In Reply to: Here's part of the "Hymn to Zeus" Paul quoted posted by Donny on March 09, 2003 at 13:30:08:
So how could Paul take quotes meant for Zeus the king of the Greek gods and appropriate them for the true God? Here's an explanation I found on the Internet:
"I found a mention of Aratus in the Tyndale New Testament commentary on Acts; Howard Marshall, Eerdman's 1980. He states concerning the words 'we are also his offspring': "As quoted by Paul, they come from Aratus, but they are also found in a slightly different form in Cleanthes, Hymn to Zeus."
"Marshall concludes that "Paul thus takes over pagan Greek poems, expressive of Stoic philosophy; and applies them to God. A process of 'demythologization' was already underway in that for the Stoics 'Zeus' meant not the supreme god in Greek polytheism but the Logos. Paul was
prepared to take over the glimmerings of truth in pagan philosophy about the nature of God. But whereas the Greeks thought of the divine nature of
man, Paul would have thought of the way in which man is the image of God."