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Saturday, June 23, 2018

Was Luke one-upping Euripides?

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: Goads and Gods (Philip Jenkins).
Today we have a guest column. Some time ago, I referred to the Book of Acts, and began an intriguing correspondence with Mr. Jesse Elison. Focusing especially on one key phrase, Mr. Elison made a strong case for showing how Luke was drawing directly on secular Greek literature, and moreover that he might even have been using the work of Euripides as a model for the story he was trying to tell. After all, did not his play The Bacchae describe the introduction of a new religious system into Greece? Invoking that play in this context was surprising to me, and I invited Mr. Elison to expand his provocative comments into a blog post.

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