Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Acts 19:23-41, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians
Demetrius the silversmith rouses the craftsmen who make shrines of Artemis, warning that Paul's teaching threatens their trade and the goddess's honor. The city rushes into the theater chanting for two hours, until the city clerk calms them with a warning about Rome.
Acts 19:23-41, in every translation this tool compares.
Demetrius, a silversmith who makes miniature shrines of Artemis, gathers his fellow craftsmen and warns that Paul's claim that handmade gods are no gods threatens both their livelihood and the honor of the great goddess. The crowd erupts in chants for Artemis, seizes two of Paul's companions and floods the theater, while friends, among them some of the city's leading men, keep Paul away. A Jewish spokesman is shouted down for hours. Finally the town clerk calms them, insisting the men have committed no crime, that the courts are open, and that Rome could treat this unlawful gathering as a riot.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/imperial-cult\/","n":"Caesar worshiped as savior and lord","s":"Augustus and the emperors after him were hailed as savior, lord and son of a god, and in the eastern provinces they were worshiped. The titles the Gospels give Jesus were already being used for Caesar.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/diaspora-jews\/","n":"Jews of the dispersion","s":"Most Jews of the first century lived outside the land, in cities from Parthia to Rome. They kept the law and their own synagogues, spoke Greek or Aramaic, and came up to Jerusalem for the feasts when they could.","r":""}
The silversmiths' shops apparently lined the street from the theater to the harbor, and most souvenir shrines were terra cotta, so silver ones were costly (Keener and his notes). Of Paul's nearly three years in Ephesus, Arnold notes, Luke tells mainly of this clash with Artemis's worshipers. The theater, where the citizen assembly met, held some 20,000 to 25,000 (Keener and his notes; the ESV Study Bible). The Asiarchs are disputed: Keener and the ESV Study Bible make them leading men who presided over the cult of Rome and the emperor, while Price and House report the case that they were civic officials, few of them named with any priestly office; nearly three hundred inscriptions and coins have answered the old charge that Luke's title was anachronistic. The city clerk was the top official and the link to Rome; temple robbery counted among the worst crimes, and pagans often charged Jews with it, so his clearing Paul joins Gallio's ruling as an official finding of innocence (Keener and his notes; Wright). Carson's Quick Introduction notes that Rome made desecrating any temple a capital offense.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Acts 19:23-41, 19:24-25, 19:29, 19:30-31, 19:35-36, 19:37 and 19:40-41
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Acts 19:24, 19:25, 19:29, 19:31, 19:35, 19:37 and 19:40
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Acts 19:29, 19:31 and 19:38-40
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 2, Greco-Roman and Oriental Religions, section Gods and Goddesses in the Book of Acts
- J. Randall Price and H. Wayne House, Zondervan Handbook of Biblical Archaeology, Acts 19:31 Asiarchs (officials of Asia)
- N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part Two, comment on Acts 19:23-41
- D. A. Carson, A Quick Introduction to the New Testament, Longstanding Interpretive Traditions
