Acts 17:22

[Whyte]

How long had the Greeks had an altar for the God of Israel and had they not gone to Hell for it?

22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

 

[ViaCrucis]

They didn't have an altar to YHVH. They had an altar for the "unknown god"; Paul took that as an opportunity to tell them about the God they don't know.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[football5680]

They didn't. The god was just unknown but he used this as a good opening so that he could begin to talk to them about the true and only god. Greece and most of the Roman Empire at this time was very open to different religions and they worshipped a bunch of different gods. I'm not just talking about Zeus and other Greek gods. They would worship Egyptian gods right along side Zeus as well. So Paul used this as an opening because they had no structure and didn't really know the truth.

 

[Whyte]

How do you know?

 

[tezboski99]

Consider the context starting in verse 19.

"Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

Paul was taken to the Areopagus to teach something new to the listeners there. He then led in with the "unknown GOD" presentation.