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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 24:1-27, The hearing before Felix
The high priest's orator Tertullus charges Paul before Felix with stirring up riots and trying to profane the temple. Paul answers point by point; Felix puts off a decision and keeps him in custody for two years, hoping for a bribe.
Acts 24:1-27, in every translation this tool compares.
Within the week the high priest arrives at Caesarea with elders and a hired advocate, Tertullus, who flatters Felix and accuses Paul of stirring unrest worldwide, leading the Nazarene sect and trying to defile the temple. Paul denies causing any disturbance, says nothing can be proven, and admits only that he worships Israel's God as one who belongs to the Way and shares their hope of a resurrection. Felix postpones judgment, keeps Paul in loose custody and later listens with his wife Drusilla until Paul's talk of justice and judgment frightens him. Hoping for a bribe, he leaves Paul in custody for two years and passes him on to his successor Festus.
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The accuser spoke first, opening with praise of the judge; Tertullus's praise was false, since revolutionaries multiplied under Felix (Keener and his notes), and Wright notes that his word for stirring up strife is the one Luke uses of Barabbas. Verse 7 is a late addition missing from good manuscripts (Wright). Paul's alms and offerings in verse 17 are Luke's only mention of the collection for Jerusalem (Wright). Drusilla, youngest daughter of Agrippa I, had married the king of Emesa at about sixteen (the Zondervan Bible dictionary); Josephus says Felix used a Cypriot Jew posing as a magician to win her and that she "was prevailed upon to transgress the laws of her forefathers, and to marry Felix." Tacitus said Felix "wielded the power of a king with the mind of a slave" (quoted in the dictionary). Josephus says Felix "had certainly been brought to punishment" at Rome but for his brother Pallas. The ESV and CSB Study Bibles tie his removal to a quarrel between Jews and Gentiles in Caesarea and date it to AD 59 or 60; Carson, Moo and Morris call 59 the growing consensus, and Wright prefers 58.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Acts 23:33-24:9, 24:2-3, 24:5-6, 24:10, 24:23-24, 24:26 and 24:27
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Acts 24:2, 24:5, 24:6, 24:23, 24:24 and 24:27
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Acts 24:5 and 24:27
- CSB Study Bible, note on Acts 23:24
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 20.7.2 and 20.8.9, trans. William Whiston
- N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part Two, comments on Acts 24:1-9, 24:10-21 and 24:22-27
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entries Drusilla and Felix
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 7, Paul, section The Chronology of Paul's Missionary Career
