theatre Summary and Overview

only mentioned in Acts 19:29, 31. The ruins of this theatre at Ephesus still exist, and they show that it was a magnificent structure, capable of accommodating some 56,700 persons. It was the largest structure of the kind that ever existed. Theatres, as places of amusement, were unknown to the Jews.

For the explanation of the biblical allusions, two or three points only require notice. The Greek term, like the corresponding English term, denotes the place where dramatic performances are exhibited, and also the scene itself or spectacle which is witnessed there. It occurs in the first or local sense in #Ac 19:29| The other sense of the term "theatre" occurs in #1Co 4:9|

THE'ATRE , a place of public amusement, where popular assemblies, courts, elections, etc., were often held. Acts 19:29, 1 Chr 24:31. "The taste for theatrical amusements was never strongly developed among the Jews, though some of their later rulers, especially the Herods, favored them and established theatres in Palestine. Herod the Great introduced Greek actors at his court in Jerusalem, greatly to the scandal of the Jews, and built a theatre and amphitheatre at Caesarea." - Hackett.

The theater was anciently in the open air; semicircular; the seats in tiers above one another the stage on a level with the lowest seats. Besides the performance of dramas, public meetings were often in the theater, as being large enough almost to receive "the whole city" (Acts 19:29); so at Ephesus the theater was the scene of the tumultuous meeting excited by Demetrius. The remains of this theater still attest its vast size and convenient position. (See EPHESUS; DIANA.) In 1 Corinthians 4:9 "spectacle" is literally, "theatrical spectacle," a spectacle in which the world above and below is the theater, and angels and men the spectators. Hebrews 10:33, "made a "gazing stock" (theatrizomenoi) by afflictions"; as criminals often were exhibited to amuse the populace in the amphitheater, and "set forth last" in the show to fight with wild beasts (Tertullian, de Pudicitia, 14): Hebrews 12:1. In the theater Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:21-23; Josephus, Ant. 19:8, section 2) gave audience to the Tyrian envoys, and was struck dead by God.