. But, the rule of thumb is that you look in context to find the referent. And in the case of "THE prayerS," there is a referent in close context. Very close. Now, if there is a place to go, yet someone seeks another answer anyway, it becomes evident that bias is at play.

And bias is not the best platform for discovering biblical truth.

In our case, "THE prayerS" -- evoking the question, "which prayers?" -- is answered in the verses immediately following Act 2:42: "THE [temple] prayerS" (Act 3:1). Why would we or anyone resist this natural flow of the narrative ... unless we didn't want our post-Pentecost heroes to be partaking in such Jewish ritual observances? If their praying THOSE sorts of prayers bothers us (as apparently it did the translators of several recent Protestant Bible versions) then of course we'll search for a way to explain why our heroes were just doing what most of us [post]modern Evangelical Protestants do -- [spontaneously] pray. They couldn't have prayed "TH[ose lliturgical temple] prayerS" ! Could they have ...?

Against us though would be the Semitic style of Luke's Greek (where definite articles factor in more highly), the grammar of the passage, the immediate and distant textual context, and the cultural context (see also Keener, Craig S. THE IVP BIBLE BACKGROUND COMMENTARY- New Testament. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1993, pp. 330-31) -- these would all mitigate against us if we still insisted that Act 2:42 was not talking about the Apostles and early Jewish believers praying the temple prayers.

The earliest Christians were devoted. And one mark of their piety was their consistent participation in the scheduled liturgical prayers of the Jerusalem temple.

Just another reason why not to believe that there is so big a DIS-connect as many of us have been led to believe, between Older Covenant forms of worship and New Covenant forms.

-Michael Millier