Acts 26:24-32

Interruption by Festus. Appeal to Agrippa. Consultation and decision

24 Festus said with a loud voice Probably what had last fallen from Paul seemed to him little better than lunatic ravings. The Gospel of the Cross did appear as "foolishness" to the Gentile world. And this Gospel he had just heard in all its fulness: that the Christ by suffering of death and rising to life again should be the source of true enlightenment both to Jews and Gentiles.

Paul, thou art beside thyself[R. V.mad]. As the same word is taken up in the following verse, it is better that it should be rendered alike in both places.

much learning doth make thee mad Lit. (with R. V.) "doth turn thee to madness." But there is nothing gained by construing thus, and much is lost in English vigour. "Much learning" is literally "the many writings." As in John 7:15, where the same word is rendered "letters," it may mean study and learning generally. But it seems better to take it of those writings (viz. the Old Testament) to which Paul had been appealing. For as a religious literature no nation, not even the polished Greeks, had anything to place in comparison with the Sacred Books of the Jews.