QUESTION
To me, both of these verbs κρίναντες ἐπλήρωσαν seem to be missing objects and the antecedents aren’t clear. Are there any tips and tricks in the grammar for translation or is it just a matter of getting the semantics right?
Acts 13:27 (NA27) οἱ γὰρ κατοικοῦντες ἐν Ἰερουσαλὴμ καὶ οἱ ἄρχοντες αὐτῶν τοῦτον ἀγνοήσαντες καὶ τὰς φωνὰς τῶν προφητῶν τὰς κατὰ πᾶν σάββατον ἀναγινωσκομένας κρίναντες ἐπλήρωσαν,
DENNIS’ RESPONSE
οἱ γὰρ κατοικοῦντες ἐν Ἱερουσαλὴμ
καὶ οἱ ἄρχοντες αὐτῶν
τοῦτον ἀγνοήσαντες
καὶ τὰς φωνὰς τῶν προφητῶν τὰς κατὰ πᾶν σάββατον ἀναγινωσκομένας
κρίναντες (τοῦτον)
ἐπλήρωσαν (τὰς φωνὰς τῶν προφητῶν)
Those who live at Jerusalem
and their rulers
since they did not recognize him
even though they read the words of the prophets every sabbath
condemned him anyway
and thereby fulfilled those words.
So there are five transitive nominative plural participial phrases before the finite verb of the independent clause in verse 27 in a simple, orderly syntax. The first two are the articular subject, and the others are anarthrous circumstantial participles to the plural verb. The objects of the first 3 verbs are supplied explicitly, but the expected objects of the last two transitive verbs are, as you observed, elliptical.
The ellipsis of subjects and objects is a salient feature of Greek not encountered in English which requires them to be explicit. What needs to be supplied for transitive verbs is the object (not the antecedents). The normal rule is to assume, the implicit objects to be those previously supplied to the immediately preceding verbs, but semantically in keeping with common sense.
The antecedent of the pronoun τοῦτον is Christ, from the context. Christ was the one the Jews misunderstood and condemned (although they also did so to the prophets before him). So since Christ (τοῦτον) is the focus, he is the most natural to take as the implicit object of κρίναντες. However, the scriptural pattern for fulfilling is the scripture itself. So that is the most natural object to take for fulfilling.
Greek had a minimalist habit of reusing words from the earlier context without repeating them. In this way, the natural interpretation for implicit objects of transitive verbs involves a combination of the practice of carrying the previous objects forward (like an echo or a copy) and the application of the expected language patterns and what works semantically in the context. This is not eisegesis.
Within this general framework, if you read the translations on Bible Hub, you will see a variety of minor variations that fit well semantically.