Acts 4, "voice" singular or plural?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Afterthought

Puritan Board Senior
Hello,

I recently heard that one way for more than one person to pray (not necessarily in public worship) is for everyone to pray at the same time. By that, is not meant that one person leads the prayer vocally while the rest join in heart. But rather, that everyone prays at the same time vocally. And not only do they pray at the same time vocally, it is not a single form of prayer that they are all praying from at the same time, but rather, everyone voices their own different, extemporaneous prayers all at the same time. The justification for this was that the word in greek used in Acts somewhere for believers praying together was plural, and meant a "multitude of voices." I forget which passage in Acts was being used to justify this practice but I think it was in Acts 4:24, where the believers lift up their voice with one accord.

Now, outside of the problems this view of things seems to run into with 1 Cor. 14 (though perhaps not; the tricky thing was that this "praying all at once" wasn't advocated for a public worship service but rather for some unofficial gathering), from what I can tell from internet searches, it seems the word "voice" in Acts 4 is singular, not plural. So I could have found the wrong passage. Though strangely, it seems the same word is also translated "voices" in Acts 14:11. Obviously, I am quite ignorant of the original languages, so my question: Is the word in Acts 4 singular or plural? If singular, why is it translated plural in Acts 14:11? And if singular in Acts 4, are there any other passages where praying could be seen as done with a "multitude of voices"?

I do note that this seems to only be an issue with the KJV and NKJV; the other standard popular translations all seem to choose the plural for Acts 4:24.

Thanks for any help!
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top