Ted Hoffman

You too spin are resorting to sarcasm? Is this discussion done?
Toto makes non-specific allusions to "indelible links" to forged documents.
Acts certainly wan't "forged" (even the author is not named) so she isn't talking about Acts.
What I would like to know is, are there any problems with dating Paul and his activities based on Acts 18:12?
Lets see the objections ladies and gentlemen.
I accept that AActs had his/her own agenda in writing Acts, including legitimizing Petrine Christianity, presenting Paul as still the convinced Pharisee and as subordinate to "the twelve". I know AActs also lied and embellished the story and employed his own literary artistry in authoring the work.
But I also recognize that AActs cannot be judged by modern historical standards (which require that a historian only tells what took place) and I am cognizant of the fact that we treat Josephus as a historian even though he exaggerates issues and even narrates the impossible as if it took place.

Just lay down the arguments why Acts 18:12 should not be used as a historical marker. Now.

S.C.Carlson

Well, that little problem between Aretas IV and Antipas included a border dispute in the region of Gamala (Jos., AJ 18.113), a region lying between Galilee and Damascus.

Second Cor 11 does not claim that Aretas was in Damascus, only that his ethnarch was. Of course, if Vitellius was charged with capturing Aretas, he would go to where Aretas was (e.g. Petra), not where one of his ethnarchs happened to be.

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

Being in prison is evidence of running afoul of the authorities.

Is there a well-known story about someone who escaped from Aretas III? That would be important.

Perhaps because literal lynchings were low-tech affairs.

I haven't counted them all, but I'm sure what it would mean if I did.

I'd like to know who agreed to this "fact." A reference work outside of the field of Biblical studies, The Oxford Classical Dictionary states that "Aretas apparently had brief control of Damascus" and cites 2 Cor 11:32 for it. The classicists are apparently not quite so conflicted about using Paul for evidence.

Sid Green's article concedes that a broad range of historians accepts the 2 Cor 11:32 datum but uses Acts to call 2 Cor 11:32 into question:

In terms of method, that's backward. Primary source evidence (Paul) should be used to call the secondary source into question, not the other way around.

If Paul had never been to Arabia, then the question of motive would be a serious problem. But in Gal 1:17, Paul stated that he went into Arabia and returned to Damascus. We don't need to know exactly how Paul annoyed the Arabian authorities for their motive to be plausible. (Note: 2 Cor 11:32 only deals with the actions of Aretas's ethnarch; whether Aretas himself knew or cared about it is irrelevant).

Stephen

gurugeorge

'scuse me please, but how can we call Paul a "primary source" in any strict historical sense? I mean it's not like we have a copy of Paul's letters on the original papyrus or anything, is it?

S.C.Carlson

It depends on how strict you want to be. But let's not lose sight of the issue. It's not like we have the autographs for Josephus and Acts either... In fact, Paul's text is better attested with manuscript evidence than either Acts or Josephus.

Stephen

Toto

This is all a bit circular. 2 Cor 11 is used as evidence that Aretas had some control over Damascus, even though there is no other corroboration.

Do you need the contrary evidence (such as it is in Acts) to entertain some doubts about whether a passing reference to King Aretas is meant as history, or understood as such? Does this passage have any indicia of reliability about it?

When Aretas's possible motives are questioned, 2 Cor is used as evidence that Paul stirred up trouble all over the place (as opposed to being in prison once) so there's the motive.

I can't seem to get you to take the idea seriously that Paul might have been speaking in metaphor, or that King Aretas might be as literal as King George.

There is one thing that seems certain: Paul was not writing history. We don't have evidence of his letter in the first century, so we don't know the audience for this letter, we can't be sure that the audience was contemporary with Aretas IV, we can't even be really sure that Aretas and Damascus were mentioned in the original of the letter.

andrewcriddle

One possible chronological indicator in Paul is 1 Thessalonians 5:3 Many commentators regard the phrase 'peace and security' as a specific (negative) reference to the Pax Romana of Augustus and his successors from say 30 BCE onwards, and in any case this passage would read oddly in the time of the major civil wars of the period before the battle of Actium.

spin

Actually, it lay east of the northern part of the Galilean lake. You'd have to nudge it northward to be where you want it, but we have already established that there were Arabs in the vicinity of Damascus eg in the Trachonitis.

We are dealing with a cause of grievance, not a physical presence in the area. Just as Herod often represented Jews throughout the Mediterranean, we see Aretas doing the same thing for the Arabs. Herod apparently encroached on Arab territory. Aretas didn't do anything about it, at least until the marriage grievance, ie Aretas had no presence in Gamalitis -- otherwise, why wait? It suggests that he couldn't because he wasn't there and that it was just an Arab cause that he was "advocating".

Vitellius made no attempt to undo any hypothetical damage caused by this imagined taking of Damascus. Instead he arrived at Ptolemais on the coast and crossed the great plain on his way south. Had there been a problem over Damascus Vitellius had a legion (XII Fulminata) 100 kilometres away at Raphaneae that he could have led to deal with it. (There were four legions in Syria, the camps for three are known of.)

Rome simply didn't leave grievances lie. Vitellius paid no attention to Damascus, ie there was no grievance. Instead he went straight for Petra. Had there been a grievance about a Roman holding, he surely would have dealt with it. Petty squabbles could happen and he would not have intervened -- until instructed to as in this case.

We have no Nabataean presence anywhere near Damascus and no indication that Damascus was in the hands of Aretas IV. It's time we stopped doing "fanta-history".


spin

the_cave

The passage in question also says that Herod's army was destroyed by the treachery of some "fugitives" from the tetrarchy of Philip (or has this already been mentioned?) Doesn't that seem to suggest that Herod's army may have been destroyed somewhere near Philip's lands, or at least that fugitives from Philip's tetrarchy might have had some motivation for betraying Herod's army into the hands of Aretas?

Except I'm not sure the Greek says this--it says an ethnarch was guarding Damascus in order to catch Paul. But this doesn't necessarily mean the ethnarch was ruling Damascus. I would say it's unclear.

Possibly because no real forces remained there, and Damascus in fact remained out of Aretas' control (though it still lay on the borderlands.)

I don't think we need to conclude that Aretas was governing Damascus. And we seem to know that the area south of Damascus was considered "Arabia". So there is some connection at least.

spin

Why? Herod Antipas and Philip were brothers. Philip had supplied forces to Herod Antipas. During the battle they changed sides. How else can you explain the "betrayal/treason"?

Yeah, this is one of the first two options casually considered and discounted by Campbell for relatively good reasons.

This view is based on your presupposition that Aretas might have had a tetrarch physically just outside Damascus (whose aim was for some unknown reason to apprehend this politically threatening Paul).

Yes, we do. Unless otherwise indicated, the normal usage of the verb frourew is for one in control of a place, to guard or garrison.

The area south. The area east. Palmyra and its desert. Arabia was such a loose term that the Nabataeans were also included. This doesn't justify the notion that Aretas IV had anything directly to do with this Arabia.


spin