Acts and Eyewitnesses

We're back in Acts at church—we move pretty quickly, it seems—and we've lately arrived at the raising of Dorcas, or Tabitha, from the dead:

36 Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. 37 In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. 38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, “Please come to us without delay.” 39 So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them. 40 But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up.

Of interest to us is that Luke spends a moment in translation here.  Acts is addressed to Theophilus, evidently a Greek-speaker, but the woman's name is Aramaic (Tabitha means "gazelle"). 

By translating (36), Luke gives us some information about his audience, but he also provides a possible indication of eyewitness reportage here: you'll note that when he's quoting Peter (40), he uses the Aramaic name.  This is natural (Peter's native tongue is probably Aramaic, after all), but Luke preserves the quote and the language rather than accommodating Theophilus as he does elsewhere (39).

This sort of casual transition between multiple languages in story-telling is a suggestion that Luke is relating an eye-witness account of the miracle.





As a secondary note, the pastor made another good point here that the passage may also hearken to Mark 5:41, in which Jesus raises the centurion's daughter.  (The Aramaic here is "Talitha, cumi," that is, "Little girl, arise."  The Aramaic here is orthographically quite similar, differing in the English transliteration by a single letter.)

The connection is an interesting one, and perhaps worth exploring.