Acts 7:40 "a god" singular or "gods" plural?

[Paul Younan]

Plural, does that determine it? And I can see the 2 parallel dots in the manuscripts above alaha in verse 40, and a single dot above Alaha in verse 42 and 45.

You got it. <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s -->

And you can see in v.42 and v.45 that the supporting verbs are in the singular 3rd-person. Indicating that the world "Alaha" is singular, unlike in v.40 where it is plural "alahe".

Before the parallel dots indicating plurality (syame markings) were invented, sometimes the only way to tell whether a noun was single/plural, was to determine the state of the verbs which are contextually part of the phrase.

Fortunately, Aramaic distinguishes verbs (and other components) by number, person and gender. So most of the time you will be able to tell, even in the ancient manuscripts that lack the syame markings.

+Shamasha