Gawen

From wiki, the inhabitants of the Roman province of Cilicia did not get their Roman citizenship until 66 AD. Kirby's site claims Acts earliest date of 80 AD. Acts claims Paul had Roman citizenship. Isn't 80 AD a bit to early of a date to set for Acts? This makes Paul 14 years old at the earliest date of Acts.

What am I missing?

Toto

Acts might have been written in 80 or 150 CE, but it concerned events that are assumed to have happened about 50 CE, when Paul was an adult.

There were various ways of getting Roman citizenship. Important people in the provinces were granted citizenship well before it was granted generally.

Christians speculate that Paul's family were tentmakers for the Roman Army, and that this resulted in a grant of citizenship to Paul's father, making Paul a Roman citizen from birth, as he claims.

Toto

There is an extended discussion of the issue of citizenship in this thread and this webpage: Paul and Roman Citizenship in Acts

DCHindley

Let's not forget to differentiate apples (Acts) from oranges (the Pauline epistles). The author of the epistles never claims Roman citizenship, and this is where the accounts of beatings, lashings, etc, come from. It is only the author of Acts who does so. Generally, as historical sources, a narrative story is considered less reliable than an occasional letter.

I think there were several paths to citizenship in the 1C CE. I believe that the manumitted slave of a Roman citizen was granted citizenship, which could be passed on to children. But citizenship could also be granted to individuals, sometimes with and more often without this privilige being passed to the individual's children.

If Acts is correct that Paul, a resident of Tarsus, had relatives resident in Jerusalem, then that might suggest that Paul's family included a manumitted Jewish slave, who upon manumission asked for and his patron granted him the wish to retire to his ancestral homeland, Judaea. That Paul came from Tarsus suggests that it was not his dad who was this lucky freedman. He was just a relative.

Another scenario might be that the relative who was the manumitted slave had a Jewish master, perhaps from one of the Herodian households (who all held heriditary Roman citizenship). This manumitted slave was likely NOT then a Jew by birth, but more likely a convert (conversion to Judaism was commonly a part of manumissions of slaves of Jewish masters). The manumitted slave's son would be considered a natural born Jew. If the son of a freedman of a Herodian, he would likely have citizenship.

If I understand the process correctly, if this Jewish master held citizenship by right of appointment, but without the right to pass it on to his descendents, the manumitted slave would not have citizenship automatically. This may have been the position of the late Hyam MacCoby (_Paul the Convert_).

WRT Paul and his status at Tarsus, let me be blunt. If Paul was a Jew (and I think this is very likely), he was NOT a citizen of Tarsus. All Jews, wherever they were in the empire, were considered members of the "Ethnos" (nationality) of the Jews and thus unable to become citizens of Greek cities. In these cities, the Jewish communities were self governing communities of "foreigners".

Now Jews who were also Roman citizens could appeal to this added level of legal protection, and I'm sure they did when they had to, but they didn't HAVE to. That being said, not appealing to it would also likely have been as rare as a $3 bill.

I suppose someone could create a matrix of all the possibilities for a Jew to obtain Roman citizenship, but it would not be as simple a matter as most might think.

DCH

Ben C Smith

Let us also not forget that the epistles never mention Tarsus. Our information that Paul hailed from Tarsus comes solely from Acts. (I point this out because it is amazing to me how some on this board reject Acts as outright fiction, yet seem to accept that Paul came from Tarsus, without even blinking.)

Ben.

Johnny Skeptic

It depends upon the claim. Are you suggesting that people should not evaluate supernatural claims and non-supernatural claims any differently?

Gawen

I've been doing some digging. It is extremely possible the entire population (excepting slaves) of Cilicia had gained their citizenship by 27 BC. Some sources say earlier than that. My question above is basically no question at all.

Ben C Smith

How on planet earth did you get anything close to that from what I said?

Ben.

aa5874

Maybe, you didn't read the entire post, or perhaps you blinked, but I did see this.

Johnny Skeptic

I assume that you already know the answer to your question. You said that it is amazing to you that skeptics reject Acts as outright fiction but yet seem to accept that Paul came from Tarsus. Why is that amazing to you? Where Paul lived is an ORDINARY secular historical claim that does not make any difference one way or the other. On the other hand, the book of Acts makes many supernatural, EXTRAORDINARY claims that make a lot of difference one way or the other. It is utterly absurd for you try try to compare historically validating where Paul lived with historically validating all of the supernatural claims that are in the book of Acts.

Would you also find it to be amazing that most skeptics seem to accept ordinary secular historical claims regarding where Joseph Smith, the founder or Mormonism, lived but question his supposed visit by the angel Moroni? Isn't it true that you accept many ordinary secular claims that are in many religous books and other religous writings, but question extraordinary supernatural claims in those books and other religious writings?

Would you tell Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman that you are amazed that they question the supernatural claims that are in Acts, but do not question that Paul came from Tarsus, assuming that that is the case? If you would, I might be able to arrange for Robert Price to deliver that message to Pagels and Ehrman and ask them for their comments, that is, if they would not reject your comments outright as poor scholarship and a waste of their time. No competent historian would be surprised that skeptics question the supernatural claims that are in Acts, but do not question the claim that Paul came from Tarsus.

What is in fact amazing is that you are trying to compare apples to oranges and hope that no one will notice the difference.

By the way, do you believe that Paul came from Tarsus? If so, why? Do you believe that Micah 5:2 refers to Jesus? If so, why? Do you believe that Jesus was born in Bethlehem? If so, why? If you wish, you can start one or two new threads to answer the second and third questions.

It seems to me that the Bible contains many historical claims that are not reasonably verifiable.