to observe or consider carefully: to give something sustained, thorough attention, whether by looking at it or by reflecting on it
This is a rare, bookish Greek verb that shows up only twice in the New Testament, and in both places it means the same thing: to look at or think about something with careful, unhurried attention. It is built from the ordinary verb for purposeful looking (θεωρέω) plus a prefix that sharpens it, so that the plain act of looking becomes thorough scrutiny.
The two uses differ only in what is being examined. In Acts it is something a person can see: Paul walks through Athens and studies its shrines and altars one by one, the careful inspection of a visitor who has done his homework. In Hebrews it is something you cannot literally look at: the readers are told to weigh the whole course of their departed leaders' lives and to copy their faith. In each case the verb describes the same kind of attention, only aimed at a different object.
Because this is the sort of word an educated writer of the day would reach for, both authors seem to have chosen it on purpose. It signals that what is in view deserves more than a passing look: it asks for the reader's sustained, considered gaze.
Nuances
Disputed
How much the prefix ana- adds to the simplex theoreo: whether it marks intensive thoroughness, iterative repetition, or a methodical serial survey. The core sense (careful, attentive observation) is not in question; the debate concerns the force of the compound.
- majorityThe prefix is intensive/perfective: the verb denotes observing thoroughly and carefully, more than the simple act of looking. This is anchored in Diodorus Siculus 12.15, where the compound is explicitly contrasted with the simplex and glossed by a coordinate participle meaning scrutinized with precision.; BDAG, s.v. ἀναθεωρέω; Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon, domain 24.51; W. Michaelis, θεωρέω κτλ., TDNT 5
- minorityThe prefix is iterative: the verb denotes observing again and again, a repeated attentive survey.; B. F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews
- minorityThe prefix marks a methodical survey: to look along a whole series of objects in order, from lowest to highest.; Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon of the NT (following G. B. Winer)