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Agabus
A Christian prophet who foretold a great famine and Paul's arrest at Jerusalem.
What we know — and how we know it
Scholarly — supported scholarly belief · 2
Prophecy & fulfilment
ScholarlyThe severe famine Agabus foretold 'in the days of Claudius' is corroborated by external sources: Josephus records a major famine in Judea under Claudius during which Queen Helena of Adiabene imported grain and figs for relief, and Roman writers note grain shortages in the same reign. These attest the predicted event, not Agabus himself.
Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 20 (Helena of Adiabene's famine relief); grain shortages under Claudius also noted by Roman historians
Name & titles
ScholarlyAgabus (Greek Agabos) is generally taken as a Grecized form of a Semitic name, most plausibly connected to Hagab / Hagabah, from the Hebrew chagab meaning 'locust,' a name-family known from the returnee lists. The Greek spelling reflects the bilingual milieu of the early Jerusalem church.
Onomastic analysis; cf. Hagab/Hagabah in Ezra 2:45-46