“What is this babbler trying to say?”
Some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also began to debate with him. Some of them asked, 'What is this babbler trying to say?' Others said, 'He seems to be advocating foreign gods.' (Acts 17:18 BSB)
What it sounds like today
'Babbler' reads as 'chatterbox.'
The cultural key
The Greek is spermologos, 'seed-picker': the sparrow hopping around the market pecking scraps, and by extension the intellectual scavenger who picks up secondhand scraps of ideas and retails them as learning. Athens' academic insult, roughly 'this magpie of half-digested philosophy.' The second charge is heavier than it sounds: 'a preacher of foreign divinities' is nearly the accusation that killed Socrates in this same city. Epicureans (gods remote, no providence, death final) and Stoics (divine reason pervading all things) frame the audience Paul must address on the Areopagus.
Recovered meaning
Athens receives the apostle with its two standard moves: intellectual condescension and the old Socrates charge. Paul's speech in the next scene answers both, quoting their own poets back to them, no seed-picking required.