By examining Epicurean and Stoic teachings on piety in the first century, Monique Cuany sheds new light on the argumentation of Paul's famous discourse in Athens and how it seeks to communicate its Christian message to a philosophically trained audience.

Monique Cuany seeks to answer two major questions which still divide and puzzle commentators with respect to the speech in Athens in Acts 17:16-34: What is the relationship between the speech's main part and its 'Christian conclusion'? And what is the relationship between the speech's message and Greek philosophy? Through an in-depth analysis of the religious and philosophical context alluded to in Acts 17 and a careful verse by verse examination of the speech, the author proposes a new answer to both of these questions. She suggests that the so-called Christian appendix, which has long seemed totally disconnected from the rest of the speech and lacking historical verisimilitude in light of the audience depicted by the narrative, is actually the climax of the argument of the speech and would have been more easily understood by a Greek audience than has been thought in the past.

Autorentext
Born 1980; studied history and theology in Switzerland, China, and the USA; 2019 PhD in New Testament studies, University of Cambridge, UK; Professor of History of Christianity, Haute Ecole de Théologie, St-Légier, Switzerland.