Acts 12:3-4

The issue of the KJV translation, Easter.

Verse 3

1.And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. At this point there is a parenthesis in the Greek. It is introduced by the word, de, (now) and the verb eimi as an imperfect indicative (was) = “now it was.”

2. (Now it was the days of the unleavened bread): The word, DURING, is implied because of the plural of days. Unleavened bread is the 7-day feast that follows immediately upon the one day festival of the Passover. The purpose of the parenthesis is to indicate that is was DURING the 7 day feast that Peter was arrested.

3. The parenthesis ends after verse 3 and the narrative continues with the relative pronoun that begins verse 4 – “who,” with the word kai, for also, which indicates what Herod’s intent is.

Verse 4
1. “who also having seized”: The relative pronoun goes directly back to Peter and indicates that what is placed between “Peter” and “who” is a parenthetical comment by the writer.

2. The word, “having seized,” is an aorist active participle of piadzo and CAN be translated with a temporal idea of WHEN. Thus, “when he had seized.” However, the relative pronoun should be translated literally instead of making it a “him.” It should be, “Who also, having seized.”

3. he put in prison, delivering (him) to four squads of soldiers to guard him.

4. intending after the Passover to bring him out before the people: Here we have the word, pascha.
It is used always throughout the Old Testament in the LXX to refer to either the one day feast of Passover OR the entire festive week of unleavened bread.

Luke 22:1, “now the feast of unleavened bread, which is called the pascha, was approaching.” There is no reason to translate, pascha any differently than EVERY OTHER occurrence in the New Testament – PASSOVER. Now whether it is the one day feast or the entire feast, context must determine, but this context is quite clear.

It refers to the entire 7 day feast and the intent of Herod is to bring Peter out before the people at the end of the festival.

To try to make this refer to the pagan festival of Ishtar is a fanciful theory attempting to support the bankrupt belief that the KJV is inherently inspired and therefore must be correct at this point, in translating it as Easter. It is a theory that ignores every other occurrence of the word, pascha, as well as the very context of this passage.
 

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