PhilosopherJay

Hi Ben,

I would maintain that explaining narrative failure by the cleverness of the author is like explaining a car accident by the bravery of the driver. Yes, the author may have been clever and wanted to make an obscure point for a specific group of readers, but presumably the author could have done that without causing a narrative collapse. In the same way a driver in an auto accident could have presumably found another way to to prove his/her bravery without crashing their car in a seemingly reckless and unplanned manner.

In a previous post I noted four reasons to believe that Barnabas replaced Judas in the original text.

1. The codex Bezae names him as a candidate for Judas' office.
2. The narrative of Acts is concerned with Barnabas, but not with Matthias, which we would expect if Barnabas was the replacement for Judas
3. Barnabas reverses Judas' buying a field with private money and sells his field to raise money for the Church.
4. The Recognitions of Clement identify him as Matthias.

I would like to add to those reasons, a couple of more.
Barnabus is given a honorary name - Josephus and two honorary titles (The Just one and Son of Encouragement). No information is given about Matthias.

Josep Rius-Camps and Jenny Read-Heimerdinger see the problem, but give an explanation that presumes that a real event is being described. From pg. 134:

This assumes that the author is describing a real event, but does not explain the narrative failure. Presumably the author would have explained that the apostles' had voted against Peter's preferred choice if that is what he wanted the reader to understand. His failure to explain this would have to be considered an additional narrative failure. On the other hand, the hypothesis that Barnabas won the election in the earlier text and the author is erasing that fact from the narrative does not assume a real election (although one might have taken place) but does explain the narrative failure. The narrative failure takes place because the author is only interested in erasing the victory of Barnabas from the story.

The connection of Barnabas and Matthias or the single identity of the two
is also made more possible with this information from the article Barnabas and the Gospels:Was There an Early Gospel of Barnabas? by R. Blackhirst
(JHC 7/1 (Spring 2000), 1-22.) The author points out that in two separate lists, the Gospel of Barnabas and the Gospel of Matthias are put together.
These two lists have nothing in common except that they list the Gospel of Barnabas and the Gospel of Matthias together. This can hardly be a coincidence. It suggests that some kind of close relationship must have been
perceived between Barnabas and Matthias.

Blackhirst further notes the coincidence of name changing regarding both:


We now have six reasons to suspect that Barnabas replaced Judas

1. The codex Bezae names him as a candidate for Judas' office.
2. The narrative of Acts is concerned with Barnabas, but not with Matthias, which we would expect if Barnabas was the replacement for Judas
3. Barnabas reverses Judas' buying a field with private money and sells his field to raise money for the Church.
4. The Recognitions of Clement identify him as Matthias.
5. In the Codex Bezae, Barnabas is given the honorary name of Joseph and the honorary names of "The Just one" and "Son of Encouragement." Matthias is given no names or titles, so there is no reason why he should have won and no explanation for why he won.
6. Two independent ancient lists associate the Gospel of Barnabas with the Gospel of Matthias.

Tomorrow, I'll bring more support for the hypothesis.

Warmly,

Philosopoher Jay

Amaleq13

What do you mean by "together" here?

How are the two "together" in the list as opposed to both just being part of the list? Or is that all you mean?

PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

Here is the promised additional reasons to suspect Barnabas replaced Judas as the 12th apostle.

Note this text at 15.22:

We know that Barsabbas is the name used in 1:26 as the candidate to replace Judas. Since Codex Bezae has Barnabas at 1:26, we may presume that Barsabbas is also just a disguise/mistake for Barnabas at 15:22. The term Barsabbas is never used again. Judas and Silas are referenced at 15:32, and then disappear from the narrative.

In the Codex Bezae, we again have a substitute for the name Barsabbas. This time, instead of Barnabas, it is Barabbas. Again, the Codex Bezae is telling us that name Barsabbas was not the name in the original text. The name is also spelled Barsabas in some Greek Texts which puts it even closer to Barnabas. Again it would be quite a fantastic coincidence having a man named Barnabas and a man named Barsabas both sent on the same mission.

Besides the Codex Bezae, the narrative itself is telling us that something is wrong. Why do the Apostles and elders select Judas B. and Silas to deliver a message along with Barnabas and Paul who have just gotten back from Antioch and are returning again. Judas B. and Silas serve no function in the narrative. They disappear and play no role in the narrative afterwards.

What would make sense is for the the Apostles and Elders to send the letter with Barnabas and Saul.

Now note this from Wikipedia:

Silas is the Greek version of Saul. Up till 13:12 in acts, we are encountering Barnabas and Saul. So it seems that 15:22 is telling us that the apostles sent leading men Barsabbas/Barabbas and Saul to accompany Barnabas and Saul to Antioch to deliver a letter.

This is incredible nonsense. It is as if someone said that Batman and Robin went with the Dark Night (Sic) and the Boy Wonder to fight the Joker. The writer would appear to either not know that the Dark Knight is another name for Batman or that the Boy Wonder is another name for Robin.

We must presume that the narrative made sense originally and that Judas Barsabbas/Barabbas and Silas were orignally Barnabas and Saul. Barnabas and Saul were sent to deliver letters to Antioch.

We may conjecture that the name Judas Barsabbas/Barabbas probably comes from the line at 15:22 originally saying "The words the apostle who replaced" have been exercised. This would explain the name Judas in this sentence, which makes no sense otherwise.

The fact that the text is again trying to substitute Barsabbas for Barnabas and the fact that the name Judas is found in proximity to Barsabbas/Barabbas or Barnabas indicates a further connection between Judas and Barnabas.

Thus reasons 7 and 8 should be.

7. The text attempts in chapter 15 to make us believe that Barsabbas/Barabbas and Silas are different from Barnabas and Saul, but there is no reason to bring in these separate characters. They serve no function in the story more than Barnabas and Silas serve. This must make us suspect that the text is trying to scam us in some regard.
8. Judas Barsabbas at 15:22 again points to a connection between Judas and Barnabas.

Warmly,

Philosophr Jay

PhilosopherJay

Hi Amaleq13,

I mean the books are next to each other on the lists. They are the only two books that are together on both lists.

Here the list in the Gelasian Decree (from http://www.tertullian.org/decretum_eng.htmm [Thanks, Roger]):
Here is the mentions in the List of the sixty (http://www.ntcanon.org/Sixty_Canonical_Books.shtml):

If they were together on just one list, we could dismiss this as a coincidence, but the fact that the only two lists in antiquity list them and only them together demands an explanation. Their inclusion on both lists together suggests to me that they must have been circulating together.

the_cave

No, we may not. We might possibly be able to assume that for 1:26, but certainly not for 15:22. For one thing, there is no textual evidence for it that I'm aware of. It's more likely, based on the evidence, that "Barsabbas" (or possibly "Barabbas" as in Bezae) is a real name, but was the name of a different apostle. In fact, that other apostle isn't named Joseph either, as Acts gives his other name as "Judas". So, Joseph Barnabas and Judas Barsabbas/Barabbas are more likely different people.

Don't assume Bezae is correct just because it is different. I'm sure Bezae has its own idiosyncrasies.

But possibly not such a coincidence if it were "Barnabas" and "Barsabbas" or "Barabbas".

What are you talking about? Silas becomes Paul's companion all the way through Acts 18.

Maybe, but this doesn't mean that "Judas Bar(s)abbas" is the same person as Joseph Barnabas. Luke could have just confused the two.

You're taking Luke at face value, and making the assumption that Saul is Paul. I'm surprised you accept this noncritically.

If Silas is a Saul (and I have thought for a while that this is a distinct possibility), then Saul already has a Latin name. He doesn't need "Paul". Meaning...Saul and Paul are two different people. Who was Paul and where did he come from? We don't know (yet).

So there probably are four people here--Joseph Barnabas, Judas Bar(s)abbas, Saul/Silas, and Paul.

PhilosopherJay

Hi the Cave,

Thanks for catching my mistake about Silas not disappearing with Barsabbas.
The text is ambiguous. We have (Acts 15):
Bezae has:

Passage 33 seems to indicate that both Judas Barsabbas/Barabbas and Silas are asked to leave. Suddenly, for no reason, Silas decides to stay.

We may take it that in the original the passages 33 and 35 were together. It read "they were sent away from the brethren in peace to those who had sent them out." But "Barnabas and Saul decided to stay awhile." The editor is putting in passage 34 to confuse us and make us think that Judas Barsabbas/Barabbas and Silas are different from Barnabas and Paul.

Right now it seems that the editor is working from a text of Barnabas miracle tales, a text of Philip miracle tales, and a third "we on the ship" adventure-miracle tales which possibly also involves Barnabas as the lead character. He may be working from a fourth "Saul" miracle-adventure text.

The editor is fitting these diverse stories into a pretty consistent pattern:

1. Christian Apostle makes a miracle (This is in the original material.The editor is changing Philip's miracles into Peter's, and Barnabas' miracles into Paul's)
2. Christian Apostle proves to masses that Jesus was the Messiah from Hebrew Text. These speeches are added by the editor
3. Crazy, jealous Jews attack Christian apostle and try to kill him. This disrupts and confuses the people of each town. This is added by the editor.

This motif is repeated about ten times. It is the editor's skeleton structure for the material.

The editor is adding the historical material like the names Festus and Sergius Paulus.

At base the three or four miracle-adventure stories that the editor is using have nothing to do with each other. It is the editor who is structuring them to get a pseudo-history out of them.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Ben C Smith

In this case the explanation falls squarely within the patterns observed elsewhere in early Christian literature, in which certain things are written and certain events invented apparently for very little purpose beyond making a connection with the Hebrew scriptures (and perhaps occasionally other texts, as well).

And the point is not obscure. (At least not compared to other points made in early Christian literature.)

Ben.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Ben,

It is certainly true that in early Christian literature references are often made to passages in Hebrew Scriptures both explicitly and implicitly. However, story-telling techniques go back much further than the Hebrew Scriptures and in fact the Hebrew Scriptures are filled with narratives, both ones that fail and ones that succeed.

The narrator must always create his narrative from previous narrative structures. In each case where a narrative fails, we must examine the possible reasons for it, especially conscious changes for ideological or political reasons, i.e. censorship.

Let us take another example from Acts. At the end of Acts, Paul undergoes five trials or at least gives five defenses, 1) to the Jerusalem Jews 2) to the Jewish Chief Priests and council, 3) to proconsul Felix, 4)to proconsul Porcius Festus, 5) to King Agrippa and Bernice. Each of these trials are moving to a more powerful court. Paul goes to Rome for a sixth trial where he is to plead his case under the most powerful court of all - Caesar. Yet, although the narrative tells us that this sixth trial will take place, we never get this sixth and most important trial. Paul simply goes to Rome and preaches in Rome, presumably founding the Roman Christian Church. The lack of a climatic sixth trial before Caesar is certainly a narrative failure. How do we explain it?

One can say that the writer died before he wrote about the sixth trial or one can say that he attempted to write it, but couldn't come up with anything he liked. These are possibilities, but I would say that we need to look at the most important contradiction that the writer faced - the question of the verdict.

The writer has been delaying a real verdict on Paul through five trials. At the sixth and final trial, he presumably would have had to make a decision. Would the Emperor find him guilty or innocent? If the emperor found Paul innocent, this would have set a precedent that an Emperor, Nero, who was considered a bad emperor, found the Christians innocent. That a bad emperor found Paul innocent would hardly help Christians in the writer's later time. On the other hand, a condemnation by any emperor, even a bad emperor, would mean that he was guilty in Roman eyes. Both were unacceptable outcomes. Since the Roman governors and even King Agrippa had already found Paul innocent, the writer found no need to risk a verdict by an emperor, a verdict which could have been used against Christians whichever way it went.

By trying to find political and ideological reasons for narrative failure, we can often see things in the text or hidden by the text that we fail to see by assigning a general methodology to a particular writer.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

the_cave

I'm still not convinced that Silas and Paul (leaving Barnabas out of it altogether) weren't different people. If Silas was Saul, why does Saul need yet another Latin name? I can accept the possibility that he just happened to have more than one Latin name ("Silas/Silvanus" and "Paul"), but I don't see that we need to take Acts at face value.

Now, there is something to be said for it, because: notice that Paul almost never travels with Silas alone! The only time he does it starts in Ac 15:40 and lasts for all of two verses, through Ac 15:41, until 16:1 where he meets Timothy! Keep reading: though "Paul and Silas" are often described together, the implication is that Timothy is with them the whole time. (Notice also that even when Paul is separated from Silas and Timothy, he still has "escorts" as in Ac 17:15. He makes a speech alone in Athens, but never travels without companions, picking up one after the other on his journeys. This strongly suggests to me that the scholarship is correct that suggests Paul was at least partially blind. Yet one more reason to wonder if Paul and Simon Magus--and even Elymas Bar-Jesus--were somehow the same person.)

Right: he is working from multiple, overlapping texts and traditions, as much as a century away from the actual events.

Don't know about that; I think some of them probably shared resemblances, even names and events; hence the garbled half-parallels here and there.

Ben C Smith

I am with you until this point (and it is tangential to your argument here). The narrative of Acts appears to presume that Paul did not found the church at Rome; Acts 28.14-15 assumes that there are already brethren in Rome.

I actually tend to agree with your explanation of the ending of Acts (or at least close enough for government work).

Yet I firmly disagree with your assessment of the Matthias incident. The narrative glitch at the end of Acts is of an inordinately different character than the selection of Matthias; the two make poor analogies for each other. For one thing, the fulfillment of a couple of psalms looks like it could be the rationale, all by itself, for the selection of a twelfth apostle to replace Judas, and indeed the author has given us the very scripture that he sees as fulfilled. The ending of Acts, OTOH, bears no such mark; what scripture does the author point to as being fulfilled in the fact that no final trial is narrated?

Ben.