SIL Translator’s Notes on Acts 4:15

4:15a

So: The Greek conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as So is literally “and/but.” Here it introduces what the Jewish leaders did next. For example:

But (Revised Standard Version)

In some languages it is more natural to omit this conjunction.

they ordered them to leave the Sanhedrin: The leaders ordered the three men to go outside of the council meeting room. The three men were not free to wander away. The leaders probably ordered guards to take all three of them, because Peter and John were still prisoners.

In some languages a literal translation would imply that Peter, John and the man were free to go wherever they wanted. If that is true in your language, you may want to explain in your translation. For example:

They ordered ⌊guards to take⌋ them

they: The pronoun they refers here to the leaders here.

them: The pronoun them refers here to Peter, John and the man who had been lame.

the Sanhedrin: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as the Sanhedrin can mean “council,” “council meeting,” “the Jewish ruling council” (the Sanhedrin), or “meeting room.” The Jewish ruling council ordered the three men to leave. The three men left the meeting and the room. Use a word or phrase that indicates any or all of these meanings. For example:

the Council room (Good News Translation)
-or-
the meeting (New Century Version)
-or-
the council (Revised Standard Version)

4:15b

conferred together: This clause indicates that the leaders talked with each other about Peter and John. 4:16–17 tell us the main points of the discussion. The verb in the Greek indicates that they talked with each other for some time, but probably for just a short time. Here are some other ways to translate this clause:

they started discussing among themselves (Good News Translation)
-or-
began to discuss the matter among themselves (God’s Word)

© 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.

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