A Ship

Alexandrian Ships and the Spirit

ἐφέροντο

Part I (of III): What can a first century Alexandrian grain freighter ship teach us about the Holy Spirit’s role in the writing of inspired Scripture?

Acts chapter 27 describes Paul’s journey by sea from Caesarea to Rome which consisted of voyages on two different ships, the second of which he transferred to in Myra in Lycia (present day SW Turkey, just NW of Cyprus). It is here Paul is transferred to what Acts 27:6 says is “…an Alexandrian ship sailing for Italy….” This is referencing a first century Alexandrian grain freighter. Contextually in Acts, this scene is from Paul’s journey to Rome to stand trial (at his request, provocatio ad Caesarem) in front of the emperor. This emperor was the infamous Nero, who ruled from ~37 AD to 68 AD. It is on the second leg of this journey that this Alexandrian ship runs aground. I’ll post a historical timeline of the apostle Paul’s life in another post in the future, but for now, I’ll simply state that this shipwreck likely took place in mid to late October, 57 AD.

Alexandrian grain freighter’s were common in the ancient Roman empire, and were primarily used for transporting grain from Egypt. They were massive ships. A Greek writer in the second century, Lucian, gives us a description of one of these ships and lists it as having dimensions of 180 feet long, 45 feet wide and about 45 feet deep. It could carry roughly 1,200 short tons (about 2,400,000 pounds).

Alexandrian ships generally had one to three massive square sails and were often used to transport large groups of people in addition to grain. Paul states that there were 276 people (v. 37) onboard his vessel when it was run aground. Now, let’s look at the verses in full form, and zero in on the Greek word ἐφέροντο (Latin transliteration: epheronto).

Acts 27:17 says the following, “After they had hoisted it up, they used supporting cables in undergirding the ship; and fearing that they might run aground on the shallows of Syrtis, they let down the sea anchor and in this way let themselves be driven along.” The word “driven” here is the word in focus. Before I get to why I think this word is instructive in the manner of how the Holy Spirit used human agents to write inspired scripture (Part II and III), let’s first get granular on the specificity of Koine Greek here used by Luke.

A brief comment on the word used in this verse, ἐφέροντο:

The writer of this gospel is Luke. He is more than likely traveling with the apostle Paul when this occurs. The “we passages” of the gospel of Luke are unique, and are found mainly in Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1–28:16.

The word Luke uses when writing “driven along” in this passage carry an English sense of something like “let themselves be driven.”

The root of epheronto is φέρω (pherō); this is a verb meaning to carry some burden, to move by bearing, to bear up, to move along etc.

The tense used by Luke of this word in Greek is the imperfect passive indicative tense. In layman’s terms (and this context) this tense usage means that this description is of a continuous (or repeated) action in the past that was done to the subject (rather than by that subject). In other words, this conjugation indicates that the ship was the recipient of the action; i.e., it was being acted upon by an external force, namely the wind (and sea).

It is this idea of being driven along by an external force that will provide the segue for Part II, where I will lay out how this relates to the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit upon the writers of scripture, to provide the biblical scriptures (known as plenary inspiration).

Bonus cool stuff: For anyone that would like to see this section of Acts 27 in a very ancient manuscript in Koine Greek, go here: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1209. This is the Vatican’s digital library vault that shows a digitized version of Codex Vaticanus (full biblical manuscript from ~325-350 AD). On the digitized version, I believe the location of Acts 27 is on folio pages 1423-1425. Another great resource for viewing ancient NT manuscripts have been compiled by the eminent textual critic Dan Wallace at The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts: https://www.csntm.org.

Part II:

Historic Christianity believes their scriptures to be authoritative, inspired and inerrant. There are all manners of ways to define terms like inspired and authoritative. To quote another though, I tend to prefer the thorough and comprehensive definition of inspiration given by Louis Igou Hodges, (Evangelical Definitions of Inspiration: Critiques and a Suggested Definition,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 37/1 (March 1994): 99-114.)

“Graphic (written) inspiration is the activity by which that portion intended by God of his special revelation was put into permanent, authoritative, written form by the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit, who normally worked concurrently and confluently through the spontaneous thought processes, literary styles, and personalities of certain divinely-selected men in such a way that the product of their special labors (in its entirety) is the very Word of God (both the ideas and the specific vocabulary), complete, infallible, and inerrant in the original manuscripts.”

This post will focus on the question of what we know from scripture itself about how this process worked. Exodus 34:27, 2 Samuel 23:1-2, chapter 36 of Jeremiah, 2 Timothy 3:15-17, 2 Peter 1:19-21, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 would be a few good proof texts to consider. We’ll look at only one today:

Peter describes in 2 Peter 1:20–21 the following, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

This word translated “moved” here in the NASB or “carried along” in the ESV/NIV/CSB is the same word to describe the wind (and/or sea) driving along the ship in Acts 27. The word again is, φερόμενοι. Same word from Part I, root - φέρω (pherō). This time, the Greek conjugation is present passive participle. Peter uses the same word that Luke uses in Acts 27 to describe the moving along or being driven along, of the Alexandrian ship. In the same way, he describes this process of the Holy Spirit moving the prophets to speak. It’s a wonderful word picture of being moved upon by an external force; being an active participant, but somehow acted upon in an unseen way.

It is in this same way the agent doing the moving is not the wind or the sea, but the Holy Spirit - the Hebrew Ruach Elohim. The same Ruach Elohim (Holy Spirit) that hovered over the earth in Genesis, and the same Ruach that Jesus explains being born again to Nicodemus in John chapter three when describing the wind moving (Holy Spirit). The Hebrew word ruach is the same word translated pneuma in the Greek. It’s also the root of the next word we will look at in Part III, the hapax legomenon, theopneustos.

To understand the specificity of the original Greek Peter uses here; think about the force of this word in its conjugation, I’ll quote partially from another (Wenstrom) who exegetes the Greek nicely here:

“Moved”, or φερόμενοι, is the nominative masculine plural present passive participle form of the verb pherō (φέρω), which means “to be moved, to be influenced, to be driven” since it pertains to causing one to follow a certain course in direction or conduct… Peter is telling his readers that the Old Testament prophets were influenced by the omnipotence (intangible means) of the Holy Spirit (Person) which enabled them to communicate in writing with perfect accuracy (effects), God the Father’s sovereign will.

The present tense of the verb pherō can be interpreted as a gnomic present which is used to make a statement of a general, timeless fact. Thus it would indicate that Peter is saying that the prophets of Israel “as an eternal spiritual truth” were influenced or moved by the Holy Spirit from God.

The present tense could also be interpreted as a customary or stative present indicating that the prophets of Israel existed in the state of being influenced or moved by the Holy Spirit from God.

The passive voice of the verb pherō means that the subject receives the action of the verb from either an expressed or unexpressed agency. Here the subject is of course the prophets of Israel. The agency is expressed, and is the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the passive voice indicates the OT prophets as the subject, received the action of being influenced by the Holy Spirit when they communicated their prophecies in writing.

The participle form of the verb could be interpreted as a temporal participle since in relation to its controlling verb laleō, “spoke” it answers the question “when?” This would indicate that the prophets spoke “while” being influenced or moved by the Holy Spirit from God.

The participle form of this verb could also be interpreted as a causal participle meaning it indicates the cause or reason or ground of the action of the finite verb which is laleō, “spoke.” This would indicate that the Old Testament prophets of Israel spoke from God because of being influenced by the Holy Spirit. The latter would appear to be the better interpretation because it is more explicit than the former in that it presents to the reader the explicit reason why the OT prophets spoke from God. They spoke from God because of being influenced by the Holy Spirit.

It is in this way Peter describes divine inspiration of prophecy, and I think a wonderful illustration of how scripture is given to human agents. It is “from God” (Greek apo theou, describing their source being God Himself).

It is this process that gives us the only usage of the Greek word in scripture: θεόπνευστος (theopneustos)

as used in 2 Timothy 3:16, scripture is “God breathed” or theopneustos. As human agents are carried along φέρομαι (pheromai) by the Holy Spirit.

It is in this way that the incarnate Christ tried to explain the Spirit to a leader of the Jews who did not understand being born again. In his famous conversation with Nicodemus in John chapter three, he uses a similar analogy to help him understand a spiritual rebirth and belief in Jesus Christ where He says,

John 3:6–8 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”