DCHindley

Sotto,

So, you ARE an editor! Or a teacher. Or a wag.

I did not call it a quote, I let the software do that for me. I was commenting on your prose, good sir. Since it is pregnant with unusual turns of phrase, it was only natural to Google them.

So, I got Calvin's Institutions on "not one syllable," a lot of Sociologically oriented sites on "propinquity" and a number of others kept bringing me to Barzun. The first 100 pages can be found here, so lurkers can see for themselves. Sorry that I bolded some of these passages and dared to make comments, but I just didn't think the average person would know what seemed to be a turn of phrase in the ET of Calvin's Institutions, so it is appropriate to point it out.

DCH

Duvduv

Do you think that people interested in Christianity were drawn from those elements linked to the philosophers who accepted only monotheism and who likely had an affinity to Judaism. so that the NT texts were appealing to such people?

DCHindley

In my opinion, Dave, no. While Philo of Alexandria and various Christian writers claimed that Plato, Socrates, etc, derived their doctrines from the Jewish creation stories of Genesis, the philosophers probably didn't buy into that. I think that once the Jesus Movement centered on the fulfillment of a Messianic kingdon on earth, became transformed into a sort of mystery religion centered on the symbolism of the death of "Christ," it started to appeal to city dwellers. By then, of course, it wasn't a Jewish messianic movement anymore. Itw as a mystery, and oriental style mystery cults were the "new age" rage of the day.

Those among them who had received any significant education were, with a couple exceptions, from the retainer class, and thus probably had only handbook understanding of the various philosophical positions. The exceptions, such as Clement and Origen of Alexandria, adopted a lot of Philo's speculations, but it doesn't appear to me that they really tried to recruit "real" philosophers. They would have simply been out of their league. The only ones to seriously try were the Gnostic teachers with roots in Alexandria. The Neoplatonist Plotinus wrote against the Gnostics, some of whom they actually liked on a personal level and who must have been attending lectures to ask questions, and they did look into it.

X. He, therefore, who investigates many other particulars, or rather every particular respecting their opinions, will be able to show copiously what the nature of them is. We, indeed, are ashamed of certain of our friends, who before they were intimate with us were conversant with these opinions, and who still, I know not how, persevere in them, and endeavour to render them credible. We, however, speak to those with whom we are acquainted, and not to the many who are auditors of these men. For we shall effect nothing by endeavouring to persuade them not to be disturbed by the arguments of the Gnostics,
which are not accompanied with demonstrations ; (for how is it possible they should ?) but are the assertions of arrogant men. [tr. Thomas Taylor, Select Works of Plotinus, Against the Gnostics, 1895, pg 63.

His successor Porphyry seems to have made a real attempt to study Jewish and Christian scripture to argue against them.

That doesn't mean that the Christian intelligentsia didn't try to polish up the sacred mysteries with philosophical ideas. By the 4th century, all the important bishops were conversant in the vocabulary of Philosophers. Now we're talking thinkers like Jerome and Rufinus, who refined the thinking of Origen (actually, restated and/or censored some of his more "out there" actual doctrines when they translated them into Latin), and even Syriac church leaders were quite conversant with philosophy as it pertained to the nature of God.

DCH

Duvduv

I am noticing that the strongest correlations/similarities with Acts in the list in the archive from 2003 are in Galatians and Corinthians...

DCHindley

There are parallels, but the details just don't jive between Acts and the letters. I made the following comparison way back in 1997:

GAL 1:13 For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it; 14 and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.	ACT 7:58 Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. 8:1 And Saul was consenting to his death. And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. ... 3 But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. ... 9:1 But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
GAL 1:15 But when it pleased God ... 16a to reveal 16c to me that I might declare <his> 16e "good news" among the Gentiles, I did not confer with flesh and blood (Possibly 2 COR 12:2a I know a man ... 2c who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven--whether in (the) body I do not know, or outside of (the) body I do not know, God knows. 3 And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise--whether in (the) body or apart from (the) body I do not know, God knows--4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.)	ACT 9:3 Now as he journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. 4 And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" 5 And he said, "Who are you, Lord?" And he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting; 6 but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do." 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8 Saul arose from the ground; and when his eyes were opened, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. 10 Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias." And he said, "Here I am, Lord." 11 And the Lord said to him, "Rise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for a man of Tarsus named Saul; for behold, he is praying, 12 and he has seen a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight." 13 But Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to thy saints at Jerusalem; 14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call upon thy name." 15 But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; 16 for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." 17 So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized, 19a and took food and was strengthened. 19b For several days he was with the disciples at Damascus.
GAL 1:17a nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia;	NO RECORD (Possibly ACTS 9:20 And in the synagogues [of Arabia?] immediately he proclaimed Jesus, saying, "He is the Son of God." 21 And all who heard him were amazed, and said, "Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called on this name? And he has come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests.")
GAL 1:17b and again I returned to Damascus.	ACT 9:22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus ...
2 COR 11:32 At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me, 33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped his hands.	ACT 9:23 When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night, to kill him; 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down over the wall, lowering him in a basket.
GAL 1:18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days.19a But I saw none of the other apostles except James ... . 20 (In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!)	ACT 9:26 And when he had come to Jerusalem he attempted to join the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. 28 So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem,
GAL 1:21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.22a And I was still not known by sight to the churches ... 22c in Judea;23 they only heard it said, "He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy."24 And they glorified God because of me.	ACT 9:29 preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists; but they were seeking to kill him. 30 And when the brethren knew it, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him off to Tarsus.
NO RECORD	ACT 11:27 Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world; and this took place in the days of Claudius. 29 And the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brethren who lived in Judea; 30 and they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.;
ACT 12:25 And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, bringing with them John whose other name was Mark.
GAL 2:1 Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. 2 I went up by revelation*; and I laid before them (but privately before those who were of repute) the good news which I preach among the Gentiles, lest somehow I should be running or had run in vain. 3 But even Titus, who was with me, was not compelled to be circumcised, though he was a Greek, 4a (in spite of false brethren secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom which we have ... 4c in order to bring us into bondage, 5 to whom we did not yield submission even for a moment, that the truth of the good news might be preserved for you). *2 COR 12:2a I know a man ... 2c who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven--whether in (the) body I do not know, or outside of (the) body I do not know, God knows. 3 And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise--whether in (the) body or apart from (the) body I do not know, God knows--4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.	ACT 15:1 But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brethren, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." 2 And when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. 3 So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, reporting the conversion of the Gentiles, and they gave great joy to all the brethren. 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. 5 But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up, and said, "It is necessary to circumcise them, and to charge them to keep the law of Moses." 6 The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. 7 And after there had been much debate, Peter rose and said to them, "Brethren, you know that in the early days God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 And God who knows the heart bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us; 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, but cleansed their hearts by faith. 10 Now therefore why do you make trial of God by putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will." 12 And all the assembly kept silence; and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.
GAL 2:6 And from those who were reputed to be something (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)--those, I say, who were of repute added nothing to me; 7a but on the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the good news to the uncircumcised, ... 9 and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised; 10 only they would have us remember the Poor, which very thing I was eager to do.	ACT 15:13 After they finished speaking, James replied, "Brethren, listen to me. 14 Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. 15 And with this the words of the prophets agree, as it is written, 16 'After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up, 17 that the rest of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, 18 says the Lord, who has made these things known from of old.' 19 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20 but should write to them to abstain from the pollutions of idols and from unchastity and from what is strangled and from blood. ACT 15:21 For from early generations Moses has had in every city those who preach him, for he is read every sabbath in the synagogues." 22 Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren, 23 with the following letter: "The brethren, both the apostles and the elders, to the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greeting. 24 Since we have heard that some persons from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, 25 it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26 men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. 28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: 29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell."
GAL 2:11 But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. 13 And with him the rest of the Jews acted insincerely, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their insincerity. 14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the good news, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?"	NO RECORD (Possibly ACT 14:26 and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work which they had fulfilled. 27 And when they arrived, they gathered the church together and declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. 28 And they remained no little time with the disciples. ACT 15:1 But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brethren, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." 2 And when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.
2 COR 11:24a Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.	NO RECORD
2 COR 11:25 Three times I have been beaten with rods;	ACT 16:22-24 (One single beating with rods)
2 COR 11:24b once I was stoned.	NO RECORD
2 COR 11:24c Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea;	ACT 27:6 There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy, and put us on board. ... 27:41 But striking a shoal they ran the vessel aground; the bow stuck and remained immovable, and the stern was broken up by the surf. 42 The soldiers' plan was to kill the prisoners, lest any should swim away and escape; 43 but the centurion, wishing to save Paul, kept them from carrying out their purpose. He ordered those who could swim to throw themselves overboard first and make for the land, 44 and the rest on planks or on pieces of the ship. And so it was that all escaped to land.
2 COR 11:32 At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me,33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped his hands.	ACT 9:23 When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night, to kill him; 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down over the wall, lowering him in a basket.
2 COR 12:2a I know a man ... 2c who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven--whether in (the) body I do not know, or outside of (the) body I do not know, God knows. 3 And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise--whether in (the) body or apart from (the) body I do not know, God knows--4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.
2 COR 12:7 And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. 8a Three times I besought (God) ... 8c about this, that it should leave me; 9a but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."	GAL 4:13 you know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the good news to you at first;14a and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God,

I am not sure if this helps you. My take on it is that they both draw on common tradition, but not exactly the same tradition.

DCH

Duvduv

That's very useful indeed.It looks like we're on the same wavelength here.
If most of the vague similarities are mostly only with Galatians and Corinthians, what does that suggest about the authors of the other epistles in relation to a Paul tradition compared to Acts?

Duvduv

David Hindley, how would you see the separate origins of Acts and epistles?

DCHindley

Dave,

The way I see things, we have two separate movements meeting at the crossroads. There is a Jesus movement, centered on his predictions about the immanent dawn of the messianic age. There is also an independent Paul movement, which knows not a thing about Jesus, with an emphasis on accommodating god-fearing gentiles who wished to lay claim to a messianic future age. About the only thing these movements have in common are a hope in a better future messianic age.

For Paul, this age is off in the distance, but very real. His followers are gentiles who are slaves in and retainers of the households of the many Herodian princes. They have developed a sincere reverence for the God of the Jews, and want to inherit the fruitful land promised by God to Abraham's offspring. The traditional means of entry into this elite group was to accept circumcision and all that it entails. However, that is not always such an easy thing to accomplish when you were born and raised in pagan culture. There was an increasing trend among urban Jews to associate with faithful gentiles.

Paul at first opposed this trend, but after his vision, came to the conclusion it was a message from God. He hit on the fact that Abraham was justified before God on the basis of his faith before he circumcised himself and his household. As the promise was to Abraham's children and the covenant of circumcision was imposed on Abraham as an individual, Paul concluded that faithful gentiles were also justified before God and were as it were Abraham's spiritual children, but without being obligated to receive circumcision.

Not everyone was happy with Paul's new POV, perhaps feeling that opening the inclusion in the people of Israel to those who merely had faith could endanger the significant privileges that Jews had earned through the efforts of members of the Herodian family, and pushed back against him forcibly. Paul took his new conviction to the extreme of declaring himself an 'apostle' tasked with collecting goodwill offerings and temple tax and delivering it to Jerusalem for charity. He probably hoped to get some priestly faction to accept the temple tax from his faithful gentiles as a way to legitimize his appeal to their faith.

I think he may well have made it to Jerusalem with some sort of offering, but he soon found out that the issue was far more divisive in Judea than it was among Hellenized Jews of the cities, where he was beaten up and forced from town more than once. Riot and arrest ensued, and he was sent to Rome for judgement, probably at the request of one of his Herodian patrons (I don't know for sure whether he really was a Roman citizen as Acts says, the letters make no such claim). Either he didn't live to make his appeal (died of illness?) or he was ruled against and executed (Herod, who had earned a tremendous amount of goodwill among the Roman aristocracy, was a circumcised Idumean, and lived a faithful Jew regardless of his failings as a human being, so the emperor may well have ruled against Paul's liberal interpretation).

Still, many of these faithful gentiles clung to the hope that their POV might one day win the day, and so the Paul Movement struggled on.

Now the Jesus Movement was at first all about Jesus' predictions that the Kingdom of God was immediately near. There was a sizable faction that thought that he was the anointed king that would lead it in. Whether he actually tested the waters or not, he was arrested for expressing (or not denying) royal ambitions, and executed. A core would not abandon him, and racked their brains to figure out where they had gone wrong in their expectations. Various ones among them kept thinking they saw him or had visions where Jesus spoke to them, and they concluded that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead and was next to God awaiting the moment when he would return in triumph with God's angels to establish that kingdom by force. At this point, the Jesus movement was predominantly Jews with a few gentile converts among them.

Then came the first Jewish revolt of 66-74 CE, and circumstances changed dramatically for both of these groups.

For Jesus movementers, the great revolt against the Romans must have seemed like a fulfillment of their prayers to God. Its messy collapse and the consequences of the war likely turned most all Jesus Movementers off tho the message. The gentile converts, on the other hand, had given up family ties and were pariahs among their own kin. Jewish converts such as the Adiabene princes who fought among the rebels may have been seen as the cause of the extremism that caused the war to begin with, and Jews too began to shun them. Like refugees everywhere, they gravitated towards the cities. There they set up private associations dedicated to the Jewish God who they still respected, and (between love feasts) meditated about the "real" message that God had told them through the Jewish scriptures. Through this reflection, the royal messianic edge was filed smooth and the mystery of Jesus' death was established.

Meanwhile, the war had also put the remnants of the Paul movement in an even greater pinch. It was after the point when the gentile ex-convert Jesus movement remnants came up with the mystery of Jesus as a universal savior dying for the sins of many, that the remnants of the Paul movement were exposed to the Jesus mysteries. I guess for many of them it seemed like a safe alternative to continuing to claim the same privileges as Jews. This is all happening before the beginning of the first century.

Early on in this process someone from the Jesus mystery faction managed to get his hands on letters that he and his associates believed were written by Paul himself. These were not in conformity to their thinking, so they wrote commentaries on some, showing where Paul would have been better off thinking their way. They decided that these commentaries were worth publishing if only to recruit the last vestiges of the Paul movement that had not already come over to them, and so we have the epistles as they have come to us.

What about Acts? Well, not all Jesus mysterites were the same. Other more sophisticated followers of the Jesus mysteries than those who had already produced the edited Pauline corpus came to write Gospels as apologies for their reverence of Jesus. One among them seems to have felt the need to integrate into the history of Christian development as it was commonly accepted the Paul revered by the Paul movementers that had come over to them, and the result was Acts. The writer of Acts was not aware of the letters (these may not have been in general circulation at all, or among specific communities only) but knew traditions about his movements and other legends that had grown up around him. Apparently some of the legendary movements and events known to the author of Acts overlapped with those revealed in the letters. However, like most legends, the details get confused or are wrong, so not everything will agree 100% with letters originally written by the real Paul. How could they?

That is how you can have Pauline letters and Acts grow up independently of one another, drawing on two sources (pious traditions vs. actual letters).

Sermon ended ...

DCH

Duvduv

Thanks David. I would mention that it's worth noting that there is no evidence that the epistles ever existed as individual letters because they are always identified as a group and I doubt they were even ever actually sent to their target audiences individually at all.
And whatever inspired the author of Acts to write so much about this fellow Paul as an apostle who never actually knew the historical Jesus figure of Acts, it obviously had an urgent need for there to be this one apostle as part of the religion rather than only the hallowed apostles who DID know him.

And of course we don't see that the author of Acts knew any aphorisms or stories from the gospels because none are referenced. I am not persuaded that the author of Acts knew of GLuke either. An appeal to a single story or aphorism of the GLuke Jesus is never made when the travelers are seeking new converts.

sotto voce

By whom?