Bible Dictionaries
Sceva

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

SCEVA . At Ephesus, where St. Paul worked ‘special powers’ ( Acts 19:11 ff.), certain itinerant Jews (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘strolling’ perhaps conveys too much the idea of ‘vagabond’) endeavoured to exorcise evil spirits by naming over them the name of Jesus. Among them were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish ‘chief priest’ (probably one of the high-priestly family). In Acts 19:16 the demoniac overcomes ‘both of them’ (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ). Sceva himself is not said to have been present. The incident led to many conversions, and several brought and destroyed their books of magic.

There is a difficulty in the text. Seven sons are mentioned in Acts 19:14 , and these are reduced to two in Acts 19:16 . Perhaps St. Luke is here abbreviating a written source which detailed the incident more fully, and explained that two out of the seven sons tried to exorcise this particular demon. Inferior MSS (followed by AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ) substitute ‘them’ for ‘both of them,’ and the Bezan Codex (D [Note: Deuteronomist.] ) omits the word ‘seven’ altogether, calls Sceva merely ‘a priest,’ and adds other phrases which are expansions of our text. But these seem to be but explanations of a difficult original text; and the RV [Note: Revised Version.] is probably correct. The word ‘seven’ could never have been inserted if it were not St. Luke’s.

Prof. Ramsay thinks that the whole passage is unworthy of Luke ( St. Paul the Traveller 6 , p. 272f.). But it is unsafe to judge first-century thought by that of our own day. The Apostolic age firmly believed in possession by evil spirits; and there is really nothing in this chapter unlike what we read elsewhere in NT.

A. J. Maclean.

Bibliography Information
Hastings, James. Entry for 'Sceva'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/​dictionaries/​eng/​hdb/​s/sceva.html. 1909.