I confess to having a pet peeve when it comes to Athens and Biblical tours of Athens. The locale of ‘Mars Hill’=the Areopagus is perpetually misidentified. There is a little slippery, dangerous, marble hill with a sign in front of it saying Mars Hill and with the text of the relevant Acts 17 passage at the base of the steps leading up to the acropolis. This is surely not the local of the council meeting at the Areopagus that Paul was summoned to. For one thing, there is no evidence there ever was a building up there. For another it is undulated rock which does not seem to ever have been leveled etc. And then there is this— the schematic of the whole area which one can see at the edge of the Agora/Forum.
Look closely at no. 2 on the schematic. It makes clear that the Areopagus was down the slope towards the Agora from what tourists call Mars Hill. So enough with climbing up that slippery hill tourists! It’s not the right location. The stoa and agora are well worth visiting in Athens, and here we will begin to show this with a few slides.
This is obviously a reconstructed stoa, but it gives a clear picture of what the ancient stoa would have looked like. Here Paul probably had debates with the Stoics, named after the Stoa, and the Epicureans. Today we have votive reliefs and statues in the stoa itself, and inside there is a nice little museum.
Here for example, is a statue from the second century A.D. probably of Herodotus, the father of Greek history writing.
And here is a votive or offering carving also in the Stoa…..
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