PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

In this thread #5950665 I identified the author of Acts as a lawyer writing in the late Second century. In this thread, #5939618, I identified Barnabas as the 12th apostle and suggested that the author used an original source text containing tales about Barnabas that he changed to get some of the adventures of Peter and Paul. I would like to identify another text that the author used, a text I call the Samaritan Seven Prophets text.

In chapter three, seven men are appointed to handle a dispute between Hellenic and Jewish members of the group called The Way. They are (6.5) "Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch."

In Josephus, we do not hear of any fights between members of The Way, but we do hear of fights between Samaritans and Jews (Ant. 20.6). We also hear of the Samaritans following a new messiah.

One charge that that Jews made against the Samaritans was that they were really Hellenes. Josephus goes so far as to relate a story of how they renamed their Temple, Temple of Jupiter Hellenius (Antiquities 12.5.5) The Greek Governor in this story is named Nicanor, the same name as one of the seven appointees in Acts.

We may infer from this that the fight over provisions for widows was not between Hellenic and Jewish followers of Jesus, but between Samaritans and Jews.

This can be affirmed by examining the speech of Stephan. It is a speech by a Samaritan against Jews. It does not mention Jesus at all. It talks mainly about Moses, and ot denounces the Jewish Temple at Jerusalem, just as the Samaritans always did:

44 “Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern which he had seen. 45 “And having received it in their turn, our fathers brought it in with Joshua upon dispossessing the nations whom God drove out before our fathers, until the time of David. 46 “David found favor in God’s sight, and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. 47 “But it was Solomon who built a house for Him. 48 “However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands; as the prophet says:
49 ‘HEAVEN IS MY THRONE,
AND EARTH IS THE FOOTSTOOL OF MY FEET;
WHAT KIND OF HOUSE WILL YOU BUILD FOR ME?’ says the Lord,
‘OR WHAT PLACE IS THERE FOR MY REPOSE?
50 ‘WAS IT NOT MY HAND WHICH MADE ALL THESE THINGS?’

What we have here is a criticism of Solomon and the Jews building the first Jewish temple in Jerusalem. It is hard to imagine why any follower of Jesus would be arguing against Solomon's temple. We must assume that the speech is originally by a Samaritan and the author/editor has been kind enough or lazy enough to let it stand as written.

Once, Stephen is killed for his pro-Samaritan speech, we are told that the followers are scattered: "4 Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. 5 Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming Christ to them."

We would expect that the narrative would be telling us what happened to the Apostles and not what happened to the seven, now six men in charge of the dispute. Philip goes to the city of Samaria (Sebaste). There he meets another Samaritan Christ figure -- Simon the magician.

It is worth nothing that the apostles Peter and John and presumably the rest of the apostles stay in Jerusalem after the death of Stephan. " 8:14 Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, " So the Jesus Apostles are actually not scattered and preaching the word, but the six (Samaritans) are. The next three miracles (discounting the Saul story miracles) all happen in Samaritan places, Gaza, Lydda, and Joppa.

While Peter is given the miracles at Lydda and Joppa, we may take it that Philip or one of the other six Samaritans did the miracles in the original text.

To summarize, we have these reasons for believing that the author of Acts is using a Seven Samaritan Prophets Source Text:

1. The followers of "the Way" are referred to as Hellenic. This would have been a derogatory characterization of Samaritans by Jews. It is hardly likely that Jesus would have had any Hellenic followers so shortly after his death and the gospels do not mention any.

2. There is strife between the Hellenic and Jewish components requiring mediation, which reflects the type of struggle between Samaritans and Jews that Josephus describes.

3. Stephan's speech that angers the Jews does not have anything to do with Jesus, but has everything to do with the issue of where and how to worship God, the most important issue to the Samaritans at the time.

4. The Apostles are not scattered after the death of Stephen, but the six others appointed to settle the Hellenic-Jewish issue are scattered, apparently all over Samaria. They preach throughout Samaria, while the Apostles stay in Jerusalem (8.14 Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John), until the Samarians have been converted. This would make sense if the people preaching to the Samaritans are themselves Samaritans.

It is difficult to determine if the Messiah preached in the Samaritan Seven Prophets text was the Samaritan Messiah talked about by Josephus or Simon Magus.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

DCHindley

Stephen's Speech in Acts is peculiar, to be sure. However, it seems to be pretty much a straight story explaining why a temple is not required by God, until vs 7:51, when the mood turns angry and accusatory.

I would theorize that 7:2-50 is a text written by a Jew meant to "explain" to other Jews why God allowed their temple to be destroyed by the Romans.

On the other hand, vss 7:51-53 seems to be anti Jewish.

51 "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. 52 Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, 53 you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it."

I normally assume this POV represented the gentile wing of the Jesus movement after it was frustrated by the unexpected end of the Jewish rebellion against Rome (66-73 CE) and the social upheaval that accompanied it (massive Jewish-gentile massacres all throughout southern Syria and Judea).

That being said, I could also see this as a Samaritan repudiation of Jewish obsession with their temple, especially "they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One" [the Samaritan Taheb?] and "you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it [correctly?])

Still, I think you are off track on Jews thinking Samaritans are Hellenes. They think they are foreigners who were opportunists and adopted the Jewish god out of convenience, bolstered by the fact that many inhabitants of Samaria did Hellenize. The more religious Samaritans weren't too happy with the Jews either, especially after John Hyrcanus destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mt Gerazim in 128 BCE.

Have you read James D Purvis' The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Origin of the Samaritan Sect (Harvard Univ. Press, 1968)?

DCH

PhilosopherJay

Hi DCHindley,

Thanks for the response.

In Acts 6.1, we're getting this, "a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food."

Now, I believe the original text read something like, "a complaint arose on the part of the Samaritans against the Jews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food."

We have to ask who were the Hellenistic Jews and who were the native Hebrews? Were the Hellenistic Jews just Greek Speaking Jews, Jews that favored Greek culture, or Jews associated with particular territories.

The only other use of the term comes in talking about Saul:

9.29 And he was talking and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews; but they were attempting to put him to death. 30 But when the brethren learned of it, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus.
31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace

Why would removing Saul from Jerusalem and then from Caesarea, Galilee, cause peace in the church in Judea, Galilee and Samaria? If the Hellenistic Jews were just locally in Judea than Paul's removal would only cause peace in Judea. Removing Saul from Caesarea would cause peace in Galilee. But only if Hellenistic Jews were another name for Samaritans would these moves cause peace in Judea, Galilee and Samaria.

Admittedly the term here is not clear and may be referring to just Samaritans or to both Galileans and Samaritans.

...

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

PhilosopherJay

Hi D.C.Hindley,

Just one more point here. The Samaritans claimed to be the most consistent and real Jews. So when Josephus in 12.5 in Antiquities accuses them of rededicating their temple on Mt. Gerizim to Zeus, he is insulting them in a big way. This would be the equivalent of calling them Hellenizing Jews. This is not to say that under pressure from Antiochus, the Samaritans might have decided to rededicate their temple. It is impossible to know if Josephus is giving us the truth or an entirely fictional story. In either case, he is trying to associate Samaritans with Hellenization. From this, we can conclude that the term Hellenized Jews used by Jews would be an anti-Samaritan slur. We should note that in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says not to preach to the Samaritans:

(Matthew 10:5).

This suggests that the gospel writers may have retained or adopted the anti-Samaritan bias of the Judean Jews.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

RParvus

Jay,

You will find a lot of good information on Stephen's Samaritan affinities in appendix V of the Anchor Bible's Acts of the Apostles. The appendix was written by Abram Spiro and is entitled "Stephen's Samaritan Background."

Best regards,

Roger

show_no_mercy

Except for Luke and his parable of the "good Samaritan" (10:25-37). Or John and his Samaritan woman (and many other Samaritans) who accepts Jesus as "the Christ" (4:1-42). Mark doesn't seem to care about Samaritans. Only Matthew seems to have disdain for the Samaritans (he changes Mark's scene about the Syro-Phonecian woman to Samaritan) - which might make sense if he's attempting to write his gospel for Jews. John seems to be antagonistic towards the Jews which makes sense of him including a scene where many Samaritans believe that he's the Christ (but... the Samaritan Christ [a son of Joseph] is different from the Jewish Christ [a son of David]! Samaritans don't care about the House of David! They wouldn't accept a Jew as the Christ...).

If we assume Luke was also written by the author of Acts, it kinda doesn't make sense.

PhilosopherJay

Thanks Roger,

Is this anywhere online? I've read some criticisms of it, but haven't found it.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Toto

Anchor Bible Acts of the Apostles (or via: amazon.co.uk) may be searchable on Amazon.

There are some cheap used copies for sale on the web.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Show_no_mercy,

The position of the author/Editor of Acts/Luke I think does make sense. Expecially if we take into account this observation by John P. Meier, from an article in Biblica 81 (2000) 202-232, (http://www.bsw.org/project/biblica/bibl81/Comm05.html) :

By calling the Samaritans "Hellenistic Jews," the author is insulting the Samaritans, he is not only calling them "Jews," but by calling them "Hellenistic" he is saying that they are "bad Jews."
Again, in Luke 10:25-37, he is lumping them in with two other kinds of Jews:
a Jewish Priest and a Levite.These are examples of Jews who are supposed to represent "good Jews" or Jewish neighbors if you will, but the Samaritan represents a "bad Jew" for the author and his audience. So the author is saying that any Jew who helps you out in an emergency should be considered your neighbor/friend. It represents a practical ideology, judge people by what they do for you, not on the basis of their adherence to a particular sect within your religion.

In both cases the author/editor is portraying Samaritans as "bad Jews"

In the original story, we begin with Samaritan widows being mistreated by Jews. We may presume that it was a Samaritan council and not the apostles who appointed the seven Samaritan prophets to rectify the situation. When the Samaritan leader, Stephen, denounces the Jews, they stone him and the other six Samaritans disburse to cities in Samaria, where they perform magical acts of healing. We may assume that the original tale ended with the Samaritan Widows getting justice. The author of Acts is simply using what he wants from the story to create his own fictional narrative.

We may presume that the Saul narrative, at least at the beginning, is part of the Samaritan Seven Prophets tale, since he is involved with the killing of Phillip. Since he had killed the leader of the seven prophets, his next job would have been to kill the next in line -- Philip. Since Philip had fled to Sebaste, we may assume that Saul was sent to Sebaste specifically to arrest Phillip. It was on the road to Sebaste that he met Simon Magus and suffered his conversion into a Samaritan. Our author/editor simply changed a few names and details, but the plot of the original text is easy enough to see at this point. Others Jews came to Sebaste and Saul had to be let down in a basket from the walls that Herod had built around the city (Josephus, Wars, 1.2.7. ...as far as Samaria, where is now the city Sebaste, which was built by Herod the king, and encompassed it all round with a wall,) to escape back to Jerusalem.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay