What Does Acts 17:23 Mean?
For as I passed through and looked closely at your shrines, I found an altar with this writing upon it, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. So what you revere without knowing, this I announce to you.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.THE KEY
The inscription calls God unknown, while the verse places that name beside people already honoring the one they do not know.
THE MEANING
You can honor a presence you do not yet recognize. What is unknown can become known through disclosure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that not being able to name God means there is no presence to encounter, or that reverence must wait for full understanding.
THE ROOT
ἄγνωστος
agnōstos
GROWS FROM
γνω- (gnō-, from γινώσκω)
To know, recognize, or perceive through encounter.
ἄγνωστος (agnōstos, unknown) sits beside ἀγνοοῦντες (agnoountes, not knowing), echoing the negation of knowing in the verse’s wording. The declaration opens a movement from what is not recognized toward what can be made known.
ALSO GROWS
gnōstos: Known, recognized
γνωστός
Unknown negates this very word: it is the known with a negation placed before it.
gnōsis: Knowing, knowledge
γνῶσις
This branch shows the direction opened by the declaration: from what is not recognized toward knowing.
THE PATTERN
A presence can precede recognition, then become knowable through what reveals it.
And Jacob woke out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not perceive it.To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The heavens recount the weight of God; and the expanse sets forth the work of his hands.No one has ever seen God. The only-born God, who is at the breast of the Father, has led him out.THE THREAD
Because what of God can be perceived is visible in them, for God has made it visible to them.Romans uses γνωστόν (gnōston, known), from the same Greek knowing-family as ἄγνωστος (agnōstos, unknown) in Acts. Acts names what is not recognized; Romans describes what is knowable being made manifest.
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