Another Luke Joke

 First Saturday of Easter

Lectionary Texts:

Isaiah 26:2-9, 19

John 21:20-25

Please read Acts 17:16-21 again.

Paul does his usual debating with other Jews in the synagogue. Then he goes to the Agora (marketplace) to debate with Greeks. The Agora is on the north side of the Acropolis, down the steep hill, the top which is the Acropolis where the Parthenon sits. It is preserved today pretty much as it was in Paul's time. 

Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were debating there. These philosophies are highly complex, especially Stoicism. Epicureans were almost entirely atheists. Stoics were about half and half, believers in a God or gods and atheists. I should note that the use of these terms in modern day parlance has little to do with the actual thought of these two philosophies. 

If I had to reduce the two philosophies to their single most important principle, it would be this. Stoics believed in order. The universe was in order. The sun, moon, and stars followed regular paths. The seasons came in the same order year after year. Human life was best when it was well ordered with good government and sound customs and practices of its people. People did best when they found their proper place within the order of things. Families were ordered--father, mother, children. If it were a wealthy family the order would be: father, mother, children, slaves. A Stoic found order wherever he or she looked. If order were not apparent, the Stoic would examine things more deeply. There was usually an order there. It was just the problem of finding it. Disruptions of order were bad and needed correction, with return to order as quickly as possible.

Epicureans believed in chaos. Order was an artificial imposition on the innate chaos of life. One could be living well and die in an instant from a heart attack. Earthquakes could happen with no warning, bringing devastation to the carefully created human systems of order. Although most humans did not accept the chaos of things, refused to see it, the chaos was there, ready to show itself without warning. In this chaotic world one does best not to plan, to enjoy whatever one can find to enjoy in the present moment, because the next day may turn out badly, even disastrously. 

The early Christians, especially Paul, were influence by Stoicism. My bookshelves contain six books on Paul and Stoicism. There are many, many more. Most recently I have read C. Kavin Rowe's, One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions. Their rivalry comes down to the Christian claim of Jesus as the one true savior, although there are many other points of competition. Order is not one of those points. Rowe teaches at Duke Divinity School.

Luke paints the Athenians as pseudo-philosophers pursuing fine points when they don't understand the most basic things. They are fad philosophers, "spending their time in telling or hearing something new." 

The Lucan sense of humor comes out here, but you won't understand it unless you know the Greek. Paul is preaching about Jesus and the resurrection. The Greek word for resurrection is anastasia. Anastasia is also a popular female name, and that's the way the Athenians hear it in Paul's preaching. Their polytheism is used to thinking of god-goddess pairs, like Zeus and Hera. They hear Paul and think he is talking about a god-goddess pair in some foreign religion, the god called, "Jesus" and the goddess "Anastasia." The joke loses something in translation, but Luke's original Greek speaking readers would have gotten a good laugh out of this. 

Luke gets serious in Paul's speech in the rest of the chapter.

Faithfully,

Christian