rlogan

[QUOTE=capnkirkMy question, plain and simple, was: What was it? Since after all my cajoling, no one has presented any better basis than Acts, I am ready to accept that, and proceed from there.[/QUOTE]

A compact summary:


http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/epistles.html#6

Toto has already given the basic idea. Paul is said to have died in 64. Acts purports to provide external references that can be correlated to the epistles.

spin

I pointed out that the 3rd isn't relevant to the problem. Whatever Aretas's motive was for the attack, his daughter was of insufficient age to fit the time period of the 20s. She would have been just too young to fit the data. This leads us into the 30s which then makes the stated motive for Aretas's attack quite reasonable. (If I still haven't explained the idea clearly enough ask for clarification next time.)

I don't agree at all. Our constructs for dating Paul are all quite spurious, so nothing should be discarded a priori.

I don't accept that Acts is in any sense historically useful to the period it purports to represent

All of it is passing strange, so why arbitrarily turf out data? Why not leave it all there in suspension until some historically reasonable approach can, if ever, come out of the quagmire?


spin

capnkirk

I grant you that the 3rd choice is the least likely, but it deserves to be listed with the others if only to illustrate that it has been duly considered.

Quote:

I don't agree at all. Our constructs for dating Paul are all quite spurious, so nothing should be discarded a priori.

All I said was that dating Paul's epistles based on data that you have argued stridently was patently false (on a previous thread) should be considered suspect. I didn't suggest that it should be discarded a priori, but you have. Now you accuse me of doing so, when I clearly haven't. I'm confused. If I expected any argument from you on this issue, I expected that you would be arguing to discard it a priori.

Quote:

I don't accept that Acts is in any sense historically useful to the period it purports to represent

I wasn't arguing that we should. I was arguing that having to take Acts as factual was another reason to be skeptical using it to date Paul and Aretas in Damascus.

Quote:

All of it is passing strange, so why arbitrarily turf out data? Why not leave it all there in suspension until some historically reasonable approach can, if ever, come out of the quagmire?

Now you seem to have flip-flopped again. I am continuing to point out reasons why Acts should not be considered useful in dating Paul's letters, and you are saying that we are wrongfully "arbitrarily turf(ing) out data", when I am neither being arbitrary nor am I turfing out data. All I have done is to add more reasons than you have already proffered to hold Acts suspect as an aid to historical dating. Slow down a little Spin; you're shooting at everything that moves, and I'm taking friendly fire.

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Enterprise...OUT.

rlogan

Capn:

I ran across this exchange between Peter Kirby and Steven Carr:

http://home.earthlink.net/~kirby/xtianity/martyrs.html

Carr argues that Paul was not martyred in the Neronian persecution because Clement does not write so. Ignatius does not state so. It isn't until Tertullian that explicit mention of Paul's execution is made.

Peter makes the inference based on Ignatius placing Peter and Paul in Rome, his certitude about the Neronian persecution, and the later legends beginning with Tertullian. He excuses Josephus not saying anything about it because it is not a local Jewish issue, so to speak.

Actually Capn - I'm not even convinced the "Apostle Paul" is real, in the same sense that "Jesus the Christ" as fictionalized in the gospels is not real.

But if there is this legend that he was executed in the Neronian persecution, and this is used as an upper bound on authorship of the epistles, then the question should be addressed.

spin

Starfleet to Enterprise:

I'm not arguing that one should date the Pauline corpus according to the dating provided by Aretas III's control of Damascus, but that is the only historical indication from within the corpus with which to date it and all the other methods you attempt to use have greater problems.


spin out

capnkirk

Enterprise here:

So, what are we arguing about? I thought I was making essentially the same case, except that I was willing to then conclude that any dating based on Paul's Damascus reference should be considered basically unfounded, not discarded, but unfounded.

Still, going through the exercise on-thread serves to demonstrate the basis for such a conclusion to the lurkers and others who haven't questioned this before.

P.S. When you were offering your arguments back a couple of months ago, you named particular Roman officials who were unequivocally in charge of the area around Damascus at the time; could you please refresh my memory with those names?

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Enterprise...OUT.

Attonitus

Sorry for my break, but the following block it is a evident christian interpolation.

"called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment,again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind"

Without this block the text makes full sense. As correctly states Darrell J. Doughty, neither Tertullian neither Irenaneus know this text, neither a persecution under Nero.

Bernard Muller

Capnkirk:
I think you are basically right here, more so than the Greek does not say Aretas was in control of Damascus then:
This translation is close to the Greek:
YLT 32 In Damascus the ethnarch of Aretas the king was watching the city of the Damascenes, wishing to seize me, 33 and through a window in a rope basket I was let down, through the wall, and fled out of his hands.
I commented on one of my page:
Part of 32-33 (more so "of Aretas the king") or the whole is contested as interpolation because there is no external evidence that Damascus came under Aretas' rule at that time. However, it is not necessarily meant this etnarch had control of the city. Rather, he may have been just the representative of Aretas in it (still under Roman jurisdiction), who, with henchmen, could make arrest.
This appears in one of my backpage, about 2bCorinthians, and I do not use that in anyway to date the Pauline letters.

Essentially, the genuine Pauline letters (BTW, I do not consider 'Ephesians' as authentic) do not have any historical landmarks whatsoever in them. Paul does not give any indication when he wrote them as with reference to historic events or persons, but he gives clues/data about the sequencing, where they were written, some time lapses and even in which season.
In order to put the whole picture together, we have to use 'Acts', which does offer a few historic landmarks, more time intervals, etc.
'Acts' is partly fiction, so it has to be used with caution. Conflicts with Paul's letters or even the ending of GMark are solved by looking at the coloring & bias of 'Acts', which is also the latest text among the aforementioned, that is the one the most likely to be twisted & embellished above the others (GMark is very much embellished also, but I am referring only to the ending:the disciples disowning Jesus, dispersing and going to Galilee).

For anyone interested, I did more work on the issue:
Here, for the time of writing of Paul's epistles as relative to his third journey:
http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/appp.html#corinth3
To know about my splits of the Corinthians letters and why:
http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/appp.html#corinth1
Go to the top of that page to know how I determine the dating & sequence of Paul third trip:
http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/appp.html
Finally, I cover what precedes for Paul's public life on that page (search on > 3.2 <):
http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/appb.html

PS: I gave a series of arguments, based on evidence, about the delay between Herod Antipas' wedding with Herodias and the battle in 36CE.
http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/hjes1x.html#delay

Best regards, Bernard

Bernard Muller

Attonitus:
Dionysius of Corinth (circa.170) was very close to declare the persecution under Nero (54-68):
"... the churches that were planted by Peter and Paul, that of the Romans and that of the Corinthians: for both of them went to our Corinth, and taught us in the same way as they taught you when they went to Italy; and having taught you, they suffered martyrdom at the same time." (letter to the Romans).
Prior to that (95), dreadful mister 666 is likely a reference to Nero, believed reincarnated into Domitian (Revelation13:18)
Suetonius (115) also makes mention of Nero's persecution : "Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition."

Best regards, Bernard

spin

I took the opportunity to look at what Bernard said about the "delay" as he calls what he dates in an a priori manner from 27CE when he claims Herodias became Herod Antipas's wife to 36 CE when Aretas IV avenged the unlawful divorce of his daughter by Antipas.

This consists in

1. inserting comments into Josephus to alter the narrative to suit Bernard's conclusions;

2. relying on the English translation of Josephus, "the first occasion of his enmity", to place the divorce chronologically before another reason for enmity; however, the Greek text doesn't support his conclusion, as there is no word in the Greek for "occasion" and probably should indicate that the divorce became the head/main/principal enmity between them; (AJ 18.5.1 = 18.113)

3. relying on the veracity of the story of Salome's dance (Mk6:19-28); and

4. the fact that Herodias "who was now the wife of Herod the tetrach" when Agrippa went to see them (AJ 18.6.2-3), after Josephus had just told us about the marriage. Josephus has inverted the order of events, but as not long afterwards Agrippa goes off to see the governor of Syria, Flaccus 32-35CE, but this causes no problem at all, for the war took place in 36CE. Herod Antipas marries Herodias in Rome and comes home attempting to hide the fact from his Nabataean wife, who conveniently leaves for Machaerus. This wife then proceeds to Petra to tell her father, who decides to go to war, starts the preparations for it, which require collection of food and supplies and then the wait for the appropriate season. Aretas had to have heard of the divorce at least by 35 CE perhaps even the year before, a situation which is evident from the circumstances found in Josephus.

In short I see no evidence for a "delay" between the divorce, once Aretas's daughter knew of it, and the war between Aretas and Herod Antipas. It is more likely that the war came relatively quickly (within two years) of the daughter finding out about the divorce.


spin