spin

That last fact should warn you against making the assumption you did in the previous paragraph. Your "almost certainly" is totally baseless. It is merely apologetic. It seems out of touch with the real world to think that the Romans would let a possession be administered by a polity outside Roman control. (And, yes, I know that new testament scholars have published on the issue trying to give it a veneer of credibility.)

I wish you'd drop this one from your repertoire. It doesn't matter how straight-faced you say it: the idea is ludicrous.


spin

maryhelena

The reference to Aretas and Damascus in 2 Corinthians 11:32-33 is a problem for dating Paul. In an earlier post I put forward the idea that this passage, because of its non-historical core, cannot be taken literally. The last time Damascus was controlled by someone called Aretas was in 64/63 BC- and that was Aretas 111 - who lost control of Damascus in that year when his army was defeated by Pompey. (after Aretas 111 had laid siege to Jerusalem). 100 years after this defeat, Aretas 1V defeated the army of Herod Antipas in 36/37 CE.

In placing Paul in Damascus, in relationship to Aretas, the NT writers are using a symbolic time period of 100 years. (just as Josephus as done likewise with the placing of James in 62/63 CE, 100 years from the siege of Jerusalem by Herod the Great in 37 BC.) And of course, 37 CE was 7 years from the 15th year of Tiberius in 29 CE....

While the Paul/Damascus connection is problematic for a historical re-construction of the NT, the other date generally assigned to Paul, 53 CE when he appeared before Gallio is, for a historical re-construction, deemed to be ‘true’. However, this date of 53 CE can also be viewed as a date that has more to do with symbolic application than purely of historical interest.

Wikipedia gives the date of 33 CE for the conversion of Paul. Paus says he went to Arabia for 3 years after his conversion. Hence his return to Damascus in 36/37 CE - around the time of the war between Aretas 1V and Herod Antipas. From 36/37 CE to 53 CE is a period of about 16 years - or 19 years from the conversion in 33 CE.

Paul goes to Rome around 60 CE - which is the 26th year since his conversion in 33/34 CE. Paul dies prior to 65 CE - making his ministry around 30 years.

This chronology for the ministry of Paul is very similar to the chronology for a 30 year period in the life of Josephus:

Josephus was born in 37 CE - 7 years after the 15th year of Tiberius in 29 CE. Josephus was 16 years of age in 53 CE when he went into the desert for 3 years to study the Jewish sects. At 19 years of age Josephus returns and becomes a Pharisee. At age 26 Josephus goes to Rome to plead the case regarding certain priests. At age 30 Josephus makes a prophecy regarding Vespasian and changes sides in the war between Rome and the Jewish people.

This 30 year parallel between Paul and Josephus does indicate that the storyline of Josephus has influenced the storyline regarding Paul. Further of course are the many other parallels between them:

Both Paul and Josephus were Roman citizens, both were shipwrecked on their way to Rome, both had a trade they continued to work at, both were educated men, both spent a part of their lives in Rome, both were a 'thorn in the flesh' of their own people. Paul was accused by the early Christians of teaching a turning away from Moses. The Jews tried to kill Josephus. Paul was not an original apostle, Josephus was born after the death of the gospel Jesus. Both Paul and Josephus were Pharisees, both spent time as Roman prisoners. Paul was originally named Saul, as Flavius Josephus was formally Joseph ben Mattias. Josephus was from the Aaronic priesthood and had royal Hasmonaean blood from his mother. Paul was from the tribe of Benjamin - the tribe designated to stay with the Aaronic priesthood and the house of David following the nations split into two. Paul was a former persecutor of Christians. Josephus had been an enemy of Rome. Paul said that circumcision was not required for Gentile Christians. Josephus likewise maintained that non-Jews did not require circumcision in order to stay among Jews. Paul was 'caught away to the third heaven', Josephus had prophetic dreams. Paul made a defense of Christianity before Agrippa 11. Josephus appealed to Agrippa 11 to attest the truth of what he had written in his history of the Roman/Jewish wars. Both had a friend named Epaphroditus.

If nothing else, what all this would indicate is that no date given in the NT regarding the apostle Paul should be taken on face value, taken literally, without giving attention to either number symbolism or parallels with Josephus.

footnote: Josephus goes into the desert in 53 CE to study the Jewish sects - 40 years later - in 93/94 CE he publishes his Antiquities....

andrewcriddle

Hi Spin

IMO the only plausible options are that
a/ this passage is authentically Pauline and provides evidence of Aretas IV exercising some sort of control in Damascus.
b/ The passage is a post-Pauline interpolation by someone who believed that Aretas IV exercised some sort of control in Damascus.

In either case Aretas IV is the Aretas being referred to.

Andrew Criddle

spin

(This isn't good advertising for your opinions.)

This to me is implausible... unless of course you can explain why you think the Romans would have allowed a foreign king to administer a part of the Roman empire, especially one who had had a conflict with a Roman client.

c/ The passage is a post-Pauline interpolation by someone who didn't know anything about which Aretas was what but had heard that an Aretas (who we know as the third) had had control over Damascus.

In all of this, you and others are projecting Aretas IV into the picture, because you are rationalising the data, while ignoring the fact that only Aretas III is known to have had any control over Damascus and that was before the Romans took it over.

Have you heard of Romans of the period relinquishing control over their territory to a foreign power (as against a client) except through military loss??


spin

andrewcriddle

If you mean in effect:
The passage is a post-Pauline interpolation by someone who believed that Paul was a contemporary of an Aretas (who we know as the fourth) had heard that an Aretas (who we know as the third) had had control over Damascus and confused the two monarchs.
Then I think this is equivalent to my option b/

If you mean that the passage is a post-Pauline interpolation based entirely on confused information about the Aretas who we know as the third, then I just don't regard this as plausible.

Andrew Criddle

spin

You've been given two chances now to explain how a veracious version, your a/, could be possible, given what we know of the world at the time. You have ducked out twice, suggesting that you are aware that it isn't functional.

The red parts are your additions and have nothing directly to do with what I wrote. But your b/ is possible.

You just think it's plausible that the Romans somehow ceded control of Damascus to Aretas IV, a possibility I discount as a poor joke and a position you show no inclination of treating seriously.

The fact is that the only Aretas we have available in historical terms as the Aretas in control of Damascus is the third. Your options need to include that information. If you don't like the embellishment through reference to the wrong Aretas, you need to do better than simply declare you don't regard it as plausible. As is you are only stating bald opinions.


spin

maryhelena

Another argument regarding 2 Corinthians 11:32-33 and its the ambiguity regarding Aretas. History identifies Aretas III as losing control of Damascus to Pompey in 64/63 BC. The chronology given in the NT for the apostle Paul does have him as a contemporary of Aretas IV. The dispute is over whether Damascus was under the rule of an Aretas at the time the NT places Paul has being there. History says no.

Consequently, the NT passage can be interpreted as referencing a number symbolism - a period of 100 years between the defeat of the army of Aretas III by Pompey and the victory of the army of Aretas IV over Herod Antipas in 36/37 CE.

Additionally, the ambiguity surrounding this passage allows for the chronology of the apostle Paul to steer clear, as it were, from the war of 36/37 CE. Paul, at this time period is depicted as travelling to Jerusalem - after being let down over the wall of Damascus.
36/37 CE was not a good time for Paul to be travelling from Damascus to Jerusalem......(viewing his conversion in 33/34 CE and his 3 years in Arabia and then to Jerusalem).

The storyline regarding the apostle Paul, like that of Jesus of Nazareth, has been backdated. A problem with backdating is that the events that are being backdated do not always fit nicely into the actual historical time period in which they are being inserted.

Placing Paul in Damascus and then having him travelling to Jerusalem in 36/37 CE hits the reality of 1) no control of Damascus at that time by Aretas IV, 2) the historical war between Aretas IV and Herod Antipas making it a dangerous time in which Paul is travelling to Jerusalem - and thus would indicate the implausibility of such a journey at that time.

One can, of course, try to make out that the NT writers got their history wrong - or one could identify the 100 year number symbolism that is being used - and work from the history regarding Aretas III and Aretas IV - that way could perhaps be more informative re what the NT writers were doing.

Solo

Out of curiousity, spin: is it not possible that Paul may have been slightly wrong about the "ethnarch" being "under" Aretas IV. ? The title, after all, was a Roman designation and Caligula, I am told, established a number of client kings, in the East btw. 37-39 CE. So it could be - theoretically - that the Damascene possession was set up in that way, either being separated from the Nabatean kingdom (if it ever was held by Aretas), or created at the time of the aborted campaign by Vitellius. It seems somewhat excessive to think that Aretas would be creating a separate jurisdiction in his territory.
So a plausible scenario for the 2 Corinthians mention would be that Paul, after a preaching tour in Nabatean Arabia ran into trouble with the king's administrators and moved to Damascus. Aretas - having influence with the ethnarch rather than ruling over him as Paul alleges - sought to capture him.

At any rate, it appears whatever jurisdictional issue existed at Damascus, it would have been de novo, after the campaign of Aretas against Herod, and the Syrian legions abandoning their punitive expedition against him. So whatever the actual score, Aretas IV. would have remained a player to be reckoned with in and around Damascus.

Tell me why not !

Regards,
Jiri

DCHindley

A quick review of the revised version of E Schuerer's History of the Jewish People (vol II, pp 127-130), doesn't really identify the constitution of the city in Roman times. It had previously been under the control of both the Egyptian Ptolemaic and Syrian Seleucid dynasties. I could find no information on whether it had been granted the formal constitution of a Greek polis (city) in this period of Greek control, but I would expect that it did.

Pompey annexed Damascus to the Roman province of Syria around 64 BCE. FWIW, Nabatea was forced to become a Roman Client kingdom around this same time (64-62 BCE). A Roman commander was there in the time of Cassius (44-43 BCE). In the reign of the Roman Antonius, coins were minted there (36, 35 & 32 BCE) containing images of Cleopatra, suggesting the city may have been granted to her as a personal possession (although granted cities tended to change hands quite frequently to reflect the imperial favorites of the moment - grants were extended to enhance the client's economic resources). If granted to Cleopatra, this would mean the city was considered the personal possession of the emperor. Roman imperial coins show up from the times of Augustus and Tiberius. Even so, two autonomous coins show up in this latter period which use the Seleucid era. There are NO imperial coins from the reigns of Gaius (Caligula) and Claudius. A few begin to show up again in the time of Nero and from then on. In the last decades of the 1st century, military units recruited from Damascus served in the Roman army (Cohors I Flavia Damascenorum milliaria equitata sagittariorum) in Germany. After Hadrian, the city issued coins identifying it as a MHTROPOLIS. Per Wikipedia, "The word [Metropolis] comes from the Greek μήτηρ, mētēr meaning 'mother' and πόλις, pólis meaning 'city/town', which is how the Greek colonies of antiquity referred to their original cities, with whom they retained cultic and political-cultural connections." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis Damascus was formally made a Roman colony under the emperor Severus, COL(ONIA) DAMAS(CUS) METR(OPOLIS).

It sure looks like in the Roman period, Damascus was claimed as a personal possession of the reigning emperor, who then as a patron granted it (and its considerable revenues) to clients who served his administration (apparently client kings and rulers often hundreds of miles removed from the city itself). Like Alexandria, it was not formally a "polis" but a large town, although it would have many internal bodies set up by the emperor to serve the organizational functions a polis would have assumed. At times, the city was apparently allowed to govern itself autonomously in the name of the emperor.

On the basis of this, I would think Damascus could have been "granted" to the Arabian client king Aretas IV (Harith) in Paul's time, just as it had previously been granted to Cleopatra. Anyone who had read up on Herod's reign as a client king under the Romans will know that several key cities even within his territory were actually personal possessions of the Emperor, and as a patron the emperor sometimes granted these cities to Herod and sometimes granted them to Cleopatra, almost like a game of musical chairs. In all cases they served as sources of revenue for the client to whom they were granted. These granted cities would then have to be governed in the name of the grantee, recognizing that they were in fact the emperor's personal property. Here enters the "ethnarch under Aretas" of Paul's letter who issues an arrest order.

I'm not sure why the "ethnarch under Aretas" would have issued such an arrest order. Maybe "Paul" had business dealings with the Arabians (i.e., owed them money). The author of Acts says it was the Jews, but historically the Arabians and Jews were more often at odds than in cahoots. Maybe the author of Acts didn't make this distinction. Romans tended to lump various distinct peoples together indiscriminately, and "Arab" was often applied to Jews and even some indigenous peoples of Syria and the borders with Parthia. Perhaps they were all known to practice some sort of circumcision. The author of Acts makes a similar "lump" but calls the antagonists Jews as it served his literary theme, which was the emergence of the Gentile wing of Christianity and stressing how they differed from Jews: "We are loyal Hellenes/Romans, not barbarous (circumcising) Jews (- eww)!"

Just my humble (and always easily waved away) opinion.

DCH

aa5874

Interpolation of 2 Corinthians 12.32 is not the only possible solution or option to the "Aretas problem".

The "Aretas problem" could have occurred if the Pauline writer wrote very late.

Without the reference to King Aretas in 2 Corinthians 12.32 there would have been no historical marker for dating the Pauline letters unless Acts of the Apostles is used.

The author of Acts placed Saul/Paul in Damascus also in a basket.

Acts 9.22-25


And, it should be noted that the author of Acts did not mention King Aretas, this author used, it would seem, information from the writings of Josephus.

Now, in order for an interpolation to be effective, the interpolator must have access to some "master copy" or be some person of authority.

The Roman Church may have had persons who were qualified for such a position.

But, why could not the original Pauline letter contain 2Corinthians 12.32, as found in the canon today?

The Church produced Acts of the Apostles. They could have produce the Pauline letters.

But, one thing is virtually certain and it is that without Acts of the Apostles the Pauline letters cannot be dated with any certainty.