[Will Kinney]

Acts 17:22 "Too Superstitious or Very Religious"?

Acts 17:22 "Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things YE ARE TOO SUPERSTITIOUS...whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you."

Many Bible commentators and modern critics have set forth a concentrated attack on the accuracy of our beloved Authorized King James Bible. Most of these men will piously profess a belief in the inerrancy of Scripture, but when we press them about what they REALLY believe, we find that not one of them has a real and tangible book in print anywhere on this earth that they honestly believes is the complete, inspired and inerrant Bible. Each of them ends up being his own authority and feels free to edit, change, correct, omit, add to and translate any portion of what he thinks might be Scripture any way he chooses to do so at the moment. And of course, not one of them is in agreement with anybody else all the time. These same men will tell us that the King James Bible got it all wrong here in Acts 17:22 and the word translated as "too superstitious" should really be rendered as "very religious". They explain to us that Paul would not want to offend these people and start off his sermon with a slap in the face. He would be more gentle and compliment them on what they had right - or, so they tell us.

At one of the internet Bible clubs I belong to, a modern version promoter wrote: "The KJV's rendering of deisidaimonesterous as superstitious in Acts 17:22 is just wrong. Superstitious is a negative quality, and St. Paul is clearly not saying anything bad about the Athenians here because he wants them to listen to him. He is not going to win listeners if he from the outset denounces them as superstitious dolts. The modern versions usually render this word as "very religious", and this is clearly better than the KJV rendering, don't you think?"

The above criticism of the King James Bible is typical of the mindset of today's compromising religious critics. They assume the KJB's "superstitious" is wrong and are horrified that a preacher of the gospel would dare find fault with someone else's religion.

They might also find fault with John the Baptist's methods or Peter's or even Jesus' words to a misguided sinner. They perhaps were not "seeker friendly" enough. In Luke 3:7-10 we read of John the Baptist when he was just beginning his ministry. "Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O GENERATION OF VIPERS, who hath warned you to flee from the WRATH TO COME? Bring forth fruits worthy of REPENTANCE, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and CAST INTO THE FIRE. And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?"

Then there is Peter preaching his first sermon in Acts 2. "Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs...Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, YE HAVE TAKEN, AND BY WICKED HANDS HAVE CRUCIFIED AND SLAIN." Acts 2:22,23.

Again in Acts 3 Peter again "slaps them in the face" by telling his audience "the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead."

Then finally, I guess Jesus Christ Himself was unkind in His words to the woman of Samaria when He told her that her religion was false. He says to her: "Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews." Here Christ tells the Samaritan woman that she and her people were wrong in their collective worship and that the only true salvation came from the Old Testament scriptures entrusted to the Jewish people. How inconsiderate of our Lord not to compliment her on the parts of her people's religion they had right, don't you think?

Secondly, let's take a look at the word translated as "too superstitious" in the King James Bible. The word is composed of two elements. Deisidaimonesterous is in part composed of the verb deido which means to fear, and the second part is daimon, which means devils or demons. The word daimon is used six times in the New Testament and is always translated as devils in the KJB.

In Luke 8:29 a man possessed of an unclean spirit often brake his bands "and was driven of THE DEVIL into the wilderness." Revelation 16:14 uses this word when it tells us: "they are the spirits of DEVILS working miracles" and again in Revelation 18:2 "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of DEVILS" So the word is literally to fear devils or demons.

Many modern versions have united to translate Paul's sermon in Acts 17:22 as a compliment to their spirituality rather than as a rebuke of their false religion. Among these are the NKJV, NASB, NIV, RSV, Holman Standard, and the ESV. The NKJV reads: "I perceive that in all things you are VERY RELIGIOUS".

Here is how some other modern versions translate the passage: The Message - "you take your religion seriously"; Green's "literal" translation - "I see how god-fearing you are"; Holman - "you are extremely religious in every respect."-Young's "you are over religious", and then the Amplified speaks out of both sides of its mouth with: "I perceive that you are most religious, or very reverent to demons."

The King James Bible is not at all alone in correctly translating this word as "too superstitious". Even today in modern Greek, the word deisidaimonesteros means "superstitious" and does not mean "religious". I have Diury's Modern English-Greek and Greek-English desk dictionary here in my study. If you look up the word superstitious you get precisely this same Greek word as its definition; and the reverse is also true. If you look up the Greek word deisidaimonesteros you find "superstitious" given as the only definition.

Even Daniel Wallace's NET version footnotes: " The term deisidaimonesterou" is difficult. On the one hand it can have the positive sense of “devout,” but on the other hand it can have the negative sense of “superstitious” (BDAG 216 s.v.)."

In the New Testament Greek there is a different word used for "religion" and "religious" as found in Acts 26:5 "after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee", and in James 1:26, 27 "If any man among you seem to be religious...pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this.." The word used in these places and translated as religious or religion is threskeia and is totally different from the Greek word deisidaimonesteros.

Not only does the King James Bible correctly say "ye are too SUPERSTITIOUS" in Acts 17:22 but so also do Tyndale 1525, Miles Coverdale 1535, the Bishop's Bible 1568, the Geneva Bible 1599, the Spanish Sagradas Escrituras 1569, the Spanish Reina Valera of 1858 and 1909 (supersticiosos), Luther's 1545 German bible, the Revised Version of 1881, Webster's 1833 translation, the Douay-Rheims version 1950, the KJV 21st Century and the Third Millenium Bible.

Other versions have readings that basically match the sense of the King James Bible. Darby's translation says: "I see you are given up to demon worship"; Lamsa's translation of the Syriac Peshitta says: "you are extravagant in the worship of idols"; and Rotherham's Emphasized bible says: "you are reverent of the demons". Wycliffe translated this as : "I see you are vain worshippers." John Calvin translated this Greek word as "superstitious" and comments: "Paul layeth superstition to the charge of the men of Athens, because they worship their gods all at a very venture."

The King James Bible is correct, as always. God has preserved His words and He has done so in the greatest Bible ever printed and used to reach millions of precious souls for whom Christ died. Don't let the Bible critics steal your Holy Bible from you.

Will Kinney

[Biblestudent]

Critics are really "superstitious" when it comes to the KJV, but will put "religious" to their bibles when most of them don't like to be called that.

Another good article Will. Fellow preachers of mine use some of your articles, and I do, too. Thanks a lot!

[Will Kinney]

Hi brother. I'm glad to hear the little study is of some benefit. The Bible Agnostics just love to try to find any kind of fault they can dream up against God's Book. But I have continually found that upon further examination and study, the King James Bible always comes out on top. It has no errors in it at all. It is God's perfect Book. Praise Him for giving it to us and the faith to believe it.

Accepted in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:6)

Will K