In English Yes…..in Greek….no, Luke uses τοῖς τέκνοις (children) and it is a generalized word for children of any age. Luke uses two other words for descendants Σπέρμα (sperma) Acts 7:5, Σπέρμα Acts 7:6, σπέρματος Acts 13:3 and ὀσφύος osphus, or loins) Acts 2:29. Luke could have used Σπέρμα or ὀσφύος as a substitute for τοῖς τέκνοις but didn’t.
Furthermore, we see the word τέκνοις (children) accompanied by ὑμῶν. Ὑμῶν, meaning your, occurs in the genitive (a possessive), 2nd person plural. This tells us that Peter is speaking of the children of those he is speaking to, that is, the children of the crowd. The text itself communicates a literal idea, that the promise found in Baptism is granted to the crowd and their families. So your hermeneutical rule…children really means descendants….falls flat.
Proper hermenuetics at least demands what the term τέκνοις (children) meant by the original speakers and what the original audience would have inferred by it. Peter was addressing the hearers as the Jewish people as a whole. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:32) We can clearly see that he is addressing them as covenant community and not as individuals, even though the people listening to Peter didn't have a personal hand in crucifying Jesus yet Peter does say that "you" as a covenant community crucified him.
So how would this Jewish covenant community have understood the term τέκνοις (children) Peter was preaching about? The Jews, who had been initiating their children via circumcision into the visible covenant community for 2,000 years, should be convinced by Peter’s preaching they must no longer do so if baptism was not for their children. Peter gives no admonition to bar children from baptism. It would have intuitive for Peter’s listeners to understand τέκνοις to mean their children would be included rather than excluded from baptism.
You make a good argument here. I have not studied Greek, so you have me at a bit of a disadvantage. So I have turned to others and see what they say about this.
This link has several Bible commentators discussing Acts 2:39. Most gloss over the "and your children" part. Some discuss the children as descendants, and one (Gill's) uses children in the sense you describe:
and to your children: this is the rather mentioned, because these awakened, and converted souls, were not only in great concern about themselves, for their sin of crucifying Christ, but were in great distress about
their children, on whom they had imprecated the guilt of Christ's blood, as upon themselves; the thought of which cut them to the heart, and made their hearts bleed, within them: wherefore to relieve them, and administer comfort to them in this their distress, the apostle informs them, that the promise of Christ, and of his grace, was not only to them, who were now called, but
it was also to their children; to as many of them as the Lord God should call; and who are the
children of the promise, which all the
children of the flesh were not,
Romans 9:6 and to these the promise should be applied, notwithstanding this dreadful imprecation of theirs:
I don't know who these Bible commentators are. Perhaps they are all Protestants and therefore biased. I did a Google search for Catholic commentary on this verse and found
Haydock's Catholic commentary, which doesn't mention the children part. It also found a
Coffman's commentary (not specified as Catholic) that also doesn't mention the children part.
I also looked up the Greek interlinear translation for this text
here, which shows the word for "children" is teknois, as you said. It gives an overview definition of:
A child, descendent, inhabitant. From the base of timoria; a child. There is a link to other uses of the root word teknon
here, and from what I see there, it does indeed mean "children", "child", or "son" etc. I looked to see if there is a Greek word for infant that Luke could have used if he wanted to specify just babies (rather than children in general), and there is
népios (an infant, fig. a simple-minded or immature person) or
brephos (an unborn or a newborn child).
Looking again at "to your children" from
here:
to
τοῖς (tois)
Article - Dative Neuter Plural
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.
your
ὑμῶν (hymōn)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Genitive 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 4771: You. The person pronoun of the second person singular; thou.
children
τέκνοις (teknois)
Noun - Dative Neuter Plural
Strong's 5043: A child, descendent, inhabitant. From the base of timoria; a child.
I had to look up the meaning of Genitive
here.
In
grammar, the
genitive case (
abbreviated gen)
[2] is the
grammatical case that marks a word, usually a
noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an
attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun.
[3] A genitive can also serve purposes indicating other relationships. For example, some
verbs may feature
arguments in the genitive case; and the genitive case may also have
adverbial uses (see
adverbial genitive).
I don't see that this changes the English translation to anything other than the same "your children" that we use. I don't see that it excludes the concept of children meaning offspring. Indeed
Strong's 5043 includes the option of "descendant" for translation. But again, I have not studied Greek.
In summary, I understand you to say that Peter told the crowd to repent and be baptized, both the adults and the children. From what I can see trying to look at the Greek myself, your reading is well supported. But I feel my understanding could also be true. But even if it were true that Paul wanted everyone in the crowd, men and women and children and infants, to all go down to the river and be baptized, that is NOT the same as saying that
all baptisms going forward were all supposed to be done before a person has the mental capacity to understand what is being done.
As I read the scriptures, baptism is always paired with repentance, and a believer is encouraged to make the decision to undergo this ritual, rather than someone else making it for them.
Thanks for your time and effort.
KT
