At the close of an article on Zeus I read today in the Jan/Feb 2018 edition of Archaeology was the answer to whether Zeus was born on Mount Ida in Crete or on Mount Lykaion (the subject of the article) in Greece. When an exasperated poet, Callimachus, asked Zeus to settle the dispute, the answer was, “Cretans are liars.”
This led me to the 6th century BC poem by Epimenides of Crete referring to the Cretan view that Zeus was mortal and had died:
“They fashioned a tomb for you, holy and high one, the Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies, but you are not dead, since you live and abide forever, for in you we live and move and have our being.”
Which, of course, led me to the New Testament:
“For this reason I left you in Crete…One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.'” Titus 1:5,12
“…that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said….” Acts 17:27-28 at Athens
“for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.” I Peter 1:23 probably from Rome.
The Epimenides Paradox in the study of logic arises from asking whether Epimenides of Crete could have been telling the truth when he said that all those from Crete are liars. There is no paradox in the New Testament use of this poem by Epimenides. No one was suggesting Zeus as another form of Christ or that the people of Crete are any different from the rest of us in falsehoods, evil, and our delight in the excesses of pleasures. This is simply the fundamental principle of evangelism and missions, shown in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Himself and in the history of missionary activity since, that the most effective way of reaching a people is to use their own culture and history as a starting place. Don Richardson wrote a wonderful book illustrating the principle in 1975 called Peace Child. Get a copy and read it. The book had such an effect on me that I did missionary work in Indonesia (near where the Richardsons labored) and have used the principle in evangelistic conversations ever since. If you can’t afford a new copy and can’t find an older one, let me buy it for you.