Most translators understand the Greek verb, which is rendered in the Good News Translation by two verb expressions did not know … nor did they understand, as having two different grammatical objects: (1) that he is the Savior and (2) the words of the prophets. On the other hand, some take did not know to have only a single object, “For the people of Jerusalem and their leaders refused to recognize him, and condemned him, thus fulfilling the very utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath” (An American Translation*); while the Jerusalem Bible elects to follow an entirely different textual tradition, known as the Western text, “What the people of Jerusalem and their rulers did, though they did not realize it, was in fact to fulfill the prophecies read on every Sabbath.”

Did not know that he is the Savior must often be rendered as “did not recognize that he was the Savior.” The sequence of tenses between “recognizing” and “being the Savior” must be adjusted to the grammatical requirements of the receptor language. One must not, however, suggest by such tense arrangements that he was the Savior but is no longer.

Moreover, that he is the Savior translates a pronoun which may be taken either as masculine “this one,” that is, the Savior, or as neuter “this thing” or “this fact,” that is, that the message of salvation had been sent to the Gentiles. Most translators understand this as a masculine form of the pronoun, because the participle by condemning evidently refers back to this same pronoun as its object, or else it has no object. The Good News Translation has rendered “this one” as that he is the Savior in the first part of the verse because of its close tie to the last part of verse 26, but in the last part of this verse “this one” becomes Jesus because of the historical reference to his condemnation and death as Jesus of Nazareth.

The expression that are read every Sabbath day must be understood in the sense of the reading of the words of the prophets in the synagogue. In some languages this passive are read must also be shifted into an active expression. Therefore one may render the clause as “that someone reads every Sabbath day to the people” or as in some languages, “that someone reads every Sabbath day in the synagogue.”

On the expression made … come true see 1.16.

Condemning Jesus must be understood not merely in the sense of “denouncing” but “causing the death of Jesus.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .