I believe it was either Walter Kaufman or Joseph Campbell who described Paul as something of a "country bumpkin" who traveled from the backwaters of the Roman Empire to Greece and was left shocked and misunderstanding of the sophisticated culture and society he witnessed there.
For instance, the Athenians had an altar dedicated to "An Unknown God". The purpose of the altar was to provide a place of worship to people visiting Athens from foreign lands whose gods might not otherwise have temples in the city. But Paul, being a bit of a dullard, mistook the altar as something along the lines of a confession that the Athenians did not yet know of the one true god -- Paul's god.
So, do you think Paul might have been something of a country boy lost in the big city, so to speak? Did he really understand the society and culture he so harshly criticized? Or was he like so many people since who, arriving in a more sophisticated place than the one they were born to, profoundly misunderstand its culture?
For instance, the Athenians had an altar dedicated to "An Unknown God". The purpose of the altar was to provide a place of worship to people visiting Athens from foreign lands whose gods might not otherwise have temples in the city. But Paul, being a bit of a dullard, mistook the altar as something along the lines of a confession that the Athenians did not yet know of the one true god -- Paul's god.
So, do you think Paul might have been something of a country boy lost in the big city, so to speak? Did he really understand the society and culture he so harshly criticized? Or was he like so many people since who, arriving in a more sophisticated place than the one they were born to, profoundly misunderstand its culture?