I'm now about a third of the way through day four, but wanted to comment since it'll be a few more days till I get to the rest. I wanted to comment on the whole issue of the verse 'as many as were ordained to eternal life believed'. Even though I'm not Calvinist, I haven't really thought about that verse before, and listening to the debate really made me do some homework on it.
Firstly, Mr. White is of course right (and no one is disputing it) that the tense of the verb is pluperfect (there was no need for the technical language of the periphrastic form - all that was important is the tense). But the tense has to be pluperfect; it's the same in English: when we are writing in the past tense, and wish to state something that occurred prior to the tense we are using, we shift back a tense: 'as many as had sat down at the table, ate'. Shank's work didn't deserve the bluster and the insinuation that it was suppressing something.
I did some study on the meaning of the word, and was having some difficulty with it (I have four years of homeric/classical/hellenistic Greek, but I'm still learning, and there is still a long, long way to go). It seems that White was right to say that it doesn't mean they were themselves naturally disposed to eternal life, or that they disposed themselves.
It seems that they were disposed to eternal life by the preaching of the apostles - which makes a contrast with those who rejected the preaching of Paul and Barnabas and judged themselves unworthy of eternal life (a point that Steve made). Anyway, here's a quote I found on Google Books that explains all this. At least it seems to make a lot of sense to me and i think it's right. It's lengthy so I'll split it up and recommend that people skip ahead to the bottom box if there's too much here:
Appoint suggests simply volitional determination; but the original term, in virtue of its idiosyncracy, suggests the idea of objective arrangement rather than of subjective determination or decree. It is such an arrangement, that is referred to even in Mat. xxviii. 16,—" where Jesus had appointed them." Jesus had arranged with them to meet them on the mountain. In Luke vii. 8, the same idea is manifest,—" I am a man set under authority." The meaning is not, " I am a man appointed under authority," but, I am a man holding under authority the place arranged for me. So in Acts xv. 2—" they determined that Paul and Barnabas should go up so Jerusalem." The real idea is—"they arranged that Paul and Barnabas should go up to Jerusalem." So in Acts xxii. 10; xxviii. 23. And so in Rom. xiii. 1. And in 1. Cor. xvi. 15, the idea of appointment is altogether inadmissible,—"they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints." The idea is that they ranged themselves in the category of ministers to the saints. Whosoever loses sight of this idea of objective arrangement, and substitutes for it the idea of subjective determination, misunderstands, and that radically, the nature of the word. (See the multitudinous compound of the word.)
The translation of Acts xiii. 48 is somewhat of a difficulty, just because we have no precise homologue for the original term. But the idea undoubtedly is,—that "at many as were inwardly adjusted, arranged, or put in order in relation to eternal life, believed." As many as were ready for eternal life believed. That is the idea. But because there is no English word that exactly covers the breadth of import embodied in the Greek vocable, a verbally precise translation is a matter of difficulty, perhaps of impossibility. "Appointed," however, is altogether objectionable." Ordained" is much better, for in its original import it suggests ordination in the sense of the Latin ordinalio, that is, in the sense of ordering or setting in order.
“Doctrinal and Exegetical Queries,” The Evangelical Repository, Third Series, Vol. 3 (Glasgow: Thomas D. Morison, 1865), 231.
Also,the Greek word for 'as many as' (hosos in the sing. masc. nom.) does mean .... 'as many as'. Therefore I can't see how the conclusion can be avoided that there were no more elect among the crowd that the apostles preached to. I think this was a real low point of the debate in so far as White's argumentation goes. The only alternative would have been to say 'yes, that's right, that crowd was hardened, but there were still other people in the city they could preach to'. Fair enough, but the passage understood from his perspective would rule out any others from among the crowd being of the elect. Good job to Steve on this once again. I wish I could be so sharp under pressure, and maintain such grace and humility. I learn so much from the answers, and from the spirit exhibited.
