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 3:1-26, The lame man at the Beautiful Gate
At the afternoon hour of prayer Peter heals a man lame from birth who begged at the temple gate, then tells the gathering crowd that Jesus is the prophet Moses promised.
Acts 3:1-26, in every translation this tool compares.
Going to the temple for afternoon prayer, Peter and John meet a man who has never walked and who begs at one of the gates. Peter has no money to give, but he heals him by the authority of Jesus, and the man goes into the courts leaping and praising God. When a crowd gathers, Peter insists the power is God's, not theirs, and says the God of Israel's ancestors has vindicated the Jesus they rejected. He urges them to turn back so that renewal can come, presenting Jesus as the promised prophet Moses spoke of.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/jewish-prayer\/","n":"Prayer in Jesus' day","s":"Set prayers, set hours, standing to pray, God addressed as Father, and prayers for his name and his kingdom. Jesus taught his own disciples a prayer inside that world.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sacrifice-and-blood\/","n":"Sacrifice and the daily offering","s":"Animals were offered at the temple for sin, for thanks and for cleansing, and blood sealed covenants. Every day a lamb was offered at dawn and again in the afternoon, and Jews everywhere prayed at those hours.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/temple-and-courts\/","n":"The temple and its courts","s":"Herod's huge rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, believed to be God's dwelling, laid out in courts that kept Gentiles, women and Jewish men at set distances.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/almsgiving\/","n":"Gifts to the poor","s":"Giving to the needy was one of the three pillars of Jewish piety, with prayer and fasting. Greeks and Romans had nothing quite like it.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/prophet-like-moses\/","n":"The prophet like Moses","s":"Moses promised that God would raise up a prophet like him. In Jesus' day people asked whether a new preacher was the Prophet, and some expected the manna and the wonders of the exodus to return with him.","r":""}
Three in the afternoon was the hour of the evening offering (Keener and his notes). Keener identifies the Beautiful Gate with the Nicanor Gate on the east, of costly bronze above fifteen steps, beyond which women and the maimed could not go; the cultural backgrounds notes call this a suggestion, since the name is not attested elsewhere, and Price and House also weigh the eastern gate and the southern Double Gate, where the impure, such as the lame, would wait. Josephus describes "one gate that was without the [inward court of the] holy house, which was of Corinthian brass" and outshone the gates plated with silver and gold. Because Judaism tied piety to generosity, the temple was a good place to beg, and the disabled had few other means (Keener and his notes). Ancient miracle workers usually prayed or invoked spirits, but Peter speaks like an Old Testament prophet declaring God's word, and he disclaims the holy man's piety that Jewish tradition sometimes credited for miracles (Keener and his notes). Christians seem to have been the first to proclaim a suffering Messiah (Keener and his notes). Qumran and Samaritan sources expected a prophet like Moses (Keener and his notes).
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Acts 3:1, 3:2, 3:3, 3:12, 3:18, 3:20 and 3:22-23
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Acts 3:1, 3:2-3, 3:4-10, 3:12, 3:18, 3:19 and 3:22-23
- Josephus, The Wars of the Jews 5.5.3, trans. William Whiston
- J. Randall Price and H. Wayne House, Zondervan Handbook of Biblical Archaeology, Acts 3:2 The Beautiful Gate
