When Herod had searched for him and could not
find him, he examined the guards and ordered them to be put to death. Then he
went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there. Now Herod was angry with the
people of Tyre and Sidon. So they came to him in a body; and after winning over
Blastus, the king's chamberlain, they asked for a reconciliation, because their
country depended on the king's country for food. On an appointed day Herod put
on his royal robes, took his seat on the platform, and delivered a public
address to them. The people kept shouting, "The voice of a god, and not of
a mortal!" And immediately, because he had not given the glory to God, an
angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died. (Acts
12:19-23 NRSV)
Commenting
on the historical accuracy of this event in the Acts of the Apostles, Craig
Keener wrote:
Often in Acts, and especially once in the
narrative stretches beyond Judea, we have sources available that can confirm
Luke’s reports about persons or events. Luke does not frame these events
precisely the way that other sources do—independent writers rarely do—but we
can attest many of the persons and sorts of events to which he refers.
For example, the depictions of Herod Agrippa
I, Agrippa II, Felix, and Festus (Acts 12:1-23; 23:24-26:32) resemble what we
know of these figures from Josephus, even though Josephus personally favors
Herod Agrippa I more than does Luke. More directly, both Josephus and Luke
report the occasion of Agrippa’s death; that both report incidental details
omitted by the other source suggests independent accounts about the same
events, confirming the overlapping features.
|
Josephus Ant. 19.343-50
|
Acts 12:19-23
|
|
Agrippa
was in Caesarea at this time (19.343)
|
Agrippa was
in Caesarea at this time (12:19)
|
|
Public
setting (19.343-44)
|
Public
setting (12:21)
|
|
Agrippa’s
glorious robe (19.344)
|
Agrippa’s
royal apparel (12:21)
|
|
Flatterers
hail Agrippa as divine (19.344-45)
|
Flatterers
hail Agrippa as divine (12:22)
|
|
Agrippa
suffers divine judgment immediately afterward (19.346-48)
|
Agrippa
suffers divine judgment immediately afterward (12:23)
|
|
Because of
the flatterers’ blasphemy (19.346-47)
|
Because he
did not defer the praise to God (12:23)
|
|
He
suffered for five days from stomach pains (19.348-50)
|
He was eaten
by worms (12:23)
|
|
He died
(19:350)
|
He died
(12:23)
|
(Craig S. Keener, “Acts: History or Fiction?”
in Darrell L. Bock and J. Ed Komoszewski, eds. Jesus, Skepticism and the Problem of History: Criteria and Context in
the Study of Christian Origins [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Academic,
2019], 320-338, here, pp. 330-31)
In his study of the historical setting of Acts and the accuracy thereof,
Colin Hemer presented a list of many of “the specific local knowledge” the author had. The
following is the listing for ch. 17 alone:
17:1 The mention of Amphipolis and of
Apollonia should probably be taken to imply that these were the places where
the travellers spent successive nights, dividing the journey to Thessalonica
into three stages of about 30, 27 and 35 miles.
17:1 A synagogue at Thessalonica is attested
by the Jewish inscription CIJ 693
(late 2nd ad or later).
17:5 In the free city of Thessalonica Paul is
brought before the δῆμος.
17:6 The title of the board of magistrates in
Thessalonica was ‘politarchs’, a term now abundantly attested from this and
other Macedonian cities.
17:10 Beroea is a suitable immediate refuge
as a place off the major westward route, the Via Egnatia. Paul’s movements, at
least thus far, are consistent with the formation in his mind of a conscious
strategy leading towards Rome, but this move and the further journey to Athens
(v. 15) are attributed to the agency of others.
17:14 The implication of sea-travel is at
once the most convenient way of reaching Athens with the favouring ‘Etesian’
winds of the summer sailing-season and also removes Paul to a different
jurisdiction remote from nearer land-routes where opponents might be expecting
him. Luke does not here name a port of embarkation.
17:16 The abundance of images at Athens is
abundantly attested in literature and in the remains. This may have been a
matter of such general knowledge as scarcely to warrant special mention. Cf. δεισιδαιμονεστέρους in v. 22 and other
touches throughout the scene.
17:17 Reference to the synagogue at Athens is
illustrated by the occurrence of Jewish inscriptions there (CIJ 712–15). The point is slight, the
texts look relatively late, and the fact not unexpected. A similar illustration
may be offered for other Pauline cities such as Thessalonica (CIJ 693).
17:17 Philosophical debate in the Agora is
again characteristic of Athenian life.
17:18 The mention of Stoic philosophers is
particularly interesting, as the ‘Stoa’ (portico) from which they took their
name was in the Athenian Agora, the Stoa Poikile, and this traditional meeting
place is close to the Stoa Basileios, where the court of Areopagus transacted
routine business. This northwest corner of the Agora was also close to a
notable collocation of Hermae, apt to the adjective κατείδωλος.
17:18 The Athenians call Paul a σπερμολόγος, which is a ‘word of
characteristically Athenian slang’.
17:19 Ἄρειος πάγος: the two-word form, applied to the court, is
regularly used in many inscriptions of the period. This hearing probably took
place before the court in its meeting-place in the Agora, not on the actual
hill so called. 17:21 The comment on the Athenian character is again true to
the literature, but is more likely to have been common knowledge.
17:23 Paul would have seen the Athenians’
‘objects of worship’ in profusion at the main approach to the Agora from the
northwest.
17:23 Altars to ‘unknown gods’ are mentioned
by Pausanias (1.1.4), and the background story is told by Diogenes Laertius (Vita Philos. 1.110; cf. Philostratus Vita Ap. Ty. 6.3.5, etc.). Much is
sometimes made of the objection that the passages which speak explicitly of
‘unknown’ gods always do so in the plural, but these plurals, with the plural βωμοί, may be generalizing
plurals, or Paul may have chosen to refer to a dedication to a particular god.
Diogenes’ phrase τῷ
προσήκοντι θεῷ is
singular, in any case.
17:24 The reference to temples made with
hands (cf. 7:48, in Jerusalem) is here represented as uttered in a place
dominated by the Parthenon and surrounded by other shrines of the finest
classical art.
17:4ff. The content of this passage suits the
view that we have a compressed summary of a dialogue with Stoic and Epicurean
terms and ideas, so belonging naturally to the ostensible Pauline context (τὸ θεῖον, v. 29; οὐ … προσδεόμενός τινος, v. 25, etc.).
17:28 ‘In him we live …’ These words are
attributed to Epimenides the Cretan, who figures in Diogenes’ story of the
origin of the altars discussed above on 17:23. This also suggests a Pauline
context, where Paul is interacting with the specific traditions of Athenian
religion (cf. F, pp. 186f., P, pp. 215f.).
17:28 The second citation is from the Stoic
poet Aratus, of Soli in Cilicia, close to Paul’s home in Tarsus. Again, we may
see a Pauline context in Athens, and compare Paul’s own citation of Greek
literature in 1 Cor. 15:33 (cf. F, pp. 186–87).
17:31 Judgment is entrusted to an appointed
‘man’ (ἀνδρί), used of Jesus to a
pagan audience for whom Christological refinements would have been meaningless
at this stage. This again is suitable to Paul at Athens rather than a deliberate
Lukan theological construct.
17:32 The declaration of resurrection (ἀνάστασις) takes issue directly
with the specific denial of ἀνάστασις in this sense in the religious classic of the
archetypal trial of Orestes before this court of Areopagus, the words of Apollo
as spokesman of divine wisdom (Aeschylus, Eumen.
647–48). The idea was alien also to both groups of philosophers, and the
reaction to it is understandable in the Athenian context.
17:34 Ἀρεοπαγίτης is the correct title for a member of the
court (cf. Ἄρειος
πάγος
above). (Colin J. Hamer, The Book of Acts in
the Setting of Hellenistic History [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990],
115-19. The full listing is to be found on pp. 108-220).