17:3a

explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead: This clause describes how Paul reasoned with them from the Scriptures (17:2b). He explained the meaning of certain verses in the Old Testament and showed from them that the Christ would suffer and die, and God would raise him from death. Other ways to translate this clause are:

by explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer ⌊and die⌋, and rise from the dead
-or-
He explained the prophecies and proved that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead. (New Living Translation (2004))

the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead: God said that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead. So it would happen. Other ways to translate this clause are:

it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead (Revised Standard Version)
-or-
the Christ was required to suffer, ⌊die,⌋ and rise from death
-or-
the Christ must die and then rise from the dead (New Century Version)

the Christ: The word Christ is a title. It means “the anointed one.” The Jews used it to refer to the special person that God had promised to send to save them from their enemies. The Hebrew word with the same meaning is written “Messiah” in English. Here Paul was trying to convince the Jews that Jesus was the Christ/Messiah.

Some languages use Christ like a surname for Jesus. If that is true in your language, you may want to:

• Translate the meaning of the title. For example:

the Anointed One
-or-
the Chosen Man

You may then want a footnote to explain the meaning here. An example footnote is:

Literally “the Christ.” This title refers to the special person that God had promised to send to save the Jews from their enemies. Jesus showed that he was that special person and that he would save people from their sins.

• Use a word that indicates the title here. For example:

the Messiah

suffer: This word refers to others causing someone to feel pain. Here the word implies “die” as well. For example:

suffer, die, (God’s Word)

rise from the dead: This refers to God causing the Christ to live again after he died. Other ways to translate this phrase are:

rise from death (Good News Translation)
-or-
come back to life (God’s Word)
-or-
for God to cause him to live again

17:3b

“This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,” he declared: The Berean Standard Bible placed the phrase he declared after the spoken words. Place it where it would be most natural in your language. For example:

He said, “This Jesus I am telling you about is the Christ.” (New Century Version)

Luke probably implied that Paul concluded his talk with these words. For example:

saying ⌊at the end⌋ ⌊of his talk⌋, “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.”

This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ: The Greek words are literally “This is the Christ, Jesus, whom I proclaim to you.” The words indicate that the Christ whom Paul was talking about (17:3a) is Jesus and that Paul proclaimed him as the Christ. For example:

This is the Christ, ⌊he is⌋ Jesus, whom I proclaim to you.
-or-
This is the Messiah, Jesus. I am proclaiming him to you.

The Berean Standard Bible and many other English versions connect the word “this” with Jesus, probably indicating that This is emphasized and so put first. Other ways to order the clause are:

And the Christ…is this Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you. (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
This Christ is Jesus and I am telling you about him.

am proclaiming: This phrase refers to publicly announcing something. The Greek present tense may refer to the end of his talk at the end of the third day (as in the Berean Standard Bible) or more generally to all three days. For example:

proclaim (Revised Standard Version)

© 2001, 2021 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.