jgreen44

Paul lived in Jerusalem from infancy into adulthood (Acts 2:23) and during the persecution of Stephen (Acts 8:1). So far as we know he did not leave Jerusalem until that fateful trip to Damascus. The biblical record, therefore, indicates that . . .

1) Saul/Paul was a resident of Jerusalem during the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ.

2) Jesus Christ made repeated trips to the city of Jerusalem. The author of the Gospel of John places Jesus of Nazareth in Jerusalem during six feasts (three Passover feasts [2:13; 6:4; 11: 55], the Feast of Booths [7:2], the Feast of Dedication [10:22] and one other unidentified feast [5:1]).

3) Saul/Paul was a Pharisee.

4) Jesus had repeated confrontations with Pharisees.

5) Saul the Pharisee and apparent resident of Jerusalem persecuted Christians in Jerusalem shortly after the earthly life of Jesus.

One can argue that Paul may have passed Jesus on the street and simply failed to recognize him as the true Messiah. But, given the language of John 12:25....

"Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."

...Jesus was the most amazing man who ever lived. So, even if Paul did not (at that time) believe the hype, Paul could not have failed to notice (and remember) that someone remarkable by the name of Jesus of Nazareth was in town.

Matthew 21:10

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, "Who is this?"

Given the biblical evidence, it seems likely that Paul knew of Jesus while they were both still alive and walking the streets of Jerusalem. Of course he did not yet believe Jesus was the Messiah but Saul/Paul almost certainly knew something about this man who stirred a whole city. Surely stirring a whole city qualifies one as something of a local celebrity, at least. Surely someone would have pointed out to Paul, "Here comes that nut who thinks he's God", or some such thing. And years later Paul would have said to himself, "Oh yeah. That guy. He really was God, but the scales had not yet fallen from my eyes." Yet, in Paul's epistles, despite Jesus' repeated trips to Jerusalem and confrontations with the Pharisees, the Pharisee and resident of Jerusalem, Paul, never so much as glimpsed the man. There is not a peep from Paul about his ever having seen or met the earthly Jesus.

bacht

Acts.21
[39] Paul replied, "I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cili'cia, a citizen of no mean city; I beg you, let me speak to the people."

In Acts Saul doesn't appear until the stoning of Stephen, so the author could be implying that Saul wasn't in Jerusalem before this.

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.
[15] But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace,
[16] was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with flesh and blood,
[17] nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damascus.
[18] Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days.

jgreen44

Acts 22:3 (NIV)

Then Paul said: "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city (Jerusalem). Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.

aa5874

Of course the dating of the Slavonic Josephus is extremely significant. Once it was written one thousand years later then the information that differs with the original Josephus may not be credible and was known to be non-historical.

So, why do you think more controversy will help your argument? More controversy means confusion.

No, you have it in reverse. The material in "Antiquities" was contradicted one thousand years later in Slavonic Josephus perhaps for the first time by unknown authors.

No Church writer mentioned the Slavonic Josephus up to the 4th century but several Church writers did mention Josephus.

DCHindley

Maryhelena,

Aa's got a point, there (hate it when that happens)! The most recent in-depth study, Josephus' Jewish War and its Slavonic Version: a Synoptic Comparison (by H Leeming, K Leeming, 2003), concluded that:

1 The translation was made in Rus' [i.e., Russia].

2 The translation was made into the Russian literary language of the older formation [Slavonic].

3 The translation was made not later than the 12th century; there are grounds for regarding the translation as being from the mid-11th century.

4 The translation was made with the aim of substantiating anti-Khazar and anti-Judaic propaganda [the Khazar royalty had all converted to Judaism around the 8th century and existed to around 1240, and there was a resulting strong Judaizing tendency in some areas around Kiev even among certain Orthodox Christians].

5 The translation was made in the south of Russia, most probably in the south east, near the Black Sea and Khazar territory. [i.e., Kievian Rus, a medieval state which existed from approximately 880 to the middle of the 13th century]

6 The translation was made by a member of the Orthodox faith, who had an excellent knowledge of ecclesiastical texts.

7 The translation may have been made by a layman, probably close to the military and knightly environment. (pg 75-76)

The numerous short and large omissions compared to the standard Greek text are attributed to the translator, being "most easily explained by assuming that the translation was made in such a way as to focus reader's attention on what the translator considered the chief point" (i.e., "basic attention to events directly connected with the siege and capture of Jerusalem"), and thus omitting details of some events or even entire events "which did not appear so central to him." (pg 30)

Rather than being drawn from other sources such as an Aramaic or early Greek draft of a hypothetical "Capture of Jerusalem," "[t]he bulk of the 'additions' came from the Old Russian translator [himself] and were the fruit of his literary creativity, for they are closely interconnected from the ideological and stylistic viewpoint, and reveal precisely why the Old Russian translator and his readers were interested in the Jewish War [of Josephus]. For them, and for Christian readers generally in the Middle Ages, this was a literary work which validated the historical truth of Christianity and its victory over Judaism ... a description of what was from their point of view, a just, divine retribution on the Jews for their rejection of Christ." (pp 39-40)

Hi ho

DCH

maryhelena

Thanks for your input re Slavonic Josephus.
It's a pity that all one can do is rely on Google books for some pages of the book you reference.
From page 40 of the Introduction:

So, its a case of either Josephus or a very clever Russian author....Since the 'additions' that deal with aspects of the gospel Jesus storyline are 'additions' that no Christian familiar with the assumptions, of the orthodox, synoptic tradition is likely to make - the motivation of said Russian author, re these particular 'additions' is brought into question - and hence raises questions re the possibility of these 'additions' being from the hand of a Russian author.

From the hand of Josephus? Motivation? Depends upon how one views any role Josephus had in the creation of the Jesus storyline. As is so often mentioned, Josephus was the man of the moment, alive and writing around the time when the gospel storyline was being produced. More than a later Russian translator, Josephus would have known intimately the historical realities surrounding early christian origins.

To place all these additional re-writes of the synoptic storyline on the shoulders of a 11 or 12th century Russian translator boggles the mind - and possibly a christian to boot! One can, in a literary sense, imagine the gospel storyline taking off from the bare bones storyline in Slavonic Josephus - it is much harder to imagine, hundreds of years later, that a Russian translator - with the synoptic tradition in full view - writing 'additions' to that storyline which appear to undermine said storyline.

My money is on Josephus I'm afraid....

(Actually, its possibly just the accepted synoptic version of Matthew's birth narrative that appears to contradict Slavonic Josephus. There is nothing in Matthew's birth narrative that confines the 'birth' of Jesus to just prior to the death of Herod the Great ie somewhere between 6 - 4 BC. Slavonic Josephus places the star of Bethlehem and the astrologers visiting Herod the Great around the 15th year of Herod - around 22 BC. Thus, in actual fact, Slavonic Josephus does not contradict GMatthew - it only contradicts the general assumption re dating the 'birth' of Jesus in GMatthew....Jesus historicists might well seek to discredit Slavonic Josephus - mythicists should be jumping with joy.....)

Doug Shaver

Is that all it takes?

This is the beginning of a story that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly during the American Civil War.

The author is very clearly implying that what he is about to relate really happened. Would we be justified in assuming, just on that basis, that this actually was his intention?

ApostateAbe

I appreciate you bringing up a counter-example. It does seem to break the pattern--the narrator introduces the account by telling a story to the reader, but the story is fictional regardless.

It does not nullify the general pattern of history, and it does little to affect relative probabilities. You can take Toto's general viewpoint that we can't really make any conclusions about history as long as it is possible that there can be alternative explanations. If that is also your vantage, then I think that is a good place to end the conversation, and you can go on to promote whatever seemingly-unlikely theory, or to criticize any seemingly-probable theory, that serves your purpose. We may continue to have this conversation if you play along with my vantage point that maybe you don't really have, which would be that relative probabilities matter, and entailing that way of thought is that isolated examples are not enough to minimize the importance of patterns.

But, maybe you really do have my general vantage and not Toto's. Whether you have my vantage or if you just want to play along, then let's look at the specifics, so that we can see which interpretation seems the most probable. Here is the complete introductory paragraph of "A Man Without a Country." I will highlight some relevant words and explain afterward.

I suppose that very few casual readers of the New York Herald of August 13th observed, in an obscure corner, among the "Deaths", the announcement:

NOLAN. Died, on board U.S. Corvelette Levant, Lat. 2 deg; 11" S., Long. 131 deg; W., on the 11th of May, Philip Nolan.

I happened to observe it, because I was stranded at the old Mission-House in Mackinac, waiting for a Lake Superior steamer which did not choose to come, and I was devouring, to the very stubble, all the current literature I could get hold of, even down to the deaths and the marriages in the Herald. My memory for names and people is good, and the reader will see, as he goes on, that I had reason enough to remember Philip Nolan. There are hundreds of readers who would have paused at that announcement, if the officer of the Levant who reported it had chosen to make it thus: "Died, May 11th, 'The Man Without a Country.'" For it was as "The Man without a Country" that poor Philip Nolan had generally been known by the officers who had him in charge during some fifty years, as indeed, by all the men who sailed under them. I dare say there is many a man who has taken wine with him once a forthnight, in a three years cruise, who never knew that his name was "Nolan", or whether the poor wretch had any name at all.

I highlighted those lines because it is made obvious that the story was written to entertain. You are unlikely to read such a passage in a court opinion, or a police briefing, or a scholarly journal, or a diary of a boring writer. Contrast it with the passage from Luke.

¹Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, ²just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. ³Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, ⁴so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

What if you were to read this at the beginning of a short story? Theophilus? Who is Theophilus? You go on to read the rest of the story, which never mentions his name again, not even in the book of Acts, which could potentially be the second part of the story. He doesn't give any exciting details about how the narrator found his information. He doesn't use catchy turns of phrase or imagery. "So that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught." The intention very much seems to be that the writer is trying to convince Theophilus that the Christian teachings are correct, and that makes perfect sense given that we know for certain that Christianity was a religion, at the least, from very near the beginning!

bacht

oops

Well, I guess there's no loophole then. Paul should have known about Jesus before his crucifixion, which still leaves the question of why he shows no interest in Jesus' earthly career.

ApostateAbe

Think of Salt Lake City, no news media except gossip, and all of the Mormon cult leaders who go to Salt Lake City for a large annual festival, in addition to the majority of Mormons in the United States. You are just a student at Brigham Young. Chances are that you neither know nor care to know about them, beyond the fact that they are all heretics and apostates. In Mormon law, in fact, you would be forbidden from speaking with them, though it may be a little different between Saul and Jesus.