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 9:1-31, Saul on the Damascus road
Carrying the high priest's letters to the synagogues of Damascus, Saul is stopped by a light and a voice. Blinded, healed and baptized, the persecutor begins to proclaim Jesus and has to escape over the city wall.
Acts 9:1-31, in every translation this tool compares.
Saul, determined to stamp out the followers of the Way, gets authority from the high priest to arrest them in the Damascus synagogues. On the road he is struck down by a blinding light and hears the risen Jesus ask why Saul is persecuting him. A disciple named Ananias, sent in a vision, restores his sight, and Saul is baptized and starts announcing Jesus as Son of God, until a plot forces his escape over the wall in a basket. In Jerusalem Barnabas speaks up for him, and the churches across the land enjoy a season of peace and growth.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/chief-priests-and-council\/","n":"Chief priests, elders and the council","s":"The Jerusalem aristocracy of priestly families and elders who ran the temple and the Sanhedrin and dealt with Rome.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/synagogue\/","n":"The synagogue","s":"The local gathering place where Jews met on the Sabbath to pray and study Scripture. It was also a community center, run by people of standing.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/letters-of-recommendation\/","n":"Letters of recommendation","s":"A traveler often carried a letter from someone his hosts trusted, vouching for him and asking them to receive him. Such letters opened homes, synagogues and churches.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sent-agent\/","n":"The one who is sent","s":"Jewish law held that a man's agent was as the man himself, backed by his authority as long as he represented him faithfully. How people treated the agent showed how they treated the one who sent him.","r":""}
Social superiors wrote letters to introduce or authorize the bearer (the cultural backgrounds notes), and Josephus confirms that agents could act on the council's orders (Keener). Damascus had tens of thousands of Jews in many synagogues (Keener and his notes), and it was the hub of caravan routes into Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Persia and Arabia, so a movement rooted there would spread fast (the cultural backgrounds article Roman Damascus). A mile-long colonnaded street there may be the Straight Street of verse 11 (the article). A light, a fall and a doubled name are features of Old Testament calls (Keener and his notes); Carson, Moo and Morris add that the companions saw the light and heard a sound but neither saw Jesus nor understood. Arabia in Galatians 1:17 is the Nabatean kingdom, whose king Aretas IV was behind the watch on the gates (2 Corinthians 11:32) (the article; Carson, Moo and Morris; the Zondervan Bible dictionary). Tarsus was Cilicia's largest city, a free city and a university town that Strabo ranked above Athens for philosophy (the cultural backgrounds article Tarsus); whether Paul grew up there or in Jerusalem is debated, and Carson, Moo and Morris favor Jerusalem.
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Acts 9:2, 9:3 and 9:4, and articles Roman Damascus and Tarsus
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Acts 9:1-2 and 9:3-4
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 7, Paul, sections Born in Tarsus of Cilicia (Acts 22:3), Brought up in this city (Acts 22:3), As I came near Damascus (Acts 22:6) and From Paul's First Missionary Journey to His Death
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry Damascus
