"... One feature that has yet to receive the attention it merits is the place of the Gospel crowds in relation to the chorus in Greek tragedy. Note that in making this connection, I do not mean to imply that Jesus and the Gospel writers were necessarily acquainted with Greek tragedy. Nevertheless, the possibility cannot be ruled out of hand: it is sometimes argued that Jesus’ use of the term “hypocrite” demonstrates an acquaintance with Greek drama, picked up from visits from Nazareth to the theater in the nearby Hellenized city of Sepphoris. Nor is it unlikely that so sophisticated an author as Luke should be unfamiliar with drama, especially as he may paraphrase Euripides in Acts: “It hurts to kick against the goads” (26:14; compare Bacch. 795). (n Acts 17:28, Luke has Paul cite Aratus (Phaenomena 5) and possibly Epimenides (Cretica) and Cleanthes (Hymn to Zeus). Paul himself cites Menander’s Thais (218) at 1 Corinthians 15:33, though this passage may well have become proverbial ...) Yet, since it is difficult to establish direct influence, I will simply bracket the question, and examine whether, within the two literary genres, tragedy and Gospel, the crowds and the chorus display similarities in the way they are characterized and in the type of functions they perform ..."