During our study in the NT book of Acts, we ran across a phrase that I wasn’t sure what it meant. That phrase is “IDLE BABBLER”. What in the world does that mean? Is it a DEROGATORY statement? This ‘term’ was uttered by some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in response to the Apostle Paul’s ‘arguments’ (‘teachings’) in the Athens Areopagus. Here’s what the text says:
And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What would this idle babbler wish to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. (Acts 17:18)
However, others among the Epicureans and Stoics wanted to know more about Paul’s subject:
And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean. … Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, ‘We shall hear you again concerning this.’” (Acts 17:19-20, 32)
In order to understand this text, you first need to understand who the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were, and what the Areopagus was and how it functioned. We’re not going to get into all that here, because I want to try to keep this SHORT (compared to my usual verbosity!). You can find out more than you ever wanted to know about Epicurean and Stoic philosophers by doing a little reading on the Internet. Reconstructing the purpose, setting and activities of the Areopagus is another story, but there is some good reading on the Internet on that as well.
By far the best article we read on the above phrase is found in ISBE under BABBLER, Vol. 1, page 381. Here’s what T. Rees says:
Notice that the phrase “‘ignorant plagiarist’ [IDLE BABBLER], meant that he retailed odds and ends of knowledge which he had picked up from others without possessing any system of thought or skill of language, i.e., without culture.” Same basic meaning is found in LSJ’s Greek Lexicon. But what exactly does that mean in today’s terms? I believe it’s the same as LEGALESE. The fact is, Paul was a LAWYER (among other offices). Lawyers are KNOWN to NOT have coherent thought in their briefs. They make assertions to advance their agenda, and then QUOTE AUTHORITY to back up their assertions. They pile authority upon authority. The more the merrier! Could that be what these philosophers were referring to with Paul? Maybe they didn’t like the way he YAPPED LIKE A LAWYER? The text shows that Paul NIT-PICKED BITS AND PIECES of the philosopher’s thought process WHILE IGNORING THEIR CONTEXT. We talked about that in our HERMENEUTICS blog. It’s called ISAGESIS and EISAGESIS. But why would Paul do that? He did that IN ORDER TO COMMUNICATE with those IDLE rich guys in the Areopagus.
The Acts text includes this interesting side note:
(Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.) (Acts 17:21)
Which matches up with the definition above:
In fact it was a fairly correct description of the Athenian philosophers themselves in Paul’s day.
So, it’s likely that Paul was merely doing the same things that these IDLE BABBLERS did when they got together and ARGUED their theories and ideas. So much for THE RICH AND PRIVILEGED of society!
Now let’s take a look at the text to see how the Apostle Paul IDLE BABBLED (“retailed odds and ends of knowledge”). First off, he picked out some ideas the philosophers were familiar with. The main idea here was THE CHIEF GOD in their pantheon:
I observe that you are very religious in all respects. … I [] found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’
Who was that “unknown god”? ZEUS (aka, JUPITER). There’s some facts about ZEUS that are important to know in order to make sense out of this. The main fact is, eventually during the historical development of RELIGIOUS (mythological) IDEOLOGY, Zeus became the CHIEF GOD in the Greco-Roman pantheon. But, he didn’t start out that way. He started out as a LESSER god. Above him was CHRONOS, and above him was URANOS (Greek for HEAVEN). But due to PRAGMATIC SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS, Zeus became THE CHIEF GOD. If you want to know more, just look up ZEUS on the Internet and read about him, along with the related Greco-Roman gods. I’m not going to spend time on it here. I already talked about HERMES in the previous blog, which should give you an idea of the kind of info you may find. Anyways, my point is, PAUL EQUATES ZEUS WITH YHWH (the ONE TRUE GOD of the Jews).
Now let me DIGRESS for a moment. Many times in the past I heard people (who hate Muslims) RANT to me that Allah is NOT equivalent to the Christian God. I’ve heard others tell me that the chief god in Hinduism and other POLYTHEIST religions is not equivalent to YHWH. Same with THE GREAT SPIRIT of the American Indians, etc. But if that’s true, THEN PAUL IS WRONG. How dare modern churchians accuse Paul of being WRONG! After all, their brand of churchianity is derived directly from PAUL. DUH! Anyways, if PAUL could do it, THEN SO CAN WE. Enufsaid. Let’s just make sure we do it right, and not confuse people with stupid ideas and bad analogies.
One more DIGRESSION. The phrase “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD” in Greek is very similar to a phrase found in ancient literature, “ZEUS WHOEVER YOU ARE …”:
Already in Homer (much more than in actual cult), Zeus had reached a nearly over-powering position. During the classical and hellenistic age, religious thinkers developed this into a sort of “Zeus monotheism”. Already to Aeschylus, Zeus had begun to move away from simple human knowledge (“Zeus, whoever you are …”, Ag. 160-161) to a nearly universal function (“Zeus is ether, Zeus is earth, Zeus is sky, Zeus is everything and more than that, frg. 105); and Sophocles sees his hand in all human affairs (Nothing of this which would not be Zeus”, Trach. 1278). Its main document is the hymn to Zeus by the Stoic philosopher Cleanthes (died 232/231 BCE) (text: SVF I 121 no. 537; translation Long & Sedley 1987: 1,326-327); Zeus, mythical image of the Stoic logos, becomes the commander over the entire cosmos (“no deed is done on earth … without your office, nor in the divine ethereal vault of heaven, nor at sea”) and its “universal law”, and at the same time the guarantor of goodness and benign protector of man (“protect mankind from its pitiful incompetence”). This marks the high point of a development — other gods, though
briefly mentioned, become insignificant besides universal Zeus. Dictionary of Deities and Demons, p. 938, col. 2)
You can clearly see that the NT book of Acts is REPORTING HISTORICAL FACTS which Paul was using to EQUATE ZEUS WITH YHWH. He did that so he could TALK ABOUT YHWH to the philosophers. He wanted to talk about YHWH so he could TALK ABOUT JESUS. But first he had to grab their attention. Notice what he had to say about YHWH for that purpose:
Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31)
Paul wanted to lay on these IDLE RICH the DOOM AND GLOOM ideology found in Judaism … AND in Apostolic Christianity! But why DOOM AND GLOOM? Simple: It’s because the matters of GOVERNMENT occupied the minds of these philosophers (see, ISBE, p. 287, AREOPAGUS). And anybody who’s got any sense of reality knows that GOVERNMENT = DOOM AND GLOOM! According to Bastiat, the sole purpose for government is ORGANIZED VIOLENCE. And that ORGANIZED VIOLENCE is SUPPOSED TO be used to coerce bad people into doing good. In other words, Paul was appealing to their SENSE OF JUSTICE. And as we all know, JUSTICE EXISTS TO SECURE MORALITY in society. So anybody with any sense of MORALITY, who’s also a CRITICAL THINKER, will agree that THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN JUST THE HERE AND NOW! Let me give you a simple example from the realm of JUSTICE (not to be confused with LAW ENFORCEMENT!).
A guy like CHARLES MANSON, who murdered many people, do you think he could possibly PAY RESTITUTION for his crimes while he lives? If the LEGAL STANDARD is LIFE -FOR-LIFE, then how could he possibly pay for MORE THAN ONE LIFE? He himself has only ONE life to give. So it’s IMPOSSIBLE for him to pay LIFE-FOR-LIFE for MORE THAN ONE LIFE. What about the men who plan and execute wars (for FINANCIAL PURPOSES)? They commit MASS MURDER and MASS DESTRUCTION to ENRICH and EMPOWER THEMSELVES (for various reasons by various means). How in the world could they possibly pay restitution for all those LIVES they destroyed, not to mention the wholesale DESTRUCTION of societies, not to mention the massive PAIN AND SUFFERING they inflict upon the masses of humans around the world?!
Get my point? In case you haven’t, here it is: CONSIDERING THE POTENTIAL IMPOSSIBILITY OF PAYING BACK LIKE-FOR-LIKE IN JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS, SOME OTHER REMEDY HAS TO BE AVAILABLE SOMEWHERE, SOMEHOW … AND THAT SOMEWHERE IS AFTER DEATH ‘IN THE NEXT LIFE’, AND THAT SOMEHOW IS BY ‘THE UNKNOWN GOD’. That’s what I think Paul was saying. He was PROPOSING God’s Judgment after death as a very cogent probability to the REASONABLE, CRITICAL-THINKING PERSON.
Besides that, the idea of ‘AN UNKNOWN GOD’ is not a foreign concept to the 2nd Temple Jew. It’s not that YHWH was ‘AN UNKNOWN GOD’, but that He was essentially UNREACHABLE, UNTOUCHABLE by nearly everybody. Let me rephrase that:
And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the mountain top. (Exodus 24:17)
This is according to all that you asked of the LORD your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die.’ (Deuteronomy 18:16, cf. 2 Corinthians 3)
So Manoah said to his wife, “We will surely die, for we have seen God.” (Judges 13:22)
It’s OBVIOUS that Paul wanted to REMIND the philosophers of THE FEAR involved with GOD’S JUDGMENT FOR SINS that people commit in this life.
The above shows us TWO PRINCIPLES that Paul used to COMMUNICATE with foreigners: the SUPREME GOD and JUDGMENT BY HIM. That’s how he established COMMON GROUND for communicating.
Next, Paul SUBSTITUTED his own YHWH TRADITIONS into the TWO PRINCIPLES. Then he INFORMS his listeners WHO will do the JUDGING at the Final Judgment: JESUS. And he offered PROOF of his proposition by telling them about the RESURRECTION of Jesus. He specifically used the phrase RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. I believe he did that to get their attention, because the RESURRECTION really didn’t mean much to these Epicurean and Stoic philosophers (at least not THEORETICALLY). Apparently Epicureans didn’t hold to any ‘life after death’, but certain varieties of Stoics may have entertained ideas of an afterlife of sorts. But neither of them would have considered ‘life after death’ like a JEW would. So this was all NEW TERRITORY for these philosophers.
However, there’s one non-intellectual caveat to this historical picture that has to be considered: MAGIC. Magic also includes SUPERSTITION and MYTHOLOGY. The PREVALENCE OF MAGIC in Greco-Roman societies was a sure sign that the common man didn’t really think like the philosophers. It’s a sign that the common man was interested in WHAT WORKED for life and living, not mere THOUGHTS AND WORDS peddled by rich men of leisure. For example, when people got terminally ill, or when they needed power over social predators, of if their crops failed, (etc.) they wanted help THAT WORKED. So, they SOUGHT THE ‘SPIRITUAL’. And that’s where MAGIC came into the picture for them. Magic is how someone attempts to FORCE A CHANGE IN THE FUTURE. Apparently nearly EVERY society (including the ‘Jews’!) had its brand of MAGIC. You would have found that MAGIC way over in Babylon and that whole region of the world. The remnants of it are found today in eastern India, which they inherited from Zoroaster. You can see those influences in JEWISH MAGIC and THE KABBALAH.
So, when it comes to MAGIC, normal rules just don’t apply! So the question begs to be asked: Did the ancients recognize a connection between MAGIC and THE AFTER LIFE? Have you ever read their MYTHOLOGY? What do they think about HADES (a common theme in the Bible)? There are MANY subjects that bespeak of these ancients’ consideration of MAGIC and of LIFE AFTER DEATH.
So I think Paul’s message was NOT really that foreign to some of the philosophers in the Areopagus. Nor was it GIBBERISH. I think he appealed to BOTH the Epicureans and Stoics, albeit small segments of each group. Luke’s account shows they wanted to know more about the BODILY RESURRECTION, a concept not common, although not unknown to them. I’m betting that the guys who SNEERED were just like the EMOTION-LED rich man scholars, intellectuals, bureaucrats and judges today (to name a few) who don’t want to think about GOD’S FINAL JUDGMENT due to GUILT. Just consider all the evil they do day-in-and-day-out while making their livings! If you were GUILT-LADEN, would YOU want to think about a FUTURE JUDGMENT? I sure wouldn’t!
So we see that Paul truly was an IDLE BABBLER, because he selected a few IDEAS of the foreigners in Athens and REDEFINED them in his own terms. He did that so he could communicate his message AGAINST IDOLATRY and ABOUT JESUS and the final judgment. I’d call that GOOD MARKETING STRATEGY, according to today’s way of looking at things. Besides that, Paul wasn’t doing anything that the philosophers weren’t doing. So apparently being an IDLE BABBLER wasn’t a BAD thing!
Additionally, we can get a better nuance of meaning for IDLE BABBLER by COMPARING it with it’s SYNONYMS. A few examples of such synonyms are BATTALOGEO (v.), MATAIOLOGIA, -OS (n.), KENOS (n.), etc. (all definitions are taken primarily from TDNT):
- BATTALOGEO (Vol. 1, p. 597) – Only found in Matthew 6:7, “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.” The idea here is “The non-Christian, and non-Jew, thinks that by heaping up the names of God, of which he does not know the true and relevant one, he can include the deity which will grant his request, and that he can weary God — this includes Jews too — by constant repetition.”
John Lightfoot has something similar to say about the 2nd Temple Jews and the rabbis with their HOURS AND HOURS of daily prayers. My take on that was, these politicians had figured out a way to LOOK IMPORTANT, while simultaneously securing for themselves AN EASY LIVING. It’s like being a HOLLYWOOD ACTOR, in that you PRETEND to BE something when you really are NOT! - MATAIOLOGIA, -OS (Vol. 4, p. 524) – Basically, this term refers to statements that have the APPEARANCE of value but lack the SUBSTANCE. In other words, it’s like what you find with LAWYERS, BUREAUCRATS and PUBLIC OFFICIALS. Their whole game is THE CON! The key here is YAPPING which produces APPEARANCES instead of SUBSTANCE. Paul said it this way, “For the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power.” (1 Corinthians 4:20) Essentially, MATAIOLOGIA means DECEPTION.
I’ve heard from ‘legal professionals’ that one of their strategies for winning in court is PAPER. For lawyers, PAPER = WORDS. The key here is OVERWHELMING the opposition WITH WORDS. It’s not the WORDS that overwhelms, it’s the MONEY SPENT ON LEGAL FEES to argue against all those words. So the MORE PAPER you lay on your opponent, the MORE MONEY he has to spend on lawyer billing! It’s the WORD-WAR. Proverbs says this about that, “The beginning of strife is like letting out water, So abandon the quarrel before it breaks out.” (Proverbs 17:14) In other words, a LEGAL CONTEXT is like a TIDAL WAVE! So, this word MATAIOLOGIA means DECEITFUL YAPPING WITH MALICE. You find this word in 1 Timothy 1:6 & Titus 1:10 (more on Titus below). He’s talking about JEWISH LAWYER TYPES. Today we call them Corporate Executives, mainstream media, Antifa, Jewish Anti-Missionaries, etc. - KENOS (Vol. 3, p. 659) – Essentially this term means EMPTY, as in LACKING EFFECT, FAILURE, WRONG.
Without belaboring the synonyms, we can see there’s a marked distinction between what the philosophers called Paul at Athens and what the Paul called those who used words to talk garbage about Jesus. The former was the norm among the philosophers, whereas the latter is ANTI-CHRIST. In both cases, the focus is on WORDS, STATEMENTS, COMMUNICATION.
Finally, here’s a cogent statement to Titus buy the Apostle Paul on the types of people who do MATAIOLOGOS:
10 For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, 11 who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain. 12 One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13 This testimony is true. For this reason reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith, 14 not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. 15 To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. 16 They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed. (Titus 1)
OUCH! Pretty harsh, eh? As always the MOTIVE behind this is FILTHY MONEY! And not just money gained through COMMERCE, but MONEY GOTTEN BY EVIL MEANS THROUGH WICKED ACTIVITIES. Some examples of WICKED ACTIVITIES (from TDNT under the entry MAMMON) are: Wrongful law suits, over taxation, swindling in business, outright stealing, charging interest, other interest-based financial schemes such as stocks, commodities trading, derivatives, mortgages, retirement accounts (pretty much every financial scheme found today in America!), gambling, etc. Sound familiar? To reiterate, we see these EVILS in nearly every area of life today in America. Paul has this to say about that, “But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another” (Galatians 5:15). FRAUD + THEFT has become the ‘usual and customary’ business model for most. Why? Because the corporations have LAWYERS to PROTECT them! LAWYER = LIAR. And ‘the little guy’ KNOWS you can’t afford to SUE HIM for restitution. It’s all a CALCULATED GAMBLE. Now, compare that with Paul’s METHOD OF COMMUNICATING with the men of foreign mindset in Athens. Doesn’t seem bad, right? Nothing derogatory about that. In fact, the Apostle Paul made a point of NOT TAKING MONEY for the work he was doing, even though he had a RIGHT to do so:
For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life … (2 Corinthians 1:8)
For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. (1 Thessalonians 2:9)
… nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you … (2 Thessalonians 3:8)
Appears to me that, for an IDLE BABBLER, the Apostle Paul sure was a GREAT GUY! Considering his audience, I guess the saying’s true, THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY REMAIN THE SAME. See you in the next blog!
Reality Bible 