24:21a

unless it was this one thing I called out as I stood in their presence: Paul believed what he said in 24:21b–c to be true. But he knew it was no crime to believe that. The Pharisees also believed in resurrection. So he used the word unless only to make the leaders admit that it was no crime to believe in resurrection.

In some languages, a literal translation would wrongly indicate that Paul thought his statement in 24:21b–c was a crime. If so, include some implied information or translate unless in a different way. For example:

unless ⌊they want to now make a crime of this:⌋ I shouted this one thing as I stood in their presence
-or-

But I did shout one thing when I stood before them: (New Century Version)
-or-
They can tell you only that while I stood among them I shouted this one thing ⌊which was not wrong/unlawful⌋,

24:21b–c

It is concerning the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you today: Here Paul quoted what he said in 23:6. It is not an exact quote, but there is no important difference in meaning.

The phrase concerning the resurrection of the dead is emphasized in the Greek clause by being first in it. English emphasizes it in a similar way but must begin with the words It is to be natural. If possible translate the emphasis in a natural way. Another way to translate the emphasis in English is:

Concerning the resurrection of the dead, that is what I am on trial about today before you!

24:21c

before you: The pronoun you here refers to the members of the Sanhedrin. (Paul quoted here what he said in 23:6.) It does not refer to Felix.

© 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.