In order to signal a shift from a quotation to direct address to the crowd, it may be useful to invert the order of the two clauses of verse 32, for example, “Now we are all witnesses to the fact that God has raised….” Some translators would like to employ the inclusive “we” at this point, to indicate that all the people were witnesses to the fact of the resurrection of Jesus. However, Jesus appeared only to his disciples and followers, and hence it is essential to use the exclusive first person plural, which included Peter and the believers, but not the crowd.

This very Jesus is the emphatic element in this sentence. Although very has no verbal equivalent in the Greek text, its use in the English translation helps to carry out the stress intended in the Greek sentence structure. A term for witnesses may simply be “we have seen him with our own eyes.” To this fact corresponds to a relative pronoun in the Greek, and it may refer either to Jesus (for example, “to whom we are witnesses”) or to the reality of the resurrection, as most translators understand it.

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 .