the_cave

(Yes, we last left this subject with Andrew's explanation of Bowersock's claims about the roads from Bostra:

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=184417&page=2)


I find it unlikely that Paul was a 1st c. BCE figure. If it's problematic for Paul's letters to authentically date to the 1st c. CE, how much more so for the prior century?

The author (if not Paul) could have confused Aretas III with Aretas IV...point being that the Aretas he thought he was talking about was Aretas IV (whether he knew it or not).


Whoever wrote 2 Cor 11:32, they may not have been referring to Damascus proper. Eisenman has pointed out that the "Damascus" in the Damascus Document may not actually refer to Damascus. Just so might the "Damascus" in 2 Cor 11:32 not actually refer to Damascus. Instead, the author knows that Paul escaped from a city being guarded by men sent from a polemarch of Aretas. It's somewhere east of the Jordan, so the author calls it "Damascus" and is done with it. He doesn't actually know where it was. It's even possible (though less likely) that Paul meant this, in a symbolic sense--he was in "Damascus" in the sense that he was outside of Israel.

And I'm still not convinced that we really need to take the author seriously at all. Why would Aretas tell a military governor to post guards in order to catch Paul leaving the city? If authentic Paul, 2 Cor 11:32 has the marks of paranoid exaggeration--"It's Aretas trying to kill me! His polemarch's men are everywhere!" Not likely. Hence I think a case for Pauline authorship can still be made, regardless of where the roads from Bostra ran. And if not Paul, then someone who knew a story (whether true or false) about Paul trying to escape (for whatever reason) a city somewhere east of the Jordan.

Toto

I still think that the key to understanding the Damascus reference here is the context: Paul is playing the fool. He is delivering a stand up routine based on the Greco-Roman theater figure of the fool: "What anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about." I sincerely doubt that the author of this letter suffered any of the indignities that follow - being stoned, beaten with rods, shipwrecked, naked, hungry or cold. Damascus could be any city, King Aretas could be the stand-in for any authority figure, and being lowered over the wall in a basket could be any real or imaginary escape.

Is there any reason to read this section so literally?

Minimalist

Maps are great tools. There is Damascus far to the north of Nabatea. To suggest that the Romans "gave" Damascus to Aretas IV ignores the reality that there would have been several intervening regions making it damn near impossible for Nabatea to have administered Damascus.

The political upheavals caused by the repeated Hasmonean dynastic squabbling in the first century BCE make for a more likely background. Aretas III was involved in supporting rival claimants for the throne. How unlikely is it that refugees from those factions might have sought refuge with Aretas?

maryhelena

No reason, as far as I can see, to take the events attributed to the apostle Paul as being literal.....

However, when historical figures are recorded in the NT account, it is perhaps more advantageous (in regard to understanding the NT storyline) to view their insertion as being somehow relevant to that storyline - rather than simply dismiss them when it appears, due to a prior understanding, that somehow they don't fit ones preconceptions. Lysansias of Abiline for example - a second Lysansias being 'created' in order to fit presuppositions....

Surely, once one has adopted the mythicist position regarding Jesus of Nazareth, it becomes evident that the NT storyline, while referencing historical individuals - is a storyline about an interpretation, a prophetic interpretation, of history - hence is not a chronological historical account. Consequently, attributing historical errors to the NT writers is a bit like comparing apples to oranges....

the_cave

Minimalist, read the exchange between Andrew and spin in the thread that Toto and I linked to above. Spin agrees with you, but Andrew disputes his position. While Andrew's argument (based on Bowersock) may not be correct, the issue of the eastern border of Gaulanitis etc. has been considered thoroughly. (Note that Andrew is not necessarily arguing that anyone gave Damascus to Aretas.)

Solo

........and Paul could be any manic depressive who boasts of the Lord (has delusions of grandeur) and gives good report of his witness (has delusions of persecution).

Jiri

spin

If Aretas did not have control of Damascus, then the governor mentioned in 2 Cor 11:32 was not his (o eQnarxhs areta tou basilews -- "areta tou basilews" is genitive, so the ethnarch is his). We can all go home and have a rest. The text is simply wrong. Right?

The text is supposed somehow to be related to Aretas IV. If the ethnarch in Damascus (en damaskw) was his, it means that Damascus was his. Now this is evidently problematical, unsupported by any evidence and so highly improbable we can discount it as against everything we've seen the Romans do.


spin

Minimalist

An interesting thread which touches on but does not explore the lack of primary source material for any such action by Caligula. No Greco-Roman historian mentions any such transfer. Josephus, in one of his few mentions of Damascus, points out that in the aftermath of the Jewish attack on Cestius Gallus legion, the citizens of Damascus rose up and massacred the Jews who were living there. He makes no mention of the city being under anyone else's control and the actions of the citizenry certainly suggest a pro-Roman bias.

What Caligula did was remove Herod Antipas and replace him with Herod Agrippa, his boyhood friend. This later nonsense about Damascus seems to be little more than xtian wishful thinking based on the supposed "holiness" of "Paul's" epistles. After all, they reason, if "Paul" said it it must be true. Once you move past an overly respectful position regarding these epistles the rest falls like a dead leaf.

Minimalist

But we do have an actual situation where an earlier Aretas DID control Damascus.

It merely requires xtians to toss their entire understanding of their bible which, I concede, is a lot to ask. But facts are facts and Nabatea did occupy Damascus for a generation before Pompey Magnus arrived.

maryhelena

I like the idea of Damascus being symbolic of "outside of Israel".

In the case of both Aretas III and Aretas IV there is a contrast between Damascus and Israel. With Aretas III it is his siege of Jerusalem. With Aretas IV it is his war with Herod Antipas. (and of course 'Paul' escaping from 'Damascus').

The escaping over the wall of Damascus is an echo of Jericho where the spies sent by Joshua did likewise. Interestingly, Jericho became the first city to be conquered in Palestine after the 40 years of wandering in the desert - the walls falling down after a 7 day march around them. In the storyline of Paul, the road to 'Damascus' becomes the road to his ministry outside of Israel, the road to the gentiles. A road that opens up, in the NT storyline, in 36/37 CE, 40 years from the death of Herod the Great and 7 years from 29/30 CE, the 15th year of Tiberius.