The way of imagination

  “ While Apollos was in Corinth , Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They replied, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” Then he said, “Into what, then, were you baptized?” They answered, “Into John’s baptism.” (Acts 19.1-3, NRSVUE )      Acts 19 begins with this fascinating episode of Paul finding 12 disciples [1] of John the Baptist in Ephesus (cf. Ac. 19.7; Lk. 5.33; 7.18; 11.1).   What “in the world” were they doing there ?   Though I usually think of John the Baptist’s circle of influence as having been limited to Galilee and Judea, where he seems to have spent most of his time (cf. Lk. 1.39-45; 3.1-3), the book of Acts suggests that his followers, like those of Jesus/Paul, took his message far beyond the limits of the Holy Land (cf. Ac. 18.24-25; 11.19-21).   When you thin...

  “About that time no little disturbance broke out concerning the Way. A man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis…said, “Men …not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods . And there is danger…that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her.”   When they heard this, they were enraged and shouted, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19.23-28, NRSVUE )      What, on the surface, merely looks like a cynical attempt to protect the economic interests of the Ephesian “religious trinket” manufacturers is actually only the tip of a socio-religious iceberg that had been floating in the “seas” of Asia for centuries…before Paul arrived in town with his message of Jewish-style creational mono...

  “Paul entered the synagogue and for three months spoke out boldly and argued persuasively about the kingdom of God. When some stubbornly refused to believe and spoke evil of the Way before the congregation, he left them, taking the disciples with him, and argued daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.” (Acts 19.8-9, NRSVUE )        As we have seen, Luke presents Paul as a philosopher, “arguing” ( dialegomai ) with Jews, Stoics, Epicureans…indeed, with all comers (cf. Ac. 17.17-18; 18.4; 19.8-9; 24.25).   The verb dialegomai is a commonplace in classical and Hellenistic Greek literature, where it is mostly used for “converse” or “discussion”.   In Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, there is developed the art of persuasion and demonstration either in the form of question and answer (Socrates), the establishment of the idea by pure thought (Plato), or the investigation of the ultimate foundations of demonstration and knowledge (Aristotle). ...

  “Paul entered the synagogue and for three months spoke out boldly and argued persuasively about the kingdom of God. When some stubbornly refused to believe and spoke evil of the Way before the congregation, he left them, taking the disciples with him, and argued daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.” (Acts 19.8-9)      We have seen that Luke takes pains to record declarations by imperial power-players of the blamelessness of his protagonists ( Jesus : Lk. 23.4, 14, 22; Paul : Ac. 26.30-32).   According to one scholarly theory, the book of Acts consists of Luke’s “evidence” of Paul’s innocence of any capital charges – evidence that Luke intended to submit during Paul’s trial before the imperial tribunal in Rome (cf. Ac. 25.10-12; 28.30-31).   If this is true, then Luke, with his two-volume work, is doing for Jesus and Paul what Plato had done for Socrates following Socrates’ condemnation by the “council of 500” of Athens to die by drinking ...

  “While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.” (Acts 17.16-17)      One of the ways the emperor of Rome expected his subjects to demonstrate their allegiance to him was to worship his “genius” or his “spirit” (represented by his image, i.e., statue). [1]   Two years after his death in 44 B.C., the Roman senate had voted in favour of granting Julius Caesar “apotheosis”, i.e., he was proclaimed to have ascended to join the Roman pantheon as a god.   As a result, shrines were constructed for the worship of “the divine Julius Caesar”; this also meant that his adopted son and heir, Octavian [2] was hailed as “the son of a god” (this was inscribed on the coins bearing his image, along with his other titles of “lord” and “saviour”).   Eve...