Libya

Biblical Text

In the New Korean Revised Version, the name "Libya" appears in Acts 2:10. When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, people from many lands who were staying in Jerusalem each heard the apostles speaking in his own language. In listing where these people came from, the text includes those who dwelt "in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene" (Acts 2:9-11). The Greek means "the regions of Libya toward Cyrene," so the phrase refers not to Libya as a whole but to the area centered on Cyrene.

Background

The ancient Greeks called the land of North Africa west of Egypt "Libyē," and at times they used the name for the entire African continent. Cyrene was a city founded by Greeks in this region, and the surrounding territory was known as Cyrenaica. In the Roman period, this territory was joined with Crete and governed as a single province. It corresponds to the eastern part of present-day Libya, but biblical Libya and the modern nation of Libya do not cover the same area.

Cyrene is known to have had a large Jewish community, and Jews from this region appear frequently in the New Testament. Examples include Simon of Cyrene, who carried the cross for Jesus (Mark 15:21); the synagogue of the Cyrenians, whose members disputed with Stephen (Acts 6:9); the men of Cyrene who preached the gospel to the Greeks in Antioch (Acts 11:20); and Lucius of Cyrene, a teacher in the church at Antioch (Acts 13:1).

Connection with the Old Testament

In the New Korean Revised Version, the name Libya does not appear directly in the Old Testament. However, the people called by the Hebrew name Lubim (2 Chronicles 12:3; Nahum 3:9; Daniel 11:43; and elsewhere) are understood to have been inhabitants of the Libyan region west of Egypt. Some scholars also link Phut, the son of Ham (Genesis 10:6), and the people descended from him with Libya. Others, however, place Phut in a different part of Africa, so this connection cannot be stated with certainty. Bible translations also differ in how they render these terms.

Significance and Interpretation

The list of places in Acts 2 portrays the wide world across which the Jews of that time were dispersed, from Parthia and Media in the east to Rome in the west, and to Egypt and Libya in the south. For this reason, the list is often read as indicating that the gospel was directed toward the whole world from the very beginning. As the text makes clear, however, the people listed were "Jews and proselytes"; this is not yet the moment when the gospel is proclaimed to the Gentiles.

Some interpreters read this scene as a reversal of the Tower of Babel episode (Genesis 11), in which human language was confounded and divided. Others connect this list of places with the Table of Nations in Genesis 10. Both are readings proposed by interpreters rather than claims the text itself makes. There is also a tradition that Libyans who had been in Jerusalem at Pentecost returned home and founded churches, but the Bible contains no record of this.