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.
Ephesians 2:11-22, The dividing wall torn down, and a new temple
Paul reminds Gentile believers that they were once far off, shut out of Israel's citizenship and covenants, and tells them Christ has broken down the dividing wall and built Jews and Gentiles into one household and one temple.
Ephesians 2:11-22, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul asks the Gentile believers to remember where they once stood: outside Israel, with no share in God's covenant promises and no hope. Through Christ's death they have been brought in, and the wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile has been pulled down, so that the two make one new people at peace with God. They now belong to God's household and are being built together into a temple where God lives by his Spirit.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/circumcision\/","n":"Circumcision and becoming a Jew","s":"Circumcision was the sign of God's covenant with Abraham and the mark of a Jewish man. A Gentile man who joined Israel was circumcised; the first great quarrel in the church was over whether Gentile believers had to be.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/proselytes-and-god-fearers\/","n":"Converts and God-fearers","s":"Gentiles drawn to Israel's God stood at two distances. Converts took on the whole law, circumcision included, and became Jews. God-fearers worshiped Israel's God, gave to the synagogue and kept some customs, but did not convert.","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\/crucifixion\/","n":"Crucifixion","s":"Rome's public, shaming death for rebels, after flogging, with the charge posted for passers-by to read.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/roman-citizenship\/","n":"Roman citizenship","s":"In the eastern provinces few people outside the colonies were citizens of Rome. A citizen could not be beaten or chained without trial, could appeal to Caesar, and outranked almost everyone around him.","r":""}
Uncircumcised was an old insult for Gentiles, and made by hands was what Jewish writers said of idols (the cultural backgrounds notes; Wright). Without God in 2:12 is the word behind atheist, which pagans called Jews and later Christians, "since neither Jews nor Christians had statues of their gods" (Wright). Herod's temple barred Gentiles from its inner courts: Josephus describes a partition with an inscription that forbade any foreigner to go in "under pain of death," and a complete warning stone of this kind was found in 1871 (Price and House). Paul was in custody for allegedly taking an Ephesian past that line (Acts 21:28-29) (Keener and his notes). Whether Paul means that wall is debated: Keener, his notes and the CSB Study Bible think so, and Wright and Bird that he may; the ESV Study Bible, and Wright in his commentary, take the barrier to be the law in its use to keep Jew and Gentile apart. House meant both household and building, so the household of 2:19 becomes the temple of 2:21 (the cultural backgrounds notes); some Jewish writers called God's people his temple, but none included Gentiles in it (Keener and his notes).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Ephesians 2:11-13, 2:14-16, 2:17-18 and 2:19-22
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Ephesians 2:11, 2:12, 2:14, 2:17, 2:19 and 2:22
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Ephesians 2:11 and 2:14
- CSB Study Bible, note on Ephesians 2:14-16
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 20, Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians, The Argument of Ephesians, section 3
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 15.11.5, trans. William Whiston
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, comment on Ephesians 2:11-16
- J. Randall Price and H. Wayne House, Zondervan Handbook of Biblical Archaeology, Acts 21:28-29, The Soreg Inscription
