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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.
Fate and the stars
Most people in Paul's world believed their lives were ruled by Fate, worked out through the stars, which many took to be heavenly beings. Few thought there was any escape, and cults that promised one drew followers.
Plenty of people still glance at a horoscope before a big day, half joking; in Paul's world hardly anyone was joking. Most people then believed that Fate ruled the world and that the stars carried out its decrees. Many thought the stars were living beings, and most saw no way out from under them. Some religions became popular by promising to set their members free from Fate. Jews, and the first Christians after them, believed instead in a God who rules events himself.
Keener writes that "Most people in Paul's day believed that the world was run by Fate." Fate usually worked through the stars, which were seen as heavenly beings, and most people "did not believe one had any hope of escape from Fate." Some mystery cults, Isis's among them, won followers by promising to release initiates from it. The powers ruling the nations were often thought to rule through the stars, and most Greeks of the first century feared Fate working through them. Many feared spirits as well. Keener counts astrology and attempts to escape Fate, with magic, in the occult background of believers around Ephesus. The ESV Study Bible sets God's purposeful plan against pagan gods thought fickle or bound by an unknowable fate. Some philosophers, Stoics above all, urged thanks for everything because they submitted to Fate. Jewish writers urged it because they trusted a personal God who guided events. Heiser notes that one sense of stoicheia, Paul's word for the elements, was astral deities, rooted in Greco-Roman thinking about the cosmos. Fate was pictured as a tyrant working through spirits of the stars, and Judaism had turned the elements pagans revered as gods into angels who ruled over nature. Reading the sky for the will of the gods is far older. From the eighth century BC, Podany notes, Mesopotamian astronomers kept daily records of the night sky for 700 years, with political events and epidemics beside them. They were looking for patterns, because every detail in the sky was a message from the gods. Josephus explains of the temple lampstand that "as to the seven lamps upon the candlesticks, they referred to the course of the planets" (Antiquities 3.7.7).
An analogy: a weather forecast no one can change or argue with, read every morning to learn what the day will allow. Some people shrug, some carry a charm, and some join anyone who claims to control the weather.
Because most people believed Fate ruled through the stars, the claim in Ephesians 1:21 that Christ sits far above every power and name answered a daily fear, and believers seated with him share that place. Galatians 4:9 warns converts not to turn back to the weak elements they once served, and Romans 8:38-39 promises that no power above or below can separate believers from God's love.
Not a forecast that only describes. Nobody thinks the weather report makes the rain. Fate was believed to rule events, working through stars that many took for living beings, and for most people it brought fear.
Whether Paul has the stars in view. Keener and the cultural backgrounds notes read Ephesians 1:21 and 2:6 against the fear of Fate. Arnold reads God's choosing and working out everything in Ephesians 1 as comfort for converts who feared the stars. Keener reports that some scholars take height and depth in Romans 8:39 as astrological terms, while others take them simply as heaven and Hades. Heiser thinks Paul's use of stoicheia may favor a Greco-Roman reading of the air in Ephesians 2:2, but leaves the question open.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/ephesians-1-15-23\/","n":"Ephesians 1:15-23, Far above every name that is invoked","s":"Paul prays that the believers will know the hope, the inheritance and the power God showed when he raised Christ and seated him above every ruler, authority, power and name, in this age and the next.","r":"Ephesians 1:15-23"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/ephesians-2-1-10\/","n":"Ephesians 2:1-10, The ruler of the kingdom of the air","s":"Paul reminds his readers that they were once dead in sins, following the ruler of the kingdom of the air, until God in his mercy made them alive and seated them with Christ in the heavenly realms, saved by grace.","r":"Ephesians 2:1-10"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/ephesians-5-1-20\/","n":"Ephesians 5:1-20, Children of light, and wine or the Spirit","s":"Paul calls believers to imitate God, to have nothing to do with sexual immorality, coarse joking or deeds done in the dark, and, instead of getting drunk on wine, to be filled with the Spirit, singing and giving thanks for everything.","r":"Ephesians 5:1-20"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/james-1-1-18\/","n":"James 1:1-18, To the twelve tribes scattered","s":"James greets the twelve tribes scattered among the nations, tells them to count their trials as joy and to ask God for wisdom, warns that the rich will wither like a wildflower, and insists that God tempts no one but gives every good gift from above, as the Father of lights.","r":"James 1:1-18"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-1-9-20\/","n":"Revelation 1:9-20, Patmos, the Lord's day, lampstands and stars","s":"On the island of Patmos, in the Spirit on the Lord's day, John hears a voice like a trumpet telling him to write to seven churches. He turns and sees one like a son of man among seven golden lampstands, holding seven stars, who holds the keys of death and Hades and explains what the stars and lampstands mean.","r":"Revelation 1:9-20"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/gods-of-the-bible\/stoicheia\/","n":"Stoicheia","s":"A word meaning basic elements that Paul uses for something people can be enslaved to.","r":"Galatians 4:3"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/gods-of-the-bible\/the-host-of-heaven\/","n":"The host of heaven","s":"Two things at once: God's heavenly army, and the sun, moon and stars Israel was told not to worship.","r":"1 Kings 22:19"}
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to Ephesians, Situation, and on Ephesians 1:21-23, 2:4-7 and 5:20
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Ephesians 2:6 and 5:20
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Ephesians 1:11
- Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm, ch. 37, This Means War, Observations on Paul's Vocabulary
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Romans 8:39 and Galatians 4:3
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 1:20 and 2:28-29
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 1:8 and 1:20
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 3.7.7, trans. William Whiston
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 3, Astrology, The Quest to Alter Fate, and ch. 7, The Ultimate Sovereignty of the Creator
- Amanda H. Podany, Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East, ch. 18, Bel-ushezib and Sasi: An Astronomer and a Suspected Conspirator
