What does the New Testament tell us about religions outside Palestine and what is its approach to those who were Gentiles (that is people who were racially and religiously not Jewish), and their beliefs and practices? Data concerning the religions prevalent in the world of the New Testament can be found in many reference works. What we focus attention on here is the evidence provided by the New Testament itself, and especially the attitude of its writers to contemporary religions.
Gentiles
The English Bible uses the word ‘Gentiles’ to describe non-Jews. The Hebrew and Greek words in the original text of the Bible, which are translated ‘Gentiles’, literally mean ‘nations’. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for ‘nations’ is goyim and in the New Testament the Greek term is ethne, from which we get the English words ‘ethnic’ and ‘ethnicity’. The word ‘Gentile’ comes from the Latin translation of the Bible, which was universally used in Europe until the Reformation, and is derived from the Latin word gens meaning ‘nation’. In Latin it was an accurate and literal translation of the Hebrew and Greek words for ‘nation’, but that literal meaning is lost in modern English. Israel is one of the nations, but Jews regarded Israel as different from all the surrounding nations, because of God’s dealings with them. They looked back to the way God had rescued them from slavery through the Exodus from Egypt, revealing his laws to them at Sinai, and how he had brought them into the Promised Land of Canaan. By the time of Christ Jews had developed an exclusive attitude to other nations and regarded them with opprobrium.
In this chapter we will sometimes use the word Gentile to refer to non-Jews, not as a term of abuse but to mean those who were both racially and religiously not Jewish. We will also use other terms to indicate that Gentiles were people from other religions and races outside Judaism.
The church of today needs to remember that the New Testament is a Jewish book. With the possible exception of Luke, all the writers were Jews. From childhood Jews were brought up to view other races and religions not only with suspicion but also with disdain. Since other races were impure, any contact with them defiled a Jew. In Acts, Luke shows the revolutionary impact on the Jewish church of God’s command to take the gospel to all the nations. The stories of Paul’s commissioning as the apostle to the Gentiles and Peter’s encounter with the Roman soldier, Cornelius, dominate Acts and show how the apostles’ understanding of mission was transformed by these events. How did this affect the way the New Testament writers viewed other races and religions? The inclusion of non-Jews in the church was a matter for debate and amazement in the early decades of the new movement. It was difficult enough to accept converted Gentiles. How then were Gentiles outside the church and their religions to be regarded?
Encounters with Religion in the Roman Empire
We look first at descriptions of religious practices and beliefs in the Roman Empire, to discover the New Testament attitude to religious practices in the ancient world. Then we review the positive records concerning some outstanding Gentiles who are mentioned mostly in the Gospels and Acts. We then summarise what the New Testament has to say about the achievements and conduct of religions in the Greek and Roman world.
In the Gospels we meet with Gentile individuals, but there is no description of any particular Gentile religion. When we move on to Acts the situation changes. From chapter 8 the church begins to move out from Jerusalem and Judaea into Samaria and then into the world beyond, to Phoenicia, Cyprus, Asia Minor, Greece and Italy. Not surprisingly then, it is in Acts that we get the first and clearest descriptions of encounters with Gentile religions in the New Testament. In the Epistles Paul does not describe any religious sect in detail. He has no interest in helping his readers to understand the religions practised in the cities he visited. Scholars have had to piece together data from non-biblical sources concerning the prevailing cults with their mixture of mysticism, gnosticism, asceticism, idolatry, divination and philosophy. The only aspect that Paul does give us any detail about is idolatry and his critique of it. In the remainder of the New Testament the only significant additional descriptions of religious practices occur in the book of Revelation, especially in its allusions to the worship of the Emperor.
The priest of Zeus (Acts 14:8-20)
The visit of Paul and Barnabas to the Roman colony of Lystra provides a typical example of popular religion involving devotion to gods of Greek mythology. A similar incident could easily occur in parts of the Indian sub-continent today.
The excitement of the Lycaonian crowd is aroused by Paul’s healing of a man, who had been a cripple from birth. The locals rightly attribute this miracle to divine power, but credit it to their gods not to God himself. The gods (hoi theoi) have come down to us in human form (homoiothentesanthropois,v.11). The belief that gods can take human form is key to understanding their reactions to the healing.
Barnabas and Paul are taken to be Zeus and Hermes, the gods the crowd are devoted to. Zeus, the chief god of the Greek pantheon, was the focus for their worship. Hermes, a son of Zeus, who was regarded as the messenger of the gods, is identified with Paul as the chief spokesman for the missionaries.
The temple of Zeus was located just outside, or in front of, the city. The priest emerges from his temple and comes to meet the apostles at the city gates with bulls ready for sacrifice and with wreaths. The wreaths are probably to garland the bulls as sacrificial victims not to garland Barnabas and Paul as gods.
Paul and Barnabas have to go to extreme lengths to stop the crowd carrying out their intentions and sacrificing the animals to them as gods. Only the most strenuous efforts of the apostles in tearing their clothing (indicating their horror at blasphemy) and rushing ungodlike into the crowd shouting, Men, why are you doing this? We too are only human like you, was in the end sufficient to stop their devotion. Later the frenzy of the crowd turned to anger and they stoned Paul unconscious (v.19).
The proclamation of the apostles (v.15-17), as they appealed to the crowd, is the centre-piece of this story. Everything that precedes it from v.8 prepares for it and the verses that follow flow from it.
Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.
This is the first speech in Acts directed to a polytheistic audience. What does it reveal about the apostles’ attitude to Gentile religions?
Negatively Paul and Barnabas are horrified at being treated as gods in human likeness. We are only human beings just like you, they shout to the crowd. As Jews, brought up to believe in one God only and to reject all worship of other gods as blasphemy, their horror is understandable. They were also in an awkward predicament. The Lystrans believed the gods could disguise themselves as humans. This made it even more difficult for Paul and Barnabas to prove that they were not just pretending to be human, but really were ordinary people. To complicate matters further, they were foreigners and therefore different.
Paul does not approve of this religion, but on the other hand he does not condemn the people or their priest. Instead he remonstrates with them for worshipping the creature rather than the Creator and urges them to turn from worthless things to the living God.
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