PETER HORREE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

The African man that Philip meets on his journey from Jerusalem to Gaza in Acts 8:26–40 is the most prominent unnamed character in the biblical book. Yet the deceptively simple phrase used to identify him—“Ethiopian eunuch” (v. 27)—raises significant interpretive issues that scholars continue to debate. What can we know about this important figure and his journey based on the information provided in the text?¹

The man is said to be an Aithiops, “Ethiopian.” This term, however, needs clarification. In antiquity, Ethiopia did not refer to the modern country of that name. Rather, it was located in modern Sudan and known to the biblical writers as Cush and to Greek and Roman authors as Nubia. It was a wealthy and prosperous land inhabited by a dark-skinned people (see Jeremiah 13:23).^a This understanding is confirmed by the reference in the Acts story to the dynastic queen of the Ethiopians known as the “candace” (Greek kandakē) whom the African man serves. The candaces ruled the kingdom of Nubia from its capital Meroe located along the upper Nile River, and at the time of the story in Acts, this title likely referred to a queen named Amantitere (r. 20–41 CE).

We now turn to the second part of our phrase: the word “eunuch,” used five times in Acts 8 to refer to the African man. He is usually regarded as a physical eunuch. But the Greek word eunouchos is also used in the Septuagint to refer to the Egyptian character Potiphar in Genesis 39:1. Here and elsewhere, English translations render the Hebrew term saris as “official” or “officer.” Is it possible that eunouchos in Acts 8 should also be translated as “official”? At least one commentator, William H. Willimon, suggests:

Contrary to popular interpretation, he need not be a castrated male … Rather, we are reading a story about an important man, a foreigner, though possibly a Jew, a powerful person who has much power and authority as the queen’s minister.²

Common to the Bible’s character introductions is a clarifying word or phrase describing the official portfolio of the person. In Genesis 39, Potiphar is identified as the captain of the guard. Similarly in Acts, the author identifies the African man as being “in charge of [the candace’s] entire treasury.” Using modern terminology, his position would be “minister of finance” or “secretary of the treasury.”

The assumption that the Nubian official is a physical eunuch persists, however. Interpreters generally assume that he is a Gentile because castrated men were forbidden to worship at the Temple (see Deuteronomy 23:1). Some have suggested that he had gone to Jerusalem to worship (Acts 8:27) as a Godfearer, or even as the first Gentile convert, even though Luke emphasizes that Cornelius was the first Gentile to come to the faith (Acts 10:1–11:18). But a more expansive understanding of eunouchos, namely as “official,” leaves open another possibility: Although he is from Nubia, he might also be Jewish, as Willimon suggests. Indeed, throughout the Ptolemaic and early imperial periods, Jews lived in Egyptian settlements along the Nile. Given that the Nubians invaded southern Egypt around 22 BCE, it is possible that Jewish prisoners were brought south to the capital at Meroe. If the Nubian official were Jewish, this might explain how, years later, this figure came to hold office in the candace’s court.

Finally, the geographical dimensions of Acts 8 are mind-boggling. From Jerusalem to their meeting point outside Gaza, Philip and the Nubian official have traveled separately for some 30 miles over a day and a half. Philip is directed by an angel to this route near Gaza, more properly termed “wilderness” than “desert” (v. 26). Traveling by foot, he overtakes the African official, whose return trip to Nubia from Jerusalem is by a different mode of transportation. Philip is told by the Spirit to approach a vehicle called a harma (v. 29). Most English versions misleadingly translate this word as “chariot”; however, chariots were not appropriate for long-distance travel. A double-axled carriage, known in Latin as a petorritum, was more comfortable and served as the limousine of the Roman world. With a wooden roof (which allowed shade for the Nubian to read his scroll of Isaiah [v. 28]) and a decorated interior, the petorritum was pulled by a team of horses or donkeys. Such carriages averaged up to 5 miles per hour on level ground. It is plausible that the African man is riding in such a vehicle.

His time on the road with Philip is a welcome opportunity for a stimulating spiritual conversation. After hearing the gospel, the Nubian believes and requests to be baptized in a local spring. Immediately afterward, Philip is snatched away by the Spirit, no doubt to the astonishment of the newly baptized Nubian (8:36–38). His return journey to Meroe was again an arduous one, covering some 1,800 miles. While much of this would have been sailing on the Nile, it would still have been time-consuming, taking at least a month.

The phrase “Ethiopian eunuch,” therefore, deserves a fresh reading. It identifies the African man in Acts 8 as the treasury official for the Nubian candace, likely Queen Amantitere. It is possible, moreover, that his pilgrimage to worship in Jerusalem indicates that he was Jewish. In any case, on a desolate road near Gaza, the text describes how God supernaturally orchestrates a meeting with Philip the evangelist. We may imagine the African man returning to Meroe, albeit in a very different place spiritually than when he had left for Jerusalem.

—–

Ḥannī-Ba‘al

Ḥann.ī = “my grace” or “grace of” | Ba‘al = “god Baal”

Hannibal is the Latinized form of Ḥannība‘al, a Punic personal name from Carthaginian history. Because the now-extinct Punic language (also called Carthaginian) was a variety of Phoenician, it belongs to the Canaanite branch of the Semitic language family and was written in a 22-letter Phoenician alphabet, from right to left.

This composite name consists of a derivation of the Semitic roots ḥnn (“to show favor,” “be gracious”) and b‘l (“lord,” “master”), the latter of which was the title of various ancient Near Eastern deities, including the chief Canaanite and later Phoenician storm god, Baal. Its interpretation depends on how the name was originally vocalized. If the first element is a noun (ḥann, “grace” or “favor”), then the terminal ī in ḥannī is either a first-person possessive (“my grace,” hence a nominal phrase “Baal is my grace”) or a sign of a vestigial genitive form that results in “grace/favor of Baal.” If, however, the first element is an active verb, the name is a verbal sentence (“Baal is/has been gracious”); if it’s a qualitative passive, it means “favored of Baal.”

The best known Hannibal in Carthaginian history was the general and statesman who initiated the Second Punic War (218–201 BCE) and famously surprised the Romans by crossing the Alps with his war elephants. The name entered modern popular culture in the fictional character of the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter—in a novel by Thomas Harris, later adapted into several movies and a TV series.

NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY / ALAMY

When the German archaeologists Robert Koldewey investigated the remains of the ziggurat of Babylon during his excavations there (1899–1917), his findings were both exciting and disappointing. They were exciting because he claimed to have discovered the biblical Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9), for which scholars had previously searched in vain at other Mesopotamian sites. But they were also disappointing, because all that remained of the massive tower were ruins: it had been dismantled in antiquity; basically, only the foundations remained to be seen and excavated.

In fact, the tower had fallen into disrepair at several points in its long history. This has led many biblical scholars to believe that the writer of Genesis 11 was alluding to a time when the tower was already dilapidated. In the Genesis narrative, when God saw what the people were building, he confused their language (which had been singular and global until then); they ceased to understand each other, and God scattered them “over the face of all the earth” (vv. 6–9). As a result, they stopped building the city of Babylon and, in particular, its tower—or so says the mainstream interpretation of Genesis 11.

Accordingly, iconographic depictions of the tower, from the Huqoq synagogue mosaic (fifth century CE) to the late Renaissance paintings of Pieter Bruegel (16th century) and many others, always show the building as a work in progress, never as a finished structure. However, unknown to most modern readers, a minority interpretation argues that the tower was brought to completion in the eyes of the Genesis author. Indeed, both of us have argued that the biblical author intended to portray the tower as having been finished.¹

The story’s ancient Jewish reception already bears witness to the two competing understandings. On the one hand, the pseudepigraphic book of Jubilees (second century BCE), a narrative retelling of Genesis and Exodus, clearly states that the Babylonians “ceased to build the city and the tower” (10:24). On the other hand, the book of Biblical Antiquities (c. 100 CE) claims that God’s intervention came when people “had begun to build the tower,” which suggests it was not yet finished (7.2).² Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish scholar who lived in Egypt in the early first century, explicitly stated that the tower had been completed (On the Confusion of Tongues 155–158).

Later, in the Midrash Rabbah (from about the fifth century), Rabbi Judah and Rabbi Hiyya ben-Abba said the same, although the latter argued that only a third of the tower was left standing because another third collapsed and yet another third was burned. Finally, the Midrash Tanhuma (perhaps ninth century) claims that God “allowed [the Babylonians] to erect the tower,” for otherwise, they would have argued that its non-completion was the only reason they could not “ascend” to “wage war” against God. They needed a finished tower to attempt their coup, a “skyscraper”—Genesis 11:4 speaks of “a tower that reaches to the heavens.” God deprived them of that argument: he was not afraid of them; let them come! This interpretation implicitly acknowledges that the tower was complete.

Why these disagreements between ancient interpreters? It all comes down to the wording of Genesis 11, which at first seems ambiguous. Even today, translators render it variously. According to the NIV, verse 5 says that YHWH “came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.” The imperfect “were building” implies that the construction work was still in progress: people were still working when God looked down to inspect the situation. In contrast, however, the same verse in the NRSV says that YHWH “came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built.” The pluperfect “had built” implies that the construction work is already over when God looks down.

Is it possible to decide between the two translations, “were building” and “had built”? Yes, because modern studies on Hebrew syntax have shown that in relative clauses such as “which mortals …” in verse 5, the specific “conjugation” (qatal) that is used corresponds to our pluperfect.

Yet there remains an ambiguity. What is the grammatical antecedent of “which,” in “the city and the tower, which mortals had built” (v. 5)? In other words, what is said to have been built: “the city and the tower” or just “the tower”? The answer is given in verse 8, which says of the humans that “YHWH scattered them abroad … and they left off building the city.” It is only after God had confused the language of the humans (v. 7) and scattered them (v. 8) that the humans stopped building the city—not when God had initially looked down to inspect what they were doing (the time referred to in v. 5). Consequently, “the city” cannot be part of what is said to have been completed in verse 5. To put it differently, we could faithfully translate verse 5 by putting a comma after “city,” as follows: “YHWH came down to see the city, and the tower that mortals had built.” In fact, this is how several ancient translators—including those responsible for the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate—understood the text.

In conclusion, Hebrew grammar and the internal logic of the text support the view, held by only a few modern scholars, that the Tower of Babel was completed. If this is correct, then there is little point in looking for a time in antiquity when the tower was in ruins as the background to the Genesis narrative. Archaeological excavations have revealed much about the ziggurat—its dimensions, its internal structure, the bricks used in its construction, and so on—but they cannot help us situate the biblical text historically. For the story’s author, the Tower of Babel was much more than just a building; it was a symbol of a united human group antagonizing YHWH.

PUBLIC DOMAIN, VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

This striking oil-on-wood painting of John the Baptist is commonly believed to be Leonardo da Vinci’s final work, dating to the second decade of the 16th century. It employs chiaroscuro, an artistic style that involves deep contrast between different elements of the painting—often, as in this case, between the background and the central figure—as well as Leonardo’s signature sfumato treatment that creates a hazy, softened look.

In this work, Leonardo departed from the traditional presentation of John the Baptist as a gaunt and aged ascetic, envisioning him instead as a robust, youthful figure with long curly hair who is smiling enigmatically and pointing toward the heavens. Barely visible around the figure’s lower body and draped over his left arm is a garment of fur or hair.

Interpreters of the work have remarked upon its mysterious quality, noting that the seeming proximity between figure and viewer generates a vague sense of unease. It is considered a remarkable meditation on the tension between flesh and spirit; some even suggest that it carries a subtle erotic undertone.

At some point in the decades following its completion, Leonardo’s painting made its way into the French royal collection. About a century later, in 1625, Louis XIII traded it to Charles I of England in exchange for a pair of other artworks. Charles’s collection was eventually sold, and the painting moved through various private collections before returning into the possession of Louis XIV in 1661. It has been a part of the Louvre’s collection since the French Revolution.

What is a “hapax legomenon”?

1. A Roman curse
2. A Greek siege machine
3. A single-copy document
4. An AI-powered reading device
5. Any unique written word

Answer: (5) Any unique written word

Hapax legomenon (or hapax, for short) is a term used to refer to any written word that is unique. It can mean a word appears only once in a literary corpus, such as the Bible, or that it is not known from any other text in a particular language and is thus entirely unique. This uniqueness can present serious challenges to our understanding of ancient texts, unless the meaning can be gleaned from the context. Coined by Hellenistic scholars of Homeric poetry in ancient Alexandria, the Greek term translates to “once-spoken.”

There are about 1,500 words in the Hebrew Bible that are unique in their particular form yet can still be matched to known roots, and about 400 true hapax legomena (pl.) that cannot, in their specific form or meaning, be derived from any known root. In some instances, the hapax legomenon in question is a loanword from a neighboring language, such as Akkadian, Egyptian, or Ugaritic. In many other instances, a rare word is used for stylistic reasons, such as to produce alliteration: goper, “cypress wood,” and koper, “pitch” (Genesis 6:14); lahaqat, “cadre of” (1 Samuel 19:20; in proximity to laqaḥat, “to take”), and be-lo‘eka, “to your gullet” (Proverbs 23:2; in proximity to ba‘al, “lord”).

The phrase “an eye for an eye” describes a type of retributive justice. Known in legal circles as lex talionis, or “the law of retaliation,” it stipulates that a punishment or compensation be commensurate with the crime committed or damage caused.

The expression entered our parlance through the Hebrew Bible, where this principle of natural law appears in the Book of Leviticus: “Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (Leviticus 24:19–20; cf. Exodus 21:23–25 and Deuteronomy 19:21). Because talionic laws are rooted in the legal traditions of the ancient Near East, modern scholars have assumed that the Bible borrowed this tit-for-tat principle from the Laws of Hammurabi—the famous Babylonian code of law from the 18th century BCE.

But there is a difference. Hammurabi’s laws apply lex talionis only to injuries to a full citizen, whereas injuries done to animals and people of lower social status called for monetary compensation. In contrast, the Hebrew Bible makes a clear distinction between the value of animal lives and that of all humans, including the enslaved (Leviticus 24:21).

Since the recovery of Hammurabi’s laws in 1901, parallel codes from the second millennium BCE have been found around the ancient Near East: the Laws of Ur-Nammu, the Laws of Lipit-Ishtar, and the Middle Assyrian laws. In 2010, two pieces of a cuneiform legal tablet were found at the site of Hazor in northern Israel.^a Known today as the Laws of Hazor, the fragments of seven laws concern compensation for damage to an enslaved person, showing that some aspects of biblical law were present in Canaan already in the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000–1550 BCE).

Although the biblical version of lex talionis was fairly progressive in curbing excessive vengeance in favor of proportionate justice, Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount seems to be revoking this ancient law: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also” (Matthew 5:38–39). Some argue Jesus said this hyperbolically, as he was calling his followers to a higher standard of righteousness. Alternatively, Jesus did not demand that his followers ignore retribution, only that they bear it themselves. Such an ethic commends suffering an injury twice rather than paying back and taking “an eye for an eye.”

CC BY 4.0 INTERNATIONAL / WELLCOME COLLECTION

When we imagine the authors of the Bible, we tend to picture solitary prophets and apostles—Paul hunched over a scroll, perhaps, or an evangelist illumined by divine inspiration. What we do not envision, much less credit, are the enslaved secretaries, scribes, and couriers who took dictation, edited manuscripts, and transported letters across the Roman Empire. Yet without these individuals, the New Testament quite literally would not exist.¹

The early Christian movement emerged within an imperial system structured by and dependent upon slavery. Literacy was rare, and among those who could read or write, few had the skill, training, or leisure required to compose long letters or theological treatises. As with other facets of elite Roman life, the work of writing was frequently delegated to enslaved professionals. Enslaved people were trained as scribes, copyists, and administrative assistants—roles indispensable to both public and private communication. Despite Christianity’s apparent social radicalism, in this respect, the early church was no exception.

Consider Paul’s letter to the Romans, arguably the theological centerpiece of the New Testament. Although Paul is traditionally regarded as the sole author, Romans 16:22 offers a startling admission: “I, Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord.” Tertius is not a rhetorical device or spiritual metaphor; he is the person who physically penned the letter. His name—Latin for “Third”—reflects a common practice of designating enslaved individuals with solitary numerical or utilitarian names. Nor was this collaboration unique. In Galatians 6:11, Paul draws attention to the large letters written “with my own hand,” implicitly distinguishing those few lines from the rest of the letter. Similar notices appear in 1 Corinthians 16:21 and Colossians 4:18.

These individuals were not mere machines mechanically transcribing dictated speech. In antiquity, taking dictation was a practiced skill, and secretaries often played interpretive roles. They smoothed syntax, emulated the voice of their master, made editorial choices, and sometimes altered content. The shorthand they used was itself an ambiguous writing system that was legible only to the enslaved and formerly enslaved workers who spent years learning the craft. Classical scholars and papyrologists have noted that enslaved scribes occasionally inserted marginalia and humorous interjections into the texts they copied. Corrections, of course, were a standard part of their work. Improving the words of the masterly author was part of the remit of the enslaved literary worker. Their roles were so critical that Cicero lamented that without his enslaved secretary Tiro, “my work is silent” (Letters to Friends 16.10.2).

The implications are far-reaching. If enslaved individuals composed, copied, and preserved Christian texts, they were not passive transmitters of scripture but active contributors—interpreters, editors, and, in many cases, theologians. Their labor was not only manual but also intellectual. Although their names and stories were often omitted or suppressed, traces of their presence remain embedded in the textual tradition.

This erasure was neither accidental nor apolitical. Roman critics of Christianity like Celsus frequently derided it as a religion of “women and slaves”—a stigma in a society that prized elite male authority. As the church gained cultural and political power, some of its early enslaved collaborators were posthumously rebranded. Figures such as Mark, traditionally identified as Peter’s interpreter, and Onesimus, the enslaved man mentioned in the Letter to Philemon, were transformed in later tradition into bishops, martyrs, and saints. Their servile origins were quietly erased. Even Mary, the mother of Jesus, underwent this form of theological redressing. In Luke’s Gospel, she refers to herself as the doulē of the Lord—a term meaning “enslaved woman.” Yet most English translations dilute this to “handmaid” or “servant,” a choice that obscures her original social context.

The Pauline epistles and Book of Acts similarly depict Paul surrounded by a rotating cast of aides—Epaphroditus, Tychicus, Fortunatus—whose names (often derived from adjectives like “Lovely,” “Lucky,” or “Useful”) were common among enslaved populations. Despite this, Christian tradition typically remembers these figures as freeborn companions or enthusiastic volunteers.

The anonymity of such figures speaks volumes. Ancient sources rarely name the people who physically produced or transported documents. When Pontius Pilate “writes” the inscription on Jesus’s cross in John 19:19, it is highly unlikely that he painted the words himself. After all, there’s no good reason to think that Pilate could speak or write in Hebrew. More plausibly, an enslaved scribe or artisan performed the task. Yet we do not ask who that person was, because the literary tradition and our own constructions of authorship have taught us to ignore the labor behind the text.

The success of early Christianity depended on these invisible collaborators. In the ancient world, letter-writing was no simple affair. Delivering a letter required a courier capable of making long and sometimes dangerous journeys, someone who could explain the contents upon arrival and read them aloud to the recipient community. In Christian settings, that often meant entrusting enslaved workers with the transmission of the words attributed to apostles and church leaders. These couriers were not simply messengers; they were oral interpreters and, at times, missionaries.

Once a letter reached its destination, enslaved scribes were responsible for copying it, preserving it, and sometimes compiling it with other texts. In scriptoria and private households alike, they copied gospels repeatedly, altered phrasing, clarified meaning, added glosses, and repaired or preserved scrolls using cedar oil and other materials. These practical decisions shaped the textual form and content of the Bible for generations.

Modern readers may balk at the notion that enslaved individuals helped to “write” scripture. Yet we readily accept that Paul dictated his letters, that Mark served as Peter’s interpreter, and that early Christian literature was the product of collaboration. Acknowledging this fact is not necessarily a threat to biblical authority. On the contrary, it testifies to a richer, more inclusive vision of inspiration—one that transcends social hierarchies. The same spirit that inspired Paul also worked through Tertius. The gospel is not diminished by the hands that wrote it; rather, it is deepened by their humanity. This recognition invites us to reclaim a central, often forgotten truth of Christian origins: Those on the margins have always been at the heart of the story.

IANDAGNALL COMPUTING / ALAMY

In the Book of Acts, the apostle Paul is heroically recast as invincible to physical assaults and incapable of suffering either injury or pain. The blindness that afflicts him on the road to Damascus proves to be temporary and is followed throughout the book by several cycles of fast-paced, narrow escapes from hostile opponents and bodily harm (e.g., Acts 9:23–25; 14:5–6; 17:5–10).

When Paul arrives in Lystra, for example, he is caught by a hostile mob intent on stoning him and dragging his body out of the city (Acts 14:19–20); though he is presumed dead, in a surprising reversal of fate, Paul gets up and boldly walks back into the city, resuming his travels the very next day. Another instance late in the book describes a mob of more than 40 conspirators in Jerusalem who vow to taste no food until they have killed Paul, but he gets wind of the ambush and is aided in his escape by Roman officials (Acts 23:12–35). Finally, Paul survives a shipwreck completely unscathed (Acts 27) and, equally impressively, is unharmed by a viper’s bite on the island of Malta (28:3–6).

Acts uses these episodes of miraculous rescue as a primary means to cast Paul’s public image in heroic terms. This begins with his miraculous healing in Damascus (Acts 9) and continues until the very end of Paul’s story, which leaves readers in Rome (Acts 28), where the imprisoned Paul’s inviolable body makes him uninhibited by the restraints of arrest, and he remains invulnerable even to a fitting noble death. Even though Paul does not die, Acts foreshadows second-century martyr accounts, such as the Martyrdom of Polycarp, where heroes endure the most horrific tortures without ever crying out in pain. However, Acts takes it to a further extreme, representing Paul’s body as not only incapable of suffering pain, but immune to any bodily injury at all.

In addition to his invulnerability in Acts, Paul often takes on a supernatural aura, manifest through his miraculous touch as well as his gazing eyes and even the clothing he has worn, all of which carry the power to cast out sickness, disease, and evil spirits. Indeed, Paul’s miracles in Acts draw comparisons with other mediators of the divine. He is pitted against Peter, John, Stephen, Philip, Ananias, and Barnabas, though Paul is ultimately cast as their wonder-working superior simply by exceeding their miraculous feats in both type and sheer number. Likewise in competition with outsiders, Acts demonstrates Paul’s superiority as a wonder-worker through competitive showdowns with the Jewish prophet and sorcerer in Cyprus, the priests of Zeus in Lystra, and the seven sons of a Jewish high priest and miracle worker in Ephesus.

Miracles in Acts serve to identify Paul as a hero in body and action, operating in a legitimizing framework of explicit divine support. In his undisputed letters, on as many as five separate occasions, Paul himself refers to the “signs and wonders” that were performed in the communities to which he writes. In the opening lines of his very first letter, for instance, Paul rejoices over the assembly in Macedonia when writing, “For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction” (1 Thessalonians 1:4–5; italics mine). Though his references to his own wonder-working tend to be indirect and in passing, they seem to indicate that something more than just his rhetorical prowess was on display when he participated in the founding of the assembly. Strikingly similar expressions occur also in his letters to Corinth, Galatia, and Rome. This helps to explain, in part, how Acts comes to remember Paul as a miracle worker in the first place.

However, though Paul seems on occasion to remind others of the miracles he performed in their presence, it certainly is not a major point of emphasis in his apostolic self-representation. In his letters, Paul is much more interested in emphasizing his own frailty than his miraculous powers, which he regards as holding lesser importance in his identification with Christ (e.g., 2 Corinthians 12:1–14).¹

Therefore, Paul’s heroic portrait in Acts is only partially explained by Paul’s own self-representation in his letters. After all, the presentation of him as an embodied vessel of divine charisma recasts Paul’s body as invulnerable to the very types of injury and pain to which he so frequently refers in his own letters, and of which he so miraculously relieves others in Acts.

In this respect, the Book of Acts represents an ambitious attempt at constructing a literary monument of apostolic memorialization, whereby Paul is recast as a courageous hero who prevails against hostile forces in the face of life-threatening dangers in his efforts to develop a vast transregional network of local Christ assemblies. Paul bravely pushes forward against threats of mob violence, arrest, imprisonment, drowning, and even a snake bite, surviving unscathed, demonstrating his corporeal invincibility and unwavering resolve. Moreover, Acts effectively solidifies Paul’s heroic legacy by pairing these exceptional accomplishments with a remarkable range of supernatural feats that put on public display Paul’s supremacy as a divine conduit in locally channeling extraordinary supernatural powers toward the benefit of others. Miraculous performances function as dramatic spectacles in staging Paul’s heroic rescues before a viewing public that marvels over the performances in wonder and amazement. These miraculous deeds garner loyalty to Christ who sits at the center of the expanding web that Paul is spinning to incorporate an ever-widening number of human beneficiaries.

INCAMERASTOCK / ALAMY

Do you recognize this famous biblical scene?

1. The Final Judgment by Jan van Eyck
2. Saul and the Witch of Endor by Benjamin West
3. The Resurrection of Christ by Jacopo Tintoretto
4. Elijah and the Angel by Godfrey Kneller
5. The Vision of the Prophet Ezekiel by Quentin Matsys

INCAMERASTOCK / ALAMY

Answer: (2) Saul and the Witch of Endor by Benjamin West

In this 1777 painting, Benjamin West takes up the story of Saul and his consultation with the medium in Endor (1 Samuel 28). In the biblical account, Saul is preparing for war with the Philistines and seeks out a woman in Endor who can consult with the dead. To Saul’s surprise, she raises the shade of the prophet Samuel, who delivers to Saul a message he does not wish to hear: His kingdom is doomed. The eldritch encounter shakes Saul to his core; later, when he rides into battle, Samuel’s foretelling proves true: Saul and his son Jonathan die in the battle.

Benjamin West (1738–1820) was an American-born painter who specialized in historical scenes. He was entirely self-taught; after several years of painting mostly portraits in Pennsylvania, he visited Italy and then settled in London in 1763. His patrons there commissioned a variety of historical works, the genre for which he is chiefly known. Later in life, he took on religious themes as well, as this painting attests. Here, Saul prostrates himself before the shade of Samuel as Saul’s servants stand to his right, alarmed. The medium is on the left, conjuring the spirit of the deceased prophet.

COURTESY DAFNA GAZIT, ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY

1. Babylonian earring
2. Hittite door knocker
3. Roman coffin fixture
4. Parthian cymbal
5. Assyrian keyring

Answer: (3) Roman coffin fixture

This first- or second-century CE bronze disk was discovered during a salvage excavation at the site of Khirbet Ibreika, northeast of Tel Aviv. One of four lion-shaped disks uncovered at the site, the piece would have been affixed to a wooden coffin, with the small rectangular opening above the lion’s head used to hold a ring that allowed the coffin to be carried. Each disk measures around 4 inches in diameter and was handcrafted with a unique design, with each lion bearing distinctive features and a slightly different expression. Although similar lion-shaped coffin fixtures have been found elsewhere in the Levant, these are the first extant examples to have the carrying ring attached above the lion’s head rather than in its mouth.