204 Kenneth D. Litwak know that he is God and there is no other. These verses are not echoed by Paul as such but the ideas they express are clearly present, just as many of the statements throughout the Areopagus address reflect elements of the anti-idol polemic of Isaiah 40–48: the inability of idols to speak, see or help, the foolishness of bowing down to something that is made with human hands, especially when part of the original tree was used to cook the worshiper’s dinner and the view that God is transcendent above all, and cannot therefore be represented by anything. Isaiah’s assertions that idolaters and makers of idols do not know is interesting in light of Paul’s words in Acts 17,23 concerning the “unknown god”. Paul says that what the Athenians worship ignorantly he will proclaim to them. Paul seeks to correct their ignorance, just as Isaiah proclaims to his people the true God as opposed to the idols they worship without knowledge of the true God. Paul refers to the altar of the unknown god in Acts 17,23a, the ignorant worship of the Athenians in 17,23b, the groping after God in 17,27 and God’s overlooking of the times of ignorance in Acts 17,30. Clearly, the failure of Paul’s audience to recognize the true God is an important theme in Paul’s speech, as well as in many scriptural intertexts which may lie behind the speech. Thus, Paul’s discourse begins by echoing themes expressed by Israel’s prophets, especially Isaiah (16). b) God as Creator: Acts 17,24 Paul continues to echo the Scriptures of Israel in Acts 17,24. There are two main parts to this verse. The first is the assertion that God made the world and all that is in it. This statement echoes an extensive scriptural tradition. All of Genesis 1 describes this process, while the specific assertion that God created the world may be found in Gen 1,1 and 2,1-4. Isaiah calls upon his audience to consider who God is, based upon his activity as creator of the stars (cf. Isa 40,25-26). Isa 40,28 ties together the idea of knowing who God is and his activity as creator. This verse joins two of the themes of Paul’s speech. First, Paul tells the (16) It is reasonable to see echoes of Isaiah here as Isaiah’s words are explicitly cited elsewhere in Luke-Acts, e.g., Luke 3,4-6; 4,17-19; 8,10; Acts 13,47. These clear quotations from Isaiah, especially Isaiah 40-49, justify seeing more subtle, intertextual echoes of Isaiah in Paul’s speech at the Areopagus. Dubarle (“Le Discours”, 581) argues that the order of the elements in Paul’s speech follows the order in Isaiah 45, although it integrates other scriptural texts as well. I find his parallels suggestive and helpful for seeing the echoed traditions behind Paul’s words, but am not convinced that Isaiah 45 actually provided the order for the statements in Acts 17,22-31.