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AthensAid to Bible Understanding
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the people, both in the Jewish synagogue and in the marketplace. (Acts 17:16, 17) In recent years this marketplace or agora to the N of the Acropolis has been fully excavated by the American School of Classical Studies. The agora was evidently not only a location for transacting business but also a place to debate and conduct civic affairs. The inquisitive attitude of the Athenians described in the account at Acts 17:18-21 is reflected in the criticism by Demosthenes of his fellow Athenians for their love of moving around the marketplace continually inquiring, “What news?”
While in the marketplace Paul was accosted by Stoic and Epicurean philosophers and was viewed suspiciously as being a “publisher of foreign deities.” (Acts 17:18) This was a serious matter under Roman law, which provided that ‘no person shall have any separate gods, or new ones; nor shall he privately worship any strange gods unless they be publicly allowed.’ Paul likely knew this law, having perhaps encountered difficulty with it in the Romanized city of Philippi. (Acts 16:19-24) He was taken to the Areopagus, but whether this means the hill of that name or the court known as the Areopagus cannot be definitely stated. Some say that in Paul’s day the court itself was no longer meeting on the hill but in the agora.
Paul’s eloquent testimony before these learned men of Athens is a lesson in tact and discernment. He showed that, rather than a new deity, he was preaching about the very Creator of heaven and earth who does not dwell in temples of human construction, and tactfully made reference to the “Unknown God,” whose altar he had seen, and even quoted from the works of Aratus, a Cilician poet, and from the Hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes. (Acts 17:22-31) Although the majority ridiculed him, some Athenians, including Areopagus judge Dionysius and a woman named Damaris, became believers. (Acts 17:32-34) Whether a Christian congregation was formed in Athens at that time is not stated in the account.
It is possible that Timothy joined Paul at Athens and then was sent back to Thessalonica; but it appears more likely that Paul sent word to him at Beroea to make this trip, thus leaving Paul without companions in Athens. The expression “we” at 1 Thessalonians 3:1, 2 appears to be used in the editorial sense by Paul as applying simply to himself. (Compare 1 Thessalonians 2:18; 3:6.) If such was the case, then Paul departed alone from Athens, going on to Corinth, where Silas and Timothy eventually rejoined him. (Acts 18:5) It is likely that Paul revisited Athens on his third missionary tour (55 or 56 C.E.), since the record states that he spent three months in Greece at that time.—Acts 20:2, 3.
LATER HISTORY
Athens continued to enjoy fame as a cultural center long after Paul’s day. Emperor Hadrian did final work on the building of the massive temple of Zeus known as the Olympieion in 129 C.E., a task begun by Pisistratus in the sixth century B.C.E. and rebuilt by Antiochus IV between 174 and 164 B.C.E. This temple, 318 feet (96.9 meters) long and 132 feet (40.2 meters) wide, was the largest in Greece and one of the largest in the world. Its ruins can still be seen to the SE of the Acropolis. Hadrian also began the construction of an aqueduct, still in use in Athens today.
In 529 C.E., however, Emperor Justinian forbade the study and teaching of philosophy in Athens and thus ended the glory of the ancient city. After this it sank into insignificance as a provincial town during the Byzantine period, when the Parthenon and the Erechtheum were converted into churches of Christendom. Over 250 years of Latin rule followed, after which the Moslem Turks controlled it for 375 years. The Parthenon was now transformed into a mosque. When the last Turkish stronghold was captured by the Greeks in 1833, Athens was chosen as the capital of the newly formed kingdom of Greece. Since then, from a mere village of less than 5,000 inhabitants in 1834, Athens has developed rapidly into a thriving, modern city of over 600,000 inhabitants with a metropolitan area population of over 1,800,000.
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AthlaiAid to Bible Understanding
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ATHLAI
(Athʹlai) [shortened form of Athaliah, Jah is exalted].
Son of Bebai; one of the Israelites who dismissed their foreign wives after Ezra came to Jerusalem in 468 B.C.E.—Ezra 10:28, 44.
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AtonementAid to Bible Understanding
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ATONEMENT
The English word “atonement” is derived from the expression “at one” and, as applied Biblically, means a covering of sins. In the Hebrew Scriptures terms pertaining to atonement appear many times, especially in the books of Leviticus and Numbers. Ka·pharʹ is the Hebrew word for making atonement, and probably it originally meant “cover,” though “wipe off” has also been suggested.
MAN’S NEED FOR ATONEMENT
Man is in need of sin covering or atonement, due to inherited sin (1 Ki. 8:46; Ps. 51:5; Eccl. 7:20; Rom. 3:23), responsibility for which rests, not with God, but with man himself. (Deut. 32:4, 5) Adam,
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