The devout men who buried Stephen may either be Christians, pious Jews, or both Christians and pious Jews. Elsewhere in the New Testament this phrase is used of Jews, and when used of Ananias, who was a Christian, it was used of him as a Jew (22.12). In general the term devout can be appropriately rendered as “worshipers of God.”

Mourning for him with loud cries is literally “they made a great mourning for him.” It has been pointed out by some commentators that Stephen’s death must not have been an official execution by the Jewish Council, otherwise there would have been no public mourning for him and no burial, since according to the Mishnah neither of these was allowed for a man who had been executed by stoning. However, it is quite likely that the Mishnah describes what was felt should have been right in the second century A.D. rather than what was necessarily the practice in the first century.

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 .