Ben C Smith

I still do not know what a Rome substitute is. It sounds like you are saying that all the we passages have to do with trips to Rome, but then that any Roman city counts as Rome.

Ben.

Julian

I think it is also worth noting that ancient writers did not generally (ever?) faithfully reproduce speeches and dialogue but, rather, made up their own words that, to their mind, captured the essence, character, and point of the utterance. I would find it exceedingly odd if the Paul of Acts sounded like a genuine letter of Paul, that would probably have marked it as a fabricated simulacrum, in my mind. This tells us that the fact that there is no correlation is entirely expected and in no way helps us in this matter. The fact that the ideas and opinions of epistolary Paul are very different from the orthodox Paul of Acts speaks volumes. So to speak.

Julian

Gregg

Do Paul's speeches in Acts sound "of no account?" They sound pretty bold to me and apparently persuasive, for example the speech in the Areopagus before Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.

Your argument only works if Paul's speaking style in Acts comes off as being "of no account" and utterly lacking in "lofty words or wisdom" (in the perception of his hearers). But actually Paul seems like quite an eloquent and effective speaker in Acts. His speaking style can't just be different from his writing style ... it has to be different in a certain way.

Ben C Smith

True. I agree completely.

Lucian, How to Write History 58 (translation slightly modified from K. Kilburn in the Loeb edition, Lucian VI):

Ην δε ποτε και λογους ερουντα τινα δεηση εισαγειν, μαλιστα μεν εοικοτα τω προσωπω και τω πραγματι οικεια λεγεσθω, επειτα ως σαφεστατα και ταυτα. πλην εφειται σοι τοτε και ρητορευσαι και επιδειξαι την των λογων δεινοτητα.

If a person has to be introduced to make a speech, above all let his language suit his person and his subject, and next let these also be as clear as possible. It is then, however, that you can play the rhetoritician and show your eloquence.

If speeches are a chance for the author to shine, then speeches must generally be products of the author, not the original speechgiver.

Ben.

Malachi151

Which must of course then be applied to the Gospels as well.

aa5874

If we take into account that some of the so-called Pauline were written by different authors who claimed to be Paul, then authenticity must be re-evaluated, especially due to the realisation that the compilers of the canon could not determine what the real Paul wrote, if Paul indeed existed as written in Acts.

Once it is accepted the Pauline Epistles had more than one author claiming to be Paul, these are some of the possibilities:

1. The Paul of 'Acts' wrote some and others are forgeries.
2. The Paul of 'Acts' wrote none.

I was of the opinion that in order to determine authenticity, one must have a known verifiable epistle from the Paul of 'Acts' and I am not aware that such an epistle can be verified.

Now, if statements 1 and 2 are possible, then 'we' in the epistles could mean anything.

Ben C Smith

Only if you are an historicist. If you are a mythicist, there is no way the authors could have written speeches according to what they thought was appropriate to the known character of Jesus, since there was no Jesus.

(IOW, it is always a question how accurately the author has represented his speechgiver... unless there was no speechgiver to represent.)

Ben.

Gamera

I disagree with this conclusion. Paul's "speeches" represent his preaching of the gospel. That entailed a narrative structure about Jesus and all the limitations that this narrative involved. Paul's letters aren't the gospel. They are an "art" about Christian living. They don't preach the gospel per se. Except for 1 Cor. 15, we wouldn't even know what Paul preached when he preached the gospel.

So it doesn't surprise me that the sermons of Paul and the letters of Paul contain different "ideas." They do so because they have completely different purposes.

Gamera

I think his speech to the Athenians was in fact "of no account." It states specifically that the Greeks laughed at him. The point is that Paul did not use the rhetorical tropes of the day to make his point, and the sermon to the Athenians seems to be a case in point. It was so odd, so outside Greek notions of argument, that people laughed at him.

As to its persuasiveness, yes of course it persuaded some. Paul's says he spoke with "power," but it is the power of this narrative, not the power of Helenic philosophy and rhetoric. Paul never said he was unpersausive; he merely said he consciously avoided the tropes of refined rhetoric so that the persuasion wasn't the result of rhetoric, but of the power of the gospel story itself.

Gregg

The passage says, "Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, 'We will hear you again about this.' So Paul went out from among them. But some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and some others."

There is no way you can get from this to saying that Paul's listeners laughed at his whole speech. Some "mocked" the resurrection. That is not laughing at the whole speech. Some took Paul's arguments seriously enough that they wanted to hear more. And some were persuaded.

You are reading much more into this than is actually there.

Edited to add:

And where are you getting "the power of the gospel story" from? Where does Paul talk about the gospel story in the Athens speech? His talk is all about God and he doesn't even refer to Jesus by name. His only mention of Jesus is "... he (God) has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead."

In any event, I think "Paul's" speech is quite eloquent here. When I was a believer I was definitely moved by it, and I still find it moving now. " ... that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, for 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.'"