Loading...This is my second post on the portrayal of Paul in the book of Acts. In the one previous I tried to show, briefly, how the account of Paul’s activities in Luke’s narrative do not gel well with what he says in his own letters. Here I address the question that was originally raised: his teachings. Do the things Paul says in Acts coincide with what he himself indicates? I won’t give a detailed discuss, but just look at one key passage. Again, this is drawn from my book The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.
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Paul’s Teaching.
Almost all of Paul’s evangelistic sermons mentioned in Acts are addressed to Jewish audiences. This itself should strike us as odd given Paul’s repeated claim that his mission was to the Gentiles. In any event, the most famous exception is his speech to a group of philosophers on the Areopagus in Athens (chap. 17). In this speech, Paul explains that the Jewish God is in fact the God of all, pagan and Jew alike, even though the pagans have been ignorant of him. Paul’s understanding of pagan polytheism is reasonably clear here: pagans have simply not known that there is only one God, the Creator of all, and thus cannot be held accountable for failing to worship him. Since they have been ignorant of the true God, rather than willfully disobedient to him, he has overlooked their false religions until now. With the coming of Jesus, however, he is calling all people to repent in preparation for the coming judgment (Acts 17:23–31).
This perspective contrasts sharply with the views about pagan idolatry that Paul …
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Look at the pattern of Paul’s preachings.
His habit is to go from place to place and preach in synagogues on the Sabbath. Naturally, Jews are present. But in many if not all cases, GENTILE GREEKS are present too.
In Acts 13:14-15, 42-43, Paul went to a synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia, and preached there to Jews AND GENTILES (Verse 42; they’d stayed behind after the Jews had left), and to “many of the Jews and religious proselytes…”
WHO are these “religious proselytes”? They CAN’T be Jews; else they’d have been identified as “Jews.” And they CAN’T be Gentile converts to Christianity either, because they’d never heard of Christianity until that very day when Paul visited them for the first time.
Answer: They could ONLY have been proselytes (converts) to the 7 Laws of the Sons of Noah, a kind of secondary-level of conversion to Judaism which doesn’t require circumcision or Sabbath observance or dietary restrictions.
Acts 14:1 says that Paul preached at a synagogue in Iconium to both Jews and “Greeks.”
Acts 17:1-2, 4,16-17 says that Paul then visited a synagogue in Thessalanica where there were both Jews and “devout Greeks” (which I infer means Noahide followers). Then Paul visits a synagogue in Athens where there also are Jews and “devout persons” — which I infer means, non-heathen followers of The one True God — Noahide converts.
Then Paul departed Athens and went to nearby Corinth (Acts 18) where there was yet ANOTHER synagogue filled with both Jews AND Greeks.
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Question: Acts makes it very clear that Jews were not supposed to mix with Gentiles. Acts 10:28: “And he (Peter) said unto them (Cornelius and his household), Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation…”
So then WHY did Jews so freely mingle with Greeks in all their synagogues? From the testimony of Acts, it seems that every synagogue, or almost every synagogue, was filled BOTH with Greeks and Jews.
Answer: Because the general Jewish prohibition against mingling with Gentiles applied ONLY to Gentiles who were heathens, pagans, idolators; THESE the Jews had to avoid like the plague!
But the Greeks in the synagogues were NOT heathens / idolators, etc. That is obvious, for they’d not have been tolerated if they had been.
The conclusion is inescapable:
Acts is giving testimony to the widespread following among non-Jews in that region to the Jewish concept of the 7 Laws of the Sons of Noah.
The question of whether Jews were allowed to mingle with Gentiles also comes up in the Matthew and Luke accounts of The Good Centurion.
Luke 7:2-7 reports that The Good Centurion was beloved of the local Jews because “he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue.”
But how could this be if Jews could not mingle with Gentiles?
The answer, as above, is this: Jews were not allowed to mingle with HEATHEN Gentiles. But WERE allowed to mingle with God-fearing Gentiles. And therefore, The Good Centurion MUST have been a “God-fearing” Gentile. For, “Gentile” he was, and remained; there is no indication in the story to suggest he’d converted to full-blown Judaism, including circumcision.
In the Talmud, “God-fearer” is a euphemism for a non-Jew who follows the 7 Laws of the Sons of Noah.
Professor, WHEN did Paul write his letters?
Since Paul never visited Rome on his missionary journeys, but only arrived there as a captive subsequently held under house arrest, he must have written Romans at this time.
What about the rest of his letters? Did he sort of write them on the fly, during or shortly after his visits to the places to whom the letters were addressed?
Or did Paul write ALL of his letters while he was being held under Roman house arrest?
Probably between 49-62 CE
> Probably between 49-62 CE
So 1 Thessalonians in ~49 and Romans in ~62?
Is it possible to determine (or guess) the temporal ordering of the other five undisputed Pauline letters?
Yup. After htat it’s a bit of crap shoot, except that 1 Cor came before 2 Cor. I think the canonical order might in fact be right the rest of the way.
What is needed now to verify the critic’s claims to be able distinguish among authors and their writing styles from 2,000 years ago, must include samples from various authors with different backgrounds, temperaments and motivations and from a time span of over roughly 1,500 years. Experts in literary, historical and textual criticism will identify say each of 4 writers based on 20 samples of their work, or something along those lines. The winner will have the most correct picks.
Bart, is there currently any competition like this anywhere?
Nope. We don’t have 20 samples for … hardly anyone. (Obvious exceptions: Galen; Cicero; Origen; etc. But they are few and far between. Think Paul. 7!)
Even better. Take just 2 or 3 or 4 samples and see how it goes. At times I question the accuracy of critics who interpret the N.T. and it seems there is no way to judge how close they come to pinpointing the truth. I find many theories are built more on subjective opinion than rather than hard facts much of the time which is fine. Except, opinions have a tendency to morph into facts and then more opinions emerge from those “facts” and before you know it, a new “gospel” is created that has very little to do with what is preserved from thousands of years ago. This new gospel may not be at all what was intended originally but it sort of takes on a life of its own and suddenly has more credibility than it may warrant. It may be spot on, too. But, how do we know? We can’t ever know I guess with total certainty, so let’s at least devise a system to test them under controlled circumstances.
I believe a measure of subjectivity is important as well at times. Taken together, for example, the N.T.books portray people terribly serious about its central theme: Christ’s sinless life, his execution and resurrection and harsh even deadly opposition to that proposal. The enthusiasm and joy and delight of the writers pours off the pages. The writers seem like salt of the earth, normal folks filled with questions, egos, ambitions, fears and longings, just like we are. These things lend credibility to what has been handed down to us.
Yes, that’s how we go about deciding if Paul wrote some of the letters attributed to him, by seeing if they are compatible with the ones we think he did write, in definable ways (measures of writing style, e.g.: levels of subordination, use of particular conjunctions; functions of participles; and so on, as one set of tests)
Scholars have suggested Paul probably wrote 200-300 letters and we have only 7. If that is indeed the case, only a minority would have been written while he was under house arrest
I hadn’t thought of that, but I’m sure you’re right. Paul must have written many more than just the 7 letters we have; mostly they didn’t survive. And why would they survive? I can’t imagine Paul made his own copies for his own archives. And the people receiving the letters would have had no notion to save them to be included in a scripture compiled in the remote distant future.
I find your description of henotheists in your latest book to be very credible. Recent research into the source of human consciousness very logically leads back to an “ultimate deity.” As Rudolf Otto in The Idea of the Holy (Das Heilige) writes of the numinous, “Desiring to give it a name of its own, I propose to call it a ‘creature-consciousness’ or creature-feeling. It is the emotion of a creature, submerged and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all creatures.”
Human beings have taken many twists and turns in response to this numinous, this sense of the “ultimate,” but it has existed as long as human consciousness itself. It would certainly have helped Paul in his missionary work and in the spread of Christianity.
Speaking of Paul….what’s your take on Romans 13 and its recent invocation in the context of illegal immigrants? And what was the historical Paul trying to accomplish here?
I think Paul wanted Christians to give authorities no reason to persecute them for social aberrance.
True. In Paul’s world, Jews were under great suspicion for constantly being on the edge of major revolt, which indeed happened in 66-73.
The new Christian sect was viewed by Romans with deep suspicion as another form of Judaism. The Jewish roots of course are obvious.
So Paul might VERY understandably write things in his letters which he could hope would allay Roman suspicions about whether the new sect was a civil danger.
I’m always struck by the discrepancy between the way Paul is portrayed in the Book of Acts and the way he portrays himself in his letters (the ones he actually wrote, at least). In Acts, he’s described as a miracle worker. Even his handkerchiefs were supposed to have miraculous powers! Yet in his letters, Paul often is dealing with some pretty mundane matters (eg, early arrivals at the Lord’s Supper snarfing up all the food). Why would a miraculous guy have to bother himself with such issues? Couldn’t he just send his churches some old hankies? I’ve long wondered how Christians reconcile this. Do they even notice it?
Yup, some big differences. But Paul does talk in several places about all the miracles he has done — e.g., 2 Cor. 12:12. Hard to know *what* he’s talking about!
He made tents, too. He was viciously beaten multiple times. Someone said the greatest among you shall be the least.
“It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” He was conscious of the agony about to begin and this is what the record shows:
3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
Some unbelievers respond to God’s vengeance. Some respond to His kindness and gentleness. All of us are “sinners”. Some are more deeply entrenched in carnal sins. Some are better at manipulating and being cunning. Some just don’t care. We can be a mixture, too. And there’s many more ways to categorize non-believers. Paul was addressing his topic in a particular way in each circumstance, totally consistent, and indicative of his desire to reach everyone he could with the story of redemption.
What stands out the most to me, what is most remarkable about this guy, is how he ached for people to find God. He could have been successful at most anything, but his whole life revolved around reaching others for Christ.
It’s interesting that there are written accounts that differ from what Paul says about himself and accounts from Paul trying to correct what people say even during his lifetime. Given the problems with forgery and textual corruption you have discussed, were there efforts by ancient people to try to address the problem? I suppose it was probably impossible to prevent, but am wondering if anyone tried and developed ways with any degree of success.
So I just returned from a trip to Greece (among other places), where I walked around the Acropolis and Areopagus of Athens and the ancient ruins of Corinth. Given the relative dependability of Acts, do you think I walked where Paul walked?
He was certainly there! He says so himself. He is placed on the Areopagus, of course, only in Acts. I don’t know if he was there. But he certainly would have been in the agora and on the Acropolis.
I’m curious, do you play chess?
Nope, not since I was a kid.
Dr. Ehrman,
Do any scholars, besides conservatives, conclude that Acts must have been written before the death of Paul? I know this is a popular conclusion among conservatives, but how about moderate and liberal scholars?
Thanks
No, not really. The current trend is to date it much later, to the 120s or so.
For the scholars who date Acts to the 120’s, what is the date range they assign to Luke’s gospel? Is there a tendency to date the gospel later as well?
Yup, it totally depends if you think it’s the same author. If so, then 120s!
Are you saying that Luke was written around 75AD and the same author then wrote Acts 50 years later?
I don’t think so myself — I continue to date Luke-Acts to teh 80s. But if I did think Acts was from the 120s, that’s when I would put Luke as well.
Dr. Ehrman
regardless of the distinction between liberals, moderates or conservatives, can one say that the majority of scholars are still on a date for Luke-Acts between ’80 and ’90?
ps. sorry for my English, I’m Italian
It’s hard to say what hte majority thinks today. Most Luke-Acts scholars I know personally seem to lean to the 120s, even though I’ve never been fully convinced myself.
Yes, I remember reading your comment in this blog in 2013 where you said that according to you the best evidence is in support of the ’80s
Dr. Ehrman,
I found both of these posts very informative and helpful with some questions and debates I’ve often had about Paul versus the Jerusalem Church/Council versus New Testament reliability and/or being too abbreviated (amputated?). But I realize myself and modern critical-analysis are quite anachronistic, too say the least! HAH! I feel this should be kept in mind when examining the canonical New Testament — and I prefer to call it the Hellenistic-Christological canon.
Finally, and I’ve asked this of you before, I sure do wish we could know WHY the New Testament chroniclers thought it necessary to say Paul went to Arabia for 3-years. Why Arabia? Why for 3 long years? What was there that was so important for Paul and for the NT chroniclers to even mention it, VAGUELY (in passing) mention it? What purpose did that serve!?
And perhaps on a minor note… why are the NT chroniclers not the least bit concerned with not only 3-years in Arabia, but much worse… according to the Gospels 17-years of a complete 180-degree turnaround (after age 12) of total public silence and anonimity of suddenly anti hyper-Jewish Messianic fervor, of their “King/Savior” of not just the redeliverance of the earthly Kingdom of God in Israel but also the Christ-Savior of the entire world, Universe, and Cosmos… and none of this is headline news, no one cares that this phenomenal Nazoraean Messiah-Christ-boy has vanished(?)! It means nothing! And Roman authorities and spys never find him, never hear anything more about him, or just get bored with it all. Hahahaha! BIZARRE!!! Astonishing to me really, when I was a Christian therapist, missionary, deacon, and on fire for Paul’s Christ. Now I am a very happy deconvert which allowed me to shed all my bias and blindness and find much more truth and reality… thank the stars & galaxies! (wink)
Actually it isn’t NT chroniclers who say this. It’s Paul himself (Galatians 1). The only reason he says it is because he’s giving the history of what happened to him after his conversion. “Arabia” here does not refer to the desert, but almost certainly the Nabatean Kingdom. He may have gone there in order to start his gentile mission. Not sure why he chose there in particular. Three years: no reason for that really; it doesn’t seem symbolic. It’s just how long he was there.
It seems to me that Paul is trying to make an excuse for why he was in the neighborhood of Jerusalem but not in Jerusalem itself. If he was anywhere near Judea, he could be accused of getting his information from the Jerusalem assembly — and the point he’s trying to make in Galatians 1 is that he received his knowledge about Jesus from the resurrected Jesus himself, not from the other apostles.
So where could Paul have gone to assure his listeners (readers) that he most definitely did not get his knowledge from the Jerusalem assembly? He could have gone to Nabatea, where the Christians had yet to set up shop. Then he immediately returned to Damascus, where the early Christian movement did begin to develop, and — more significantly — where Paul actually did learn much about Christianity! (Acts 9:10-25). And only after then did Paul go to Jerusalem. In other words, Paul is trying to set up a scenario of plausible deniability. He’s purposely dilating time in order to make it look like he was somehow special, that he was gifted with a special knowledge before contact with the Church. When, in fact, he had been in contact with other Christians for most of those years leading up to his journey to Jerusalem (which also reconciles Paul’s account with the account in Acts).
Did Paul get his Christian ideas from other Christians? Absolutely, he did. Is Paul lying in Galatians 1? Yes and no. Paul is probably not lying that he went to Nabatea. But he is lying by omission. He does not say how long he was in Nabatea. He simply says that the time he spent there and in Damascus was a combined three years. As far as we know, he could have been in Nabatea for only three weeks and spent the remainder of the three years in Damascus. So Paul is mincing words so as to lie without lying. He’s playing word games. He’s bulls**ting. As usual.
A bit of a random idea, but didn’t the Nabatean realm overlap the former Midian? Like where Moses was supposed to have been for a while and where Yahweh might have originated. But who knows what was in Paul’s head, even if he actually did go to “Arabia”?
Now THAT is an interesting idea. Never thought of it. Could have some real possibilities….
NT Wright develops a similar idea in “Paul, Arabia, and Elijah (Galatians 1:17)” in Journal of Biblical Literature vol. 115, 683–692.
Ah! Thanks.
Thank you! The paper is at
http://ntwrightpage.com/files/2016/05/Wright_Paul_Arabia_Elijah.pdf
Thank you. And you’re right about Galatians, not chroniclers — was thinking Gospels when I typed that. Apologies.
Well, then I sure do wish to know why Paul felt no need to elaborate as to why he had to go down there for that long. His mention of it, to me personally, seems a waste of valuable ink, papyrus and everyone’s time! Superflous and distracting, diversionary! Puzzling to me. My gut/instincts tell me there must/might be something more behind it all, otherwise, why bother even mentioning it!? Am I missing something with the Nabatean Kingdom connection perhaps?
Thanks again Dr. Ehrman for all your hardwork!
This isn’t directly related to Paul’s teachings in Acts so much, but Peter’s. I have heard some people say that in speeches in Acts given by Peter (like in Acts 2) there are Aramaisms in the text which indicate that the author of Luke-Acts is in contact with early Aramaic traditions. Is there any truth to this? Thanks.
There certainly are ways of expressing and tehological views that look like they could go back to Aramaic speaking sources, but Aramaisms? I’m not sure! Maybe someone else on the blog knows.
Dr. Ehrman, let me ask you a relevant probing question. In Peter’s speech in Acts 2 he quotes a lot of scripture. Do his quotations sound like they’re lifted from the LXX or from a semitic source (original Hebrew or Aramaic targum)? Seeing as how it’s highly unlikely the historical Peter would have quoted the LXX, that might answer the question above.
Without checking I’d say definitely LXX (or a related Greek text); but I’m out of town and don’t have either my MT or LXX here. If it were based on a Hebrew text or Aramaic translation, I’m sure I would have heard about that! Do you have a theory?
The most comprehensive (and most recent) background treatment of this question can be found in Albert Hogeterp, Adelbert Denaux. Semitisms in Luke’s Greek: A Descriptive Analysis of Lexical and Syntactical Domains of Semitic Language Influence in Luke’s Gospel. Mohr Siebeck, Apr 23, 2018, 684 pages. And yesterday was Adelbert’s birthday so it deserves an extra special recommendation!
I think the question was about Acts. Do they deal with that?
No, that’s why I say this book is important background material. One needs a systematic look at Luke’s style, his use of the LXX, and all the various different forms of proposed semiticisms, Hebraisms, Aramaicisms, before one can answer a question like this. So much of what is claimed about reconstruction of supposedly semitic sources is unsystematic wishful thinking.
Would Paul’s quoted statements in Acts be the most positive statements in all of the Bible about people with the wrong beliefs? Saying they have made a good faith mistake seems more positive than the denigration of anyone who belies differently from the author which seems much more typical of the biblical texts.
Yes, I suppose it is!
“Almost all of Paul’s evangelistic sermons mentioned in Acts are addressed to Jewish audiences. This itself should strike us as odd given Paul’s repeated claim that his mission was to the Gentiles.”
Paul preached to everyone willing to listen.
“even though the pagans have been ignorant of him.”
some pagans
Is there any sense about why we don’t have any writings of Paul from the time he converted, about 36CE, to the time of his first preserved writings (49CE)? Did he not have anything to say yet? Maybe the recipients didn’t think letters during that time were worth saving? FedEx didn’t have service yet to the Eastern Mediterranean?
I have no idea! Even though I’ve wondered about it for years.
Perhaps he was not yet significant enough that anybody thought his letters – assuming he yet had anything to write about – were worth keeping.
There certainly would have been a ramp-up period / learning curve of some sort; he didn’t instantly arrive in Damascus as a recognized leader in the church. That process – as it does for any developing leader – takes time. Maybe it took 6 months. Maybe it took a decade.
In IICor. 8:9, Paul writes, “you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” (NRSV). Does Paul acknowledge anywhere in his letters that Jesus was born into poverty? Could he have thought or been told that Jesus came from a wealthy family and renounced his wealth?
P.S. This is my first comment of the day: does your system count from the last 24 hours, rather than midnight?
I think it’s within any 24-hour day.
Any thoughts on Paul and Jesus’s poor beginnings?
Jesus was definitely impoverished. Paul’s an interesting question. He is well educated. Did he come from money?
Jesus was definitely impoverished, but did Paul definitely know that, was my question.
He never talks about it, so there’s no way to know.
Dr Ehrman,
if the Gospel of Luke had been written around 120 AD would this make him the last Gospel? Or would it mean that John was written even later (why?) ?
Thank you!!
It would mean that it was written later than John
Dr. Ehrman,
Do you accept as historical the martyrdoms of Stephen and James son of Zebadee?
Also, do you think the author of Acts adds colorful embellishments to Paul’s encounter with the risen Jesus? Do you agree that in his own writings the encounter seems more straightfoward and sober?
There’s decent evidence for James; for Stephen we have only the account in Acts, so I’m not sure.
Dr. Ehrman,
Do you agree it is a mistake to try to link 1 Cor. 15:6 with Acts 2?
Those listed in 1 Cor. 15:5-8 were convinced they saw the resurrected Jesus himself with their eyes, and it was NOT some situation where they were just hanging around speaking in tongues
Do you agree?
Yes, they are completely different groups with completely different experiences.
Dr. Ehrman,
Do you agree with this?:
“Paul and some others genuinely believed they saw the actual raised Jesus in an embodied state; the real, physical, objective Jesus after Jesus’ death. THEY did NOT think of it as a vision.”
Depends what you mean by “vision.”
Dr. Ehrman:
Paul at least THINKS he can draw a distinction between objective, which is how he thinks he encountered the risen Jesus in 1 Cor., which are never noted as visions, and what he acknowledges specifically as a “vision” in 2 Cor. 12. Do you agree? (Again, we’re talking about what Paul thought. So in other words all I’m really asking is do you think Paul at least had some sense that while the risen Jesus that appeared to him could be seen by many at once, his personal vision of the third heaven could not)
No, I disagree. He thinks the vision he had in 2 Cor. 12 was an actual thing he was seeing, not something he was simply imagining.
Dr. Ehrman:
Wow, then these people must have been very deluded. You mean Paul thinks if someone were standing right next to him at the time of the 2 Cor. 12 vision, they’d be able to share in that with him?
No, it was a vision given to *him*. I’m not saying he was deluded. But he really thought he saw those things. Believers would say he did. My view is that something else was going on, possibly physiological or psychological or both.
Dr. Ehrman:
There was a difference between 1 Cor. when Paul was convinced he saw the bodily resurrected Jesus make an appearance here on Earth, which he must have thought was objective and external in the truest sense since this was the same Jesus who presumably appeared to 500 at once and so forth VS. a vision that supposedly was disclosed just for private purposes only…i.e. how about something like this: “an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads.” …do you agree? Surely they must have had SOME kind of sense between things they thought they saw while in the course of everyday life (Jesus’ resurrection appearances) VS. something like “7 headed dragon visions,” and so forth, correct? I hope you understand this question because I think it’s key in many ways. So i.e. if Paul and the apostles could’ve JUST AS EASILY been preaching this: “… the enormous 7 headed red dragon was raised…he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. After that, the enormous red dragon appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time…and last of all he appeared to me also.” Then they were certainly completely berserk. It would be as bad as a case where even they themselves would have to admit they don’t know the difference between walking down the street and having a vision of walking down the street.
No, I don’t agree. We today differentiate between “visions” and “reality” — but most ancient people didn’t do that. Visions were just a different way to access reality.
Dr. Ehrman:
(Revised)
Do you agree?
Paul and some others genuinely believed they saw the actual raised Jesus in an embodied state; the real, physical, objective Jesus after Jesus’ death. THEY did NOT think of it as a “vision.” Meaning there was a difference to them between these experiences seeing the resurrected Jesus which they believed to be in plain, ordinary view VS. the experiences noted in places like Rev. or Acts 10, or 2 Cor. 12 where the people seem to know they are in a trance, seeing a vision, or in the Spirit.
No. I don’t think people differentiated between trance-visions and non-trance-visions like this in antiquity. They didn’t even differentiate between dreams and visions. (I have a PhD student who demonstrated this in his dissertation)
Dr. Ehrman:
Do you agree?
“Paul’s reference to the resurrected body as a “spiritual” body (1 Corinthians 15:44) has been understood by some as referring to the resurrection of the spirit and not to the physical body. By reminder, soma is again the word used here for “body,” so Paul is referring here to a spiritual physical body. No, this is not a contradiction in terms. For example, would we call the apostle Paul a “spiritual” man? Would we say the Bible is a “spiritual” book? Yes, they are spiritual on both accounts, despite the fact that the Bible and Paul are physical. When Paul describes the body as “spiritual,” he is not referring to the substance of the resurrection body (since it is undoubtedly physical as noted by the word soma). Rather, he is referring to the spiritual source of the physical resurrected body. In other words, our glorified body will be a spirit dominated body, driven by the Holy Spirit and not our flesh or fallen human desires.”
No, I don’t. He *is* referring to the substance. SOMA is not a substance. It can be made of a variety of substances, e.g., Flesh; Soul; Spirit; Air; etc…. For Paul, Jesus’ physical body died and then was transformed into a body made of pneuma/spirit.
Dr. Ehrman,
So when you say “For Paul, Jesus’ physical body died and then was transformed into a body made of pneuma/spirit” Is pneuma still something of physical substance? Because I read where it merely means “Wind.”
Yes, it wsa a kind of matter, much more highly refined (signficiantly smaller particles) than what makes up the course physical stuff we normally encounter when dealing with bodies, trees, or tables.
Dr. Ehrman:
Is the resurrected body composed of spirit OR is that just what animates it? i.e. someone wrote this: Thus, in Paul’s terminology, “. . . the spiritual body (soma pneumatikon) of the believer is to be understood NOT as one which consists of spirit (pneuma), but as one which is controlled by the Holy Spirit (Pneuma).”
Perhaps you disagree, but if so, how can Paul be overjoyed at a body composed of “fine matter” if that’s what it is, then that’s what it is, but it just seems really weak, almost like being a ghost, don’t you think?
It’s not weaker but stronger. Pneuma is imperishable.
Dr. Ehrman,
Was it a prerequisite to become an apostle that the person had to be a witness to the resurrected Jesus? In 1 Cor. 15:7 the appearance to “all the apostles” do you think they were apostles before or after the appearance? i.e. Paul became one after.
apparently so.
Dr. Ehrman:
In re 1 Cor. 15:7, the appearance to “all the apostles” Do you think they became apostles before or after the appearance?
There was a time when I thought they were already apostles, BUT now the notion that they became apostles after this appearance seems to make more sense, what do you think?
Thanks
Good question. Don’t know.
Dr. Ehrman:
In 1 Cor. 15:6 is the more accurate translation “brothers and sisters” or just “brothers”? If just brothers, is this because men were considered more reliable witnesses?
The word used is masculine, “brothers.” But often that word means “men and women” both — just as people talk about “mankind” but also include “women” in the group. So it’s hard to know how best to translate the word.
Dr. Ehrman:
I know you think that the sightings of the resurrected Jesus were just visions. BUT to Jesus’ followers themselves, they believed it was a literal event, correct? Because Paul does, FOR EXAMPLE, seem to draw a DISTINCTION between Jesus’ appearance to him in 1 Cor. vs. a vision he had (and noted it as such) in 2 Cor. 12. So in other words, they at least thought they could distinguish between literal everyday life, and things like Paul notes in 2 Cor. 12 that were just visions, do you agree?
Yes, almost everyone who has a vision is convinced they are seeing something that is really there.
Dr. Ehrman:
Do you agree?
‘In the tradition (1 Cor. 15:3-7) we see that Paul is, among other things, interested in the order of the appearances. Paul’s note that ‘most of them are still alive’ (v. 6) is meant to provide further evidential support for Jesus’ resurrection. Anyone who is skeptical could find an ample number of witnesses to corroborate that they had seen Jesus alive. This shows that Paul did not think of the resurrection of Jesus as an ineffable truth beyond history; but rather an event that actually happened in the rather recent past. Paul insists that Jesus appeared to the witnesses, not that they saw Jesus. This is intended to underscore that the risen Jesus was not a construct of the witnesses’ imagination.’
No, I’m afraid it’s all too apologetic for my tastes. (Also: I don’t know who/what is being argued against. What is “an ineffable truth beyond history”???)
Dr. Ehrman:
Do you think it is likely that Acts, (written about a generation after Gal. per consensus dating, and not by a first-hand source) embellishes Paul’s encounter with the resurrected Jesus (much like what we see with ‘The Conversion of Saint Paul’ by Caravaggio)? Because it seems that in Paul’s own letters it is a more straightforward event.
Yes, it’s definitely embellished in Acts. I wouldn’t say Paul’s account is straightforward though; it’s highly elusive.
Dr. Ehrman,
Why do the apostles relocate to Jerusalem? Is it specifically because that’s the place where they believe Jesus will return?
That’s my guess, but we really don’t know for sure.
Dr. Ehrman:
1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
Can this be used as evidence that in contrast to Greek-Roman thought, Paul puts particular value on the body?
The “body” here appears not to mean the individual’s physical body but hte body of the Church, the church body, the body of Christ (not his personal body, but the people who are “in” him)
Dr. Ehrman,
Some talk about resurrection and exaltation like they are the exact same thing, but weren’t they different, and resurrection being specifically what made Jesus unique? Plus, Paul our best source in many ways, mentions ‘resurrection’ (not ‘exaltation’) innumerable times. Is there a difference? Did the gospel message include specifically resurrection?
The idea is that the earliest Christians thought that the resurrection involved being raised already up to heaven. Only later did the idea that he first came back to earth and then *ascended* to heaven appear (you have reference to the ascension only in Luke/Acts)
Dr. Ehrman:
So do I have this right? The earliest belief was that resurrection encompassed exaltation/ascension as well. But it was when they saw Jesus bodily here on Earth that counted as a resurrection appearance. Those times after his death when he wasn’t with them (i.e. after the resurrection appearances ceased, and presumably still today) he was/is in a state of exaltation/ascension with God.
No. The earliest idea was that in the resurrection appearance he was appearing on earth from heaven after his exaltation.
Dr. Ehrman,
When you say ‘from heaven’ you DO NOT mean Jesus appeared up in the sky somewhere, but that after he was exalted after his death, he materialized here on our grounded, earthly realm to make his resurrection appearances. Is this all correct?
Yes.
Dr. Ehrman:
Do you agree with this Sanders quote?
“[Paul was] able to attempt a description of the resurrection body…This seems to mean that he did not view his vision of Jesus as a dream-like apparition, nor as a bright light, but as a real appearance of the risen Lord.” ‘Paul: The Apostle’s Life, Letters and Thought’ by E. P. Sanders p. 101
Yup.
Dr. Ehrman:
Do you agree?
“The New Testament writings show us a variety of religious experiences, but behind them all is the first and fundamental experience, which found expression in this conviction: Jesus is raised from the dead. This is the one experience without which there would be no Christian movement and therefore nothing to explain or interpret.” ‘The Writings of the New Testament: 3rd Ed.’ by Luke Timothy Johnson p. 97-98
Yup, pretty much.
Dr. Ehrman,
Do you agree?
“Paul insists that what he saw was the Lord in his risen body 1 Cor 9:1, not some spiritual flash of light [as in] Acts 9:3-8.” ‘Understanding the New Testament and Its Message’ p. 221 1998, by Vincent P. Branick
Yes.
Is there a good resource fully covering this idea? It seems, at least, there’s actually congruity between Acts and Romans where the latter mentions God passing over former sins (3:25). So I’d like to see how this position is fully argued.
Nothing comes to mind as an entire book devoted to the question — but possibly others have a suggestion. Most books that discuss the life of Paul cover it; I deal with it in my textbook on Paul (the chapters on Acts and teh first chapter on Paul); there’s a classic essay by Vielhauer, in Leander Keck and J. Lousis Martin, Studies in Luke-Acts, called “Paulinisms of Acts (pp. 35-50) that is an excellent place to start.