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The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
Artemis of the Ephesians
The great goddess of Ephesus, whose temple was one of the seven wonders of the world and a bank as well. Her cult was the city's pride and the living of its craftsmen.
Insult the town's patron saint and you have insulted its pride, its tourist trade and its bank all at once. Ephesus belonged to Artemis. Her temple outside the city was one of the seven wonders of the world, about four times the size of the Parthenon in Athens. It also held people's money like a bank and owned great stretches of farmland. Craftsmen made souvenir shrines and statues of her, a month of the year was named for her, and crowds chanted her greatness. The Artemis of Ephesus was a local goddess with her own cult, not simply the Greek huntress of the stories.
The temple ranked among the seven wonders of the ancient world and stood about a mile and a half northeast of the city. Its size is given differently. The cultural backgrounds notes give 425 by 230 feet and Price and House 450 by 225, each about four times the Parthenon, while Keener gives some 350 by 150. Temples served as banks, and this one, among the most famous, owned some 70,000 acres of farmland. About AD 44 a scandal broke when temple deposits passed into private hands. Keener stresses that the Ephesian Artemis was distinct from other forms of the goddess, with cult centers in at least thirty-three places. Arnold notes that she was called on in magical formulas and worshiped as a goddess of the underworld with power over the spirits of nature. Her image bore the zodiac, marking her as mistress of the astral powers of fate, and at least forty-four other gods had cults in the city. Civic pride and her worship went together. When men of Sardis abused her worshipers, forty-five were executed, and crying Great is Artemis was a standard acclamation. Craftsmen made souvenir shrines, mostly of terra cotta, and gold and silver statuettes of three to seven pounds to dedicate in the temple. The ESV Study Bible says the silver shrines were models of the temple for home altars or offerings. Wright pictures families keeping a silver Artemis in a little household shrine to bless family, fields, business and livestock. Wright and Bird write that she "was worshipped for her fertility blessings." Ephesus called itself guardian of her temple, a technical term found on inscriptions. Wright describes the goddess's cult as all female and powerful in the city and beyond.
An analogy: a cathedral town whose shrine draws pilgrims from every country, whose souvenir trade feeds half the streets and whose treasury holds the townspeople's savings. A preacher who says the relics are worthless threatens all three at once.
Worship of Artemis tied religion, trade and civic pride together, so a message that gods made with hands are no gods, as in Acts 19:26-27, struck at the craftsmen's income and the city's honor in one blow. That is why a riot in Acts 19:34 turns into two hours of chanting her greatness.
Not a shrine to the one God. A cathedral's relics point past themselves to the God it serves. At Ephesus the goddess herself was worshiped, at least forty-four other gods had cults in the city, and Artemis was called on in magic as mistress of the powers of fate.
Three points. First, what kind of goddess she was. Wright calls her "a fertility goddess whose many-breasted silver statues were themselves famous." Arnold thinks the first Greek settlers gave the name Artemis to a local fertility goddess, whose rigid image looks nothing like the Greek huntress. Keener lists breasts, castrated parts, fruits or eggs as readings of the objects on her statue, and Price and House add bee hives and bulls' testicles. The cultural backgrounds notes say scholars disagree, but "ancient writers, however, regarded the Ephesian Artemis as a virgin." Second, the image that fell from heaven in Acts 19:35. The ESV Study Bible takes it as probably a meteorite, and Wright and the Zondervan dictionary as a meteorite revered as her image. The cultural backgrounds notes say no surviving source makes the claim for the Ephesian statue, which was carved. Third, whether Artemis stands behind 1 Timothy 2:12. Wright and Bird write that women should not usurp male leadership, "perhaps reflecting the all-female cult of Artemis in Ephesus". The ESV Study Bible holds that Paul's appeal to creation rules out explanations tied to the local setting. Neither of Keener's works brings Artemis into the passage.
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- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Acts 19:24, 19:25, 19:27, 19:28 and 19:35
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Acts 19:23-41, 19:23, 19:24-25, 19:27, 19:28 and 19:35-36
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Acts 19:24 and 19:35
- CSB Study Bible, notes on Acts 19:26-27 and 19:35
- N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography, ch. 10, Ephesus I
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 7, The Greco-Roman Context of the Early Church
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 23, The Argument of 1 Timothy, section 3
- ESV Study Bible, study note on 1 Timothy 2:13
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 1, Magic and Divination, opening section
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 2, Greco-Roman and Oriental Religions, section The Rise of Personal Spiritual Concern
- N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part Two, comment on Acts 19:23-41
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 11, Spiritual Warfare, Spiritism in Ephesus
- J. Randall Price and H. Wayne House, Zondervan Handbook of Biblical Archaeology, Ephesians 1:1, The Archaeology of Ephesus
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entries Artemis and Ephesus
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Pastoral Letters, comment on 1 Timothy 2:8-15
