Acts 25


Acts 25 is the twenty-fifth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the period of Paul's imprisonment in Caesarea. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke.

Text

The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 27 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:

Locations

The events in this chapter took place in Caesarea and Jerusalem.

Paul appeals to Caesar (verses 1–12)

Porcius Festus was the procurator of the province of Judea after Antonius Felix, as confirmed by first-century historian Josephus. His exact time in office is not known, with the earliest proposed date for the start of his term c. AD 55–6, while the latest is AD 61, but most scholars opt for a date between 58 and 60, based on a change in the provincial coinage of Judaea attested for Nero's fifth year points to AD 59.
Festus was eager to clean up problems left by his predecessor as well as to avoid any actions that compelled the Jewish community in Caesarea to send a delegation to Rome complaining about Felix's 'misdeeds against the Jews'. Therefore, in keeping a good relation with the Jewish authorities and in acting with all propriety related to Rome, Festus' decision to refer the case to Rome is understandable.

Agrippa and Bernice (verses 13–27)

Paul was almost set for the last journey to Rome as Festus has agreed to transfer his case to Rome, but Paul had one more chance to make a defence of his case before the Jewish king Herod Agrippa II and his sister Bernice, on the occasion of Agrippa's visit to Festus, and Festus's need of the king's expertise in drafting his report on the case. Josephus records that Agrippa II was a 'significant power-broker, both with Rome and with the Jewish community worldwide', acting as spokesperson for a Jewish delegation in Rome a few years earlier, and has a good relationship with Tiberius Julius Alexander, the prefecture of Egypt, who was a previous procurator of Judea and Bernice's brother-in-law. Bernice was the sister of Agrippa, currently a widow living at her brother's court and taking an active part in Jewish affairs. The Roman failure to find a case against Paul and Paul's own self-defence before Agrippa II are set to 'demonstrate the fulfilment of the prophecy that Paul would have to testify "before kings" '.