What Does Acts 17:19 Mean in the King James?
And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The question is not whether the teaching is familiar, but whether it can be known.
THE MEANING
When a teaching reaches you as something new, the verse makes room to ask what it actually is. Knowing here means perceiving the teaching itself, not stopping at its label.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse loosens the idea that unfamiliarity alone settles a teaching’s worth: what is new can first be examined.
THE ROOT
γνῶναι
gnōnai
GROWS FROM
γινώσκω (ginōskō; stem γνω-/γνο-)
To know, recognize, or perceive.
The question uses a form of knowing that can mean coming to recognize or perceive something, not merely receiving information about it. The verse leaves the teaching open to encounter: its meaning is what the hearers are asking to know.
ALSO GROWS
gnōsis: knowledge, recognition
γνῶσις
This related word shows the same family reaching from the act of knowing toward what is known.
gnōstos: known, familiar
γνωστός
This branch shows knowing as recognition: something once new can become familiar through knowing it.
καινή
kainē
GROWS FROM
καινός
kainos
New or fresh, often with an emphasis on quality.
The word for “new” can describe freshness in character, not only something that has arrived later. The question asks what the teaching is, leaving its character to be heard rather than reducing it to novelty.
ALSO GROWS
kainotēs: newness
καινότης
The related noun makes the quality of being new explicit, echoing the hearers’ attention to what is fresh in the teaching.
anakainoō: renew, make new
ἀνακαινόω
This verb carries the same newness into renewal, showing the word family can describe a change in quality.
THE PATTERN
Unfamiliar teaching becomes knowable through attentive examination before judgment settles.
He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.THE THREAD
If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.The same Greek verb appears here as γνῶναι (gnōnai, to know) and in John as γνώσεται (gnōsetai, will know). John links knowing a teaching to its lived testing, opening the question in Acts toward knowledge that goes beyond hearing a label.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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