Δεισιδαιμονεστέρους in Acts 17:22: A Philological Reevaluation

The adjective in the comparative δεισιδαιμονεστέρους in Acts 17:22b, the beginning of Paul’s speech on the Areopagus to an educated Athenian
audience, is rendered as ‘too superstitious’ in KJV, but ’very religious’ in NKJV. For, according to the main dictionaries, the adjective δεισιδαίμων
means both 1. ‘pious’; and 2. ‘superstitious’, and exegetes allegedly need to decide which choice to adopt.
These dictionaries’ sources, however, do not support the positive meaning of ‘religious’. By the second half of the fourth century B.C. ‘the superstitious man’ (δεισιδαίμων) had become a stock character. Moreover, both Epicurean and Stoic philosophy regards ‘superstition’ (δεισιδαιμονία) as negative. A study of all the occurrences of δεισιδαίμων in the extant Greek literature of the first century B.C., and the first and second centuries A.D. demonstrates that all the surveyed authors employed δεισιδαίμων in the sense of ‘superstitious’; only an inferior and later verse inscription bucks this trend.
Finally, exegetes have interpreted the comparative form as a ‘comparative for superlative’. Yet the elative meaning ‘very religious’ would belong to a popular or vulgar register and is therefore unlikely in the context of Paul’s speech. Therefore, we need to return to the interpretation ‘too superstitious’; exercise greater caution when consulting Greek dictionaries; and reevaluate Paul’s speech in light of these findings.