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 22:22-29, A Roman citizen under the lash
When Paul speaks of his mission to the Gentiles, the crowd erupts again. The tribune orders him examined by flogging, until Paul asks the centurion whether it is lawful to flog an uncondemned Roman citizen.
Acts 22:22-29, in every translation this tool compares.
The crowd hears Paul out until he says God sent him to the Gentiles, then it explodes, demanding his death and tossing garments and dust in fury. The commander takes him into the fortress and orders him questioned under the whip to find out what lies behind the uproar. As they tie him down, Paul asks the officer nearby whether Roman law permits scourging a citizen who has not been tried. The commander, who bought his own citizenship, learns that Paul was born a citizen and is alarmed at having bound him.
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It was legal to scourge slaves or aliens to extract a confession, and the flagellum, leather thongs set with metal or bone, could kill (Keener and his notes); Wright notes that this flogging was for interrogation, not punishment. The Porcian and Julian laws exempted citizens from beating without trial (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes; the ESV and CSB Study Bibles). Citizenship was very rare in the East outside the colonies, and a claim had to be honored before it could be checked (the cultural backgrounds notes); Wright says a citizen could prove it with "a little double-faced tablet, made of bronze most likely, known as a ‘diploma’" and that false claims were severely punished. How Paul's family gained citizenship is unknown: as freed slaves of a Roman (the cultural backgrounds notes and their article Synagogue of the Freedmen), by special service or a grant from a well-to-do Roman (Keener), through an ancestor's service, perhaps making tents for the army (the CSB Study Bible), or by means no one can now tell (Wright and Bird). Wright and the Zondervan Bible dictionary note that some Jews of Tarsus were citizens a century before Paul.
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Acts 16:37, 22:21, 22:24, 22:25, 22:26-27 and 22:28, and article Synagogue of the Freedmen
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Acts 16:37, 22:24-25 and 22:28
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Acts 22:25 and 22:28
- CSB Study Bible, notes on Acts 22:25 and 22:26-28
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 15, The Story of Paul's Life and Ministry
- N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part Two, comment on Acts 22:23-30
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry Tarsus
