Greco-Roman World Pt. 2

So I realize that I didn't get anything in the last post about how the Greco-Roman world affected the spread of the gospel. Well, I the last week has been tough in terms of getting a holistic view of this place/culture and how it relates to how I read the New Testament. We have seen some sights, like the ancient sight of Olympia (birth place of the Olympics). We have seen many Roman forums. We have seen Byzantine churches galore. But it hasn't clicked like it did in Jerusalem. It could be because I am tired. It could be because our tour guide, while great, is no Paul Wright (our professor in Israel). It could be that sights are so far spread apart that our time at each place is decreased. It could be that there are just less sights. Or it could be all of these things combined. No matter what, the fact is, this part of the trip is much harder academically. I feel like I went from doing a 1,000 piece puzzle in Jerusalem to a 10,000 piece puzzle in the ancient Greco-Roman world. So, what has stuck out to me during this part?

1.) Paul had to deal with Zeus. Well, not only Zeus, but all of the Greek gods. And not just all of them, but the whole mythology and religion surrounding them. I never really realized this. I have read Acts countless times. And I have read how the Ephesian metal workers wanted Paul out because their sales of Artemis statues was going down. However, I never realized that Artemis was the twin of Apollo, and a daughter a Zeus. If that is something commonly known, I have been in the dark for a long time. I saw a similar thing in Corinth. I knew that the people in Corinth struggled with sexual immorality. But why was this? Why did they struggle with this more than any of the other cities? Well, in the city of Corinth, there are 2 temples. One to the healing God. Here, people would place clay replicas of their body part that was plagued. Many different replicas of male and female sexual organs were found. Apparently this city was struggling with STD's. The second temple was a temple to Aphrodite. The Greek goddess of love and beauty. This temple was said to have over 1,000 temple prostitutes. Of course STD's would be a problem. Living in this culture, where sex was just a part of life, it is very easy to understand why the people of Corinth were struggling. There have been other interactions with the greek mythology that we have seen. But some of them relate to the greater subject of greek culture and the NT.

2.) Paul had to deal with the very very VERY different greek culture. Not only that, he was still dealing with the jewish culture, and was probably dealing with an combination of the two. He came from Tarsus, but also spent time in Jerusalem. He was probably comfortable in this situation, much more comfortable than that back country fisherman named Peter. In Jerusalem, the culture was based around the Pentateuch. It revolved around following the law of Moses. This was a very conservative, eastern culture. Greece however, was known as the birthplace of culture. Much more of an Ancient day New York, London, or Paris. Here, the people were open and welcoming to different perspectives. They were every changing. For example, their art became more and more realistic, and the styles of vases or patterns changed with the times. Comparatively, the art in Jerusalem was only ever patterns, and rarely changed. Israel was focused on living simply and praising and worshiping God by following the law. Similarly, the Greeks worshipped their gods. However, the methods were very different. They built buildings that housed shields, swords, statues, and figurines of animals. They used all these to show their devotion to their gods. In addition to this, they competed to win honor for their gods. This was the origin of the Olympics. They were played for individuals to honor Zeus. It was into this ever changing culture that Paul carried the Gospel.

(It kinda reminds me of what YHM does today. We take this Good News that applies to our worldview, and heads into a post-modern culture. Sometimes what we have to say is radical and unheard of to those in this post modern society..... plenty to say here, maybe another time though.)

These were the two main observations that I made. More to come when I get a chance to process this all.