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Contributor
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Los Angeles area
Posts: 40,549
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The search for the historical Paul: was he ever in Damascus?
Acts 9:20:
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Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damasus [after his vision on the road to Damascus]. . .23-25 - "After many days had gone by, the Jews conspired to kill him, but Saul learned of their plan. Day and night they kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him. But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall."
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2 Cor. 11:32-33 -
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"In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands."
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At first glance these two passages might show a meaningful correlation between Acts and the letters of Paul, and a possible way of dating Paul's letters from internal evidence. The reference to the Ethnarch under Aretas is the only reference to a political figure (except possibly the reference to James, if that James is in fact the James that Josephus records as being stoned in 62 CE.) And the two passages are the only verbal link between Acts and Paul’s letters.
The problem is that King Aretas does not appear to have ever had control over Damascus, which would make it unlikely that he maintained an ethnarch or governor there.
Excerpt from: Kenneh F. Doig, New Testament Chronology, (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990).
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Aretas IV, the Nabataean king, began his reign in Petra in about 9 BCE (Ant. XVI 11:9). His inscriptions and coins cease in his forty-eighth year, making his death in about 39 CE. However, there is no historical record that he ever had control over Damascus, which was long under the control of the Romans.
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Doig considers a number of possibilities, and concludes that "The Romans probably allowed a Nabataean ethnarch to be chief of his community in Damascus, and he assisted the Jews in their attempt to kill Paul," a very unsatisfactory attempt to harmonize two conflicting Biblical passages.
Once we realize that Acts is far removed from Paul, but that the author used Paul’s letters loosely as source material, we have to realize that Paul’s connection with Damascus is quite ephemeral. Paul himself may have mentioned Damascus and his escape as metaphors, which the author of Acts turned into concrete references.
Robert Eisenman contends that the historic Damascus was an unlikely location for Paul’s attempted persecution of early Christians or for his conversion to have occurred, and that the "Damascus" referred to was Qumran--which is referred to by that term in the Damascus Scroll, found at Qumran. The three years that Paul claimed to have spent at Damascus fit the 3 year novitiate for a new believer.
An internet commentator calling himself Mahatma Randy states (I cannot find support for this statement; it seems plausible but I can’t confirm it and would appreciate help):
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And let's look a bit closer at the attempt of "The Jews" in Damascus to assassinate Saul, shall we? In Chapter 9, it says that local Christians that had found out about the plot forewarned Saul of this, and they rescued Saul by lowering him over the city wall in a basket. Yet in Saul's own letters, he obliquely mentions this incident in 2nd Corinthians 11, saying, "At Damascus, the ethnarch of King Haretath picketed the city of the Damscenes to hem me in; but through a loophole I was let down the wall in a basket, and so escaped his clutches." (Emphasis mine.) In the Old Testament, there's a well-known anecdote that takes place shortly before the Israelite conquest of Palestine, in which some spies are checking out the city of Jericho. The people of the city figure out what's going on and try to kill them, but Rahab the Harlot takes pity on the two spies, and hides them in her place. At evening, she lowers them over the city wall in a basket. In gratitude for this, when Jericho was destroyed, the Israelites spared Rahab and her family. This very popular story, in which the lowly and detestable save the lives of the highborn and mighty, gave rise to an interesting colloquialism. If you escaped certain death at the hands of an enemy thanks to unlikely circumstances, you might say "Gee, I really got lowered down the wall in a basket on that one! I thought my number was up!" This now-obscure phrase would be used in much the same context as we might say "Man, I was sure I'd bought the farm on that one!" Based on the fact that Saul says, "Through a loophole, I was lowered" leads me to believe that he's speaking metaphorically. (Loophole having largely the same meaning then that it does now: a technicality.) Saul's life was saved by some undisclosed technicality. He was not literally lowered down the wall in a basket. (A very obvious ploy that probably wouldn't have worked anyway: it is, after all, based on a well-known best seller.) It's obvious that the Author of Acts knows this story and is taking it literally, not figuratively. This is exactly the kind of mistake that a gentile Christian with little background in Judaism would make.
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But there is another problem with trying to harmonize these passages or decide if Paul were ever in Damascus. In 2 Corinthians, Paul is not recounting straight history. He is delivering a theatrical address in the form of several stock characters from the Roman theater known as Fools. This is not based on postmodernist literary criticism, it is based on Paul’s own words:
2 Cor 17 In this self-confident boasting I am not talking as the Lord would, but as a fool.
The Fool was a stock character in classical drama, actually a class of stock characters. Paul as a resident or citizen of the Roman empire in his days would have been familiar with these characters. See The Runaway Paul by Laurence L. Welborn, Harvard Theological Review, April, 1999 [unfortunately the Greek characters in the article are not in the ascii-based internet version.]
Welborn illuminates, with many examples from the classical literature, how Paul's "foolish discourse" in 2 Cor 11:21b-12:10 combines elements of several types of fools in his performance: the "leading slave" in 11:21b-23, the "braggart warrior" in 11:24-27, the "anxious old man" in 11:28-29, and the "learned impostor" in 12:1b-4 and 12:7-9.
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In the speech proper, Paul first assumes the role of the leading slave (2 Cor 11:2 lb23). It is hardly surprising that Paul should be drawn to this character among the various types of fools, since he understood himself to be the "slave of Christ."(189) Paul begins by boasting of what he "dares" to do: [….] (2 Cor 11:21b). The opening line is an epitome of the speeches of the "clever slave" that fill the pages of Plautus's comedies.. . .
It is as such a fool, a runaway, that Paul presents himself at the center of the speech in 2 Cor 11:32-33: sought by the ethnarch of the Nabataean king, who had garrisoned the city of Damascus in order to arrest him, Paul hid in a basket and was let down through a window in the wall, so making his escape. His concise portrait of himself as a runaway contains all the features of a fool of this type: trickery, concealment, awkward predicaments, and flight. The picture takes its place in the gallery of fools, fitting well between the anxious old man and the learned impostor. Marked oft by interjections (in 2 Cor 11:30; 12:1a), and prefaced by an oath (2 Cor 11:31), the apostle's self-portrait as a runaway fool stands at the center of the speech proper (2 Cor 11:21b-12:10).(349) The placement of the pericope can hardly be accidental, given the rhetorical self-consciousness of the discourse as a whole.(350) Rather, Paul's presentation of himself in this way is the climax of the speech from the standpoint of irony,(351) for the runaway is a fool of the basest sort--thievish, clownish, and recreant.
Many of the particular features of the passage 2 Cor 11:32-33 are illuminated by the recognition that Paul has shaped the account of his flight in accordance with the conventions of the mimic stage. The asyndetic beginning of verse 32, […] ("in Damascus"), has long troubled interpreters.(352) The phrase functions to set the stage for the scene that follows. It is thus the verbal counterpart of the emblem panels revealed at the beginning of a performance by removal of the curtain, which established the type of play to be presented, its theme, and its subject matter.(353) Such central decorative panels are visible on a number of wall paintings in houses from Rome and Pompeii, depicting temporary wooden stages used in the mime.(354) Their emblematic function is clear, although the relevant iconography is now largely lost. Similarly, Paul's opening phrase, [. . .], sets the stage for the performance that follows.
His picture of his narrow scrape in exiting the city "through a window in the wall" (verse 33) may also owe something to the architecture of the ancient stage. A regular feature of the wooden stage used in comedy, farce, and mime was the angiportum, a narrow passageway running just behind the stage facade.(355) There are frequent references to this "back passage" in the comedies of Plautus.(356) As these references suggest, "It was used as a theatrical convention to account for necessary movement of the characters when that movement could not take place openly (for reasons of plot)."(357) Paul may evoke this stage feature in his account of flight: the aspect of "passage" is emphasized by repetition of the preposition [. . .]; Paul passes, literally, "through the window ... through the wall."
The term [. . .], which the apostle chooses(358) to describe the conveyance by which he was let down (verse 33), resonates with the theatrical context of his remarks. The [. . .] was a plaited or braided basket, primarily used for fish.(359) Fish names were popular in comedy and mime, especially as terms of abuse.(360) The old fisherman was a favorite type of fool on the mimic stage, judging from the surviving titles of mimes by Sophron ([. . .], "The Tunnyfisher") and Laberius (Piscator). . . .
Windisch pointed out that, although Paul plays the role of the fool, his performance differs from that of a genuine mimus in one important respect: Paul plays himself, a role that he plays "in bitter earnest."(366) Beneath the "mask" Paul remains himself, true to his own convictions. . .
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Given this interpretation, it appears that we know less about Paul that we thought. Many of the autobiographical details that have puzzled commentators are in 2 Cor; but if this is a mock stage performance, can any of it be accepted as historic fact, even if we think that Paul was basically honest in his letters and that they have been mostly preserved as they were written? Was he ever stoned? Shipwrecked? Beaten with rods? Was there ever a thorn in his flesh? Or was his audience cracked up with laughter because they recognized that this was the ancient equivalent of a standup routine, about as reliable as Jay Leno’s reporting of the news?
Did Paul’s escape from Damasus through a loophole refer to some persecution of him by the Qumran community, which he avoided by a legal technicality? Was Aretas a standin for James or some other authority, or a character in a joke that is now lost to us?
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04-06-2003, 03:15 PM
