Book of Acts Chapter 18 - Christogenea Internet Radio 11-1-2013
The end of Acts chapter 17 leaves off with Paul in Athens after his speech on the Hill of Ares. His words were mocked by many of the Athenians, but did not fall on entirely deaf ears, since Luke tells us that “some men joining themselves to him believed”, one of them being a jurist of the Areopagos, which was the famous court held on Ares' Hill, who must therefore have been an influential man.
Two elements of Paul's address to the Athenians are important enough to mention once again. The first is that the Athenians, mocking Paul for talking about a resurrection of the dead, were actually also denying many of their own most ancient beliefs, reflected in the early poetry and literature of Athens down through the Tragic Poets and the writings of men such as Apollodorus of Athens, who lived only two centuries before Paul.
More importantly is the substance of Paul's address to the Athenians. These men were Ionian Greeks, descended from the Japhethites of Scripture, the sons of Javan mentioned in Genesis chapter 10. The identification is certain when the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the Persian inscriptions mentioning the Yavana, or Ionian Greeks, and the ancient historical records are all compared.
For this reason, in Paul's address to these people we see none of the references to Moses, the Hebrew Law, the Hebrew patriarchs, or the ideas of sin or redemption or the other things which are only relevant to the children of Israel in their special relationship to Christ. Instead of accusing the Athenians of sin, he accused them of ignorance, because their fathers did not have the benefits of the knowledge of God transmitted to the Israelites and the Hebrew patriarchs!