Just looking at a map and making a very crude estimate, the old city of Jerusalem looks to be about one square kilometer inside the city walls. Look at this Wikipedia list of cities by population density per square kilometer. Old Jerusalem was bound to be somewhere within this range.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Lawyerskeptic said
Just looking at a map and making a very crude estimate, the old city of Jerusalem looks to be about one square kilometer inside the city walls. Look at this Wikipedia list of cities by population density per square kilometer. Old Jerusalem was bound to be somewhere within this range.** you do not have permission to see this link **
Afraid I’m a bit dense ( Is that a pun?) when it comes to demographics. So maybe 25,000 inside the walls?
I found this “A high, thick, gray stone wall encircled Jerusalem. It had been damaged, repaired and enlarged over the centuries, and in Jesus’ day it was about 4 miles in circumference, bringing about 25,000 people into an area about a square mile.”
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Of interest here is, “During these [feast] times the enormous crowd of pilgrims into the Holy City inflated its population of 25,000 to at least four or five times that number.”
So the first question is one could walk the streets anonymously in a city of 25,000, but more importantly, whether this could be the case within a population swelled to 4 or 5 times its normal size. You might also add in this is a time before BOLO photos etc and consider that you would need to be spotted by someone who could recognize you. Off hand, it sounds like it would be very easy.
Unless one thinks the disciples were as well known as the bible intimates. Also consider that, based on the biblical account, These men may have been in Jerusalem as few as one and as many as three times ( at least if your thinking in terms of Passover) and just for funsies, I live in a town that according to 2015-16 demographic numbers is just under 2,000) yet I rarely see anyone I know when running errands in town. This with a sister who lives about 10 minutes from me and we have both lived in town for more than 20 years. This may be an artifact of modern habits, work schedules etc.
spiker said
LS:
A bit off topic, but what do you think of the idea that Luke’s work is a legal brief for Paul’s trial. Is this just clever speculation or
is there actually some substance to the idea?
Hardly. It is clear that the author of Acts knew that Paul was dead when at the time of writing.
Greg Matthews said
spiker said
G:“What must Peter have thought when Paul first came to him?”
If Paul had disappeared into Arabia for 3 years, is it likely he started out corresponding with Peter in some way before hand.
He must have had a good idea of how Christians would greet him. I can’t imagine him just showing up at Peter’s front door.
My impression is Peter would have been, at least, somewhat suspcious.
The program presents Saul as seeking out Peter for prosecution before his conversion. He stalks Peter’s daughter through the streets of Jerusalem and storms into their home uninvited demanding to see Peter to arrest him. He has a gang of men searching for Peter through the streets of Jerusalem day and night. Finally, after his conversion he immediately seeks out Paul to tell him what has happened. Soon after Paul’s own men seek out Paul to arrest him.
Not saying it happened, or anything close to it, but this seems as plausible as anything else in my opinion.
Highly problematic. Such a speculation is extrapolated from Acts, which runs counter to Paul’s own statement in Gal 1:21-22 , “Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia;And was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in Christ”(KJV)
spiker said
Lawyerskeptic said
Just looking at a map and making a very crude estimate, the old city of Jerusalem looks to be about one square kilometer inside the city walls. Look at this Wikipedia list of cities by population density per square kilometer. Old Jerusalem was bound to be somewhere within this range.
** you do not have permission to see this link **Afraid I’m a bit dense ( Is that a pun?) when it comes to demographics. So maybe 25,000 inside the walls?
I found this “A high, thick, gray stone wall encircled Jerusalem. It had been damaged, repaired and enlarged over the centuries, and in Jesus’ day it was about 4 miles in circumference, bringing about 25,000 people into an area about a square mile.”
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Of interest here is, “During these [feast] times the enormous crowd of pilgrims into the Holy City inflated its population of 25,000 to at least four or five times that number.”
So the first question is one could walk the streets anonymously in a city of 25,000, but more importantly, whether this could be the case within a population swelled to 4 or 5 times its normal size. You might also add in this is a time before BOLO photos etc and consider that you would need to be spotted by someone who could recognize you. Off hand, it sounds like it would be very easy.
Unless one thinks the disciples were as well known as the bible intimates. Also consider that, based on the biblical account, These men may have been in Jerusalem as few as one and as many as three times ( at least if your thinking in terms of Passover) and just for funsies, I live in a town that according to 2015-16 demographic numbers is just under 2,000) yet I rarely see anyone I know when running errands in town. This with a sister who lives about 10 minutes from me and we have both lived in town for more than 20 years. This may be an artifact of modern habits, work schedules etc.
Jerusalem was .9 square kilometers or .35 square mile within the walls of the old city, and that includes the Temple. ** you do not have permission to see this link **. According to the Bible, Peter couldn’t go to the courtyard near Jesus’ trial without being recognized by a servant girl and spotted as a Galilean, possibly by his accent. Then after the crucifixion, Peter, John and James the Just were in charge of the Jerusalem church for years. It seems unlikely to me these three Galileans could have stayed in such a small area for so long with nobody noticing. To me, this is one reason, and not even the best reason, to disbelieve the Hollywood portrayal of persecution in which the powers that be worked ceaselessly with Nazi-esque zeal to kill every Christian.
gavriel said
Greg Matthews said
The program presents Saul as seeking out Peter for prosecution before his conversion. He stalks Peter’s daughter through the streets of Jerusalem and storms into their home uninvited demanding to see Peter to arrest him. He has a gang of men searching for Peter through the streets of Jerusalem day and night. Finally, after his conversion he immediately seeks out Paul to tell him what has happened. Soon after Paul’s own men seek out Paul to arrest him.
Not saying it happened, or anything close to it, but this seems as plausible as anything else in my opinion.
Highly problematic. Such a speculation is extrapolated from Acts, which runs counter to Paul’s own statement in Gal 1:21-22 , “Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia;And was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in Christ”(KJV)
Of course, but this is a TV show 
It’s practically impossible to get scholars to speculate and at the other end Hollywood glamorizes everything to the point where what they speculate isn’t really recognizable as being likely at all. I didn’t watch all the episodes of this series, but what I saw seemed natural and not too “over the top Hollywood”.
Acts gives plenty of story. Galatians gives a few chapters. Which were the writers of the series more likely to draw from? Which book has the most recognizable stories? Which mentions historical figures and places in virtually every chapter? Who are the Hollywood writers more likely to use for their experts to help flesh out the series? Theologians or agnostics like Bart? The whole thing speaks for itself.
WE might know the difference, but the audience in general doesn’t.
Like I said, I wasn’t suggesting anything close to the show happened, I just found it refreshing that Hollywood would speculate without going overboard.
gavriel said
Hardly. It is clear that the author of Acts knew that Paul was dead when at the time of writing.
Clear? based on What, Gav?
We can’t just rely on dating of the book, because we have no idea who the author was or what he knew.
Are you relying on the assumption that the Author was Luke and that Luke knew Paul?
Lawyerskeptic said
Jerusalem was .9 square kilometers or .35 square mile within the walls of the old city, and that includes the Temple. ** you do not have permission to see this link **. According to the Bible, Peter couldn’t go to the courtyard near Jesus’ trial without being recognized by a servant girl and spotted as a Galilean, possibly by his accent. Then after the crucifixion, Peter, John and James the Just were in charge of the Jerusalem church for years. It seems unlikely to me these three Galileans could have stayed in such a small area for so long with nobody noticing. To me, this is one reason, and not even the best reason, to disbelieve the Hollywood portrayal of persecution in which the powers that be worked ceaselessly with Nazi-esque zeal to kill every Christian.
Ok so you agree, I assume on the population size? Do you also accept the numbers (4 to 5 times that size during Passover for example?)
There is an argument to be made based on the biblical account; however, there’s also the question of historicity. For our purposes, we want to set aside biblical accounts in favor of historical realities. However, your argument seems to assume that the disciples would be the only Galilean’s in the city during passover. Second, the point about “Peter, John and James the Just were in charge of the Jerusalem church for years” confuses your argument about whether they could hide from soldiers immediately after the crucifixion (that is, before their role as church leaders) and what there standing may have been much later. Similarly, since the Hollywood account is more likely entertainment than history, we would have to take its details with a grain of salt.
In short, I am not sure why we should take the account of Peter being recognized as a true story. If the disciples fled Jerusalem as many believe, the story about his being just outside during the trial could be an effort to rehabilitate him.
spiker said
gavriel said
Hardly. It is clear that the author of Acts knew that Paul was dead when at the time of writing.
Clear? based on What, Gav?
We can’t just rely on dating of the book, because we have no idea who the author was or what he knew.
Are you relying on the assumption that the Author was Luke and that Luke knew Paul?
Whoever wrote it, knew that Paul was dead at the time of writing. You need to read it to see that. Unless you believe that the author had prophetic gifts, enabling him to see into the future.
Whoever wrote it, knew that Paul was dead at the time of writing. You need to read it to see that. Unless you believe that the author had prophetic gifts, enabling him to see into the future.
gavriel said
Whoever wrote it, knew that Paul was dead at the time of writing. You need to read it to see that. Unless you believe that the author had prophetic gifts, enabling him to see into the future.
Prophetic gifts!?
What does that have to do with whether an unknown person would know ANYTHING about Paul?
I don’t see where the author concedes Paul died. Is this Maryhelena?
but getting back to the legal brief theory. This was already resolved by our resident attorney. Second, even if Acts makes it obvious that Paul is dead this doesn’t mean it was written entirely after his death. In theory, the author could have composed a legal brief and after Paul’s death simply added more information and decided to publish it.
spiker said
Prophetic gifts!?
What does that have to do with whether an unknown person would know ANYTHING about Paul?
I don’t see where the author concedes Paul died. Is this Maryhelena?
but getting back to the legal brief theory. This was already resolved by our resident attorney. Second, even if Acts makes it obvious that Paul is dead this doesn’t mean it was written entirely after his death. In theory, the author could have composed a legal brief and after Paul’s death simply added more information and decided to publish it.
All sorts of things can be imagined that fits in with the facts in some way, by assuming un-documented contexts – a favorite mythicist and fundamentalist method. The simplest explanation is that Acts is written long after the events, because:
There are numerous discrepancies between what Paul himself says and what Acts says, unexpected by a close and contemporary observer of Paul. There are obvious hints at Paul’s forthcoming death. The work is a “harmonization” attempt to unite the earliest Petrine movement with that of Paul, and thematically, it should end with Paul’s death. His death is not described, only hinted at, probably because it was “politically incorrect” in some way- because Luke, the author, did not not want to evoke anti-roman sentiments. After all, he links the birth of Jesus to a “universal” Roman census, thus seating him firmly in a universal/Roman perspective. It fits in with the Roman-appeasing tendencies of the Gospel writers equal to that of the exoneration of Pilate. Finally it is hard to rock the conclusion that Luke is the author, writing Acts after proto-gLuke which most likely was written some time in the 80’ties.
spiker said
but getting back to the legal brief theory. This was already resolved by our resident attorney. Second, even if Acts makes it obvious that Paul is dead this doesn’t mean it was written entirely after his death. In theory, the author could have composed a legal brief and after Paul’s death simply added more information and decided to publish it.
I think you exaggerate my powers if you think I have “resolved” anything about the Bible. I thank you again for bringing the book “Paul on Trial” to my attention, and it is certainly not your fault that it is so worthless. Just yesterday, I finished reading about as much as I was able to read before dying of pure boredom. I will not try to give you a detailed critique of the book because it is really hard to find anything sufficiently interesting to comment upon. Let one example suffice. In his summary on page 233, Mauck, the author, says:
“The accounts of Paul’s trials before Felix and Festus reveal procedural irregularities and violations which would have been apparent to the official knowledgeable in Roman law. Because Luke mentions them without elaboration, it is reasonable to conclude that Luke believed his reader to be legally sophisticated.”
In other words, we know that Acts is an appellate brief because it does NOT point out legal errors in the trial court. How is that a reasonable assumption? Moreover, when I read Mauck’s description of the trials before Felix and Festus he does not identify the procedural irregularities he relies upon in his summary. I give up. I see no point in spending more time trying to understand this book.
Also, he never addresses the original point that I made before ever reading the book. Acts does not ask for any legal relief. There is no place where it says anything remotely like “Please let Paul go.” I cannot conceive of how any lawyer could fail to notice that Acts lacks the most basic element of a modern legal brief, and yet Mauck never comments on why Acts has no “prayer” for legal relief. In my experience, when a lawyer says nothing about an important issue, it means that he knows the law is against him on that point.
About me being our resident lawyer, when I first joined the blog and selected the username “lawyerskeptic”, I did think one way or the other about whether the username would be used in communications like the members forum. I did not mean to present myself as the authority of all things legal. However, I have come to see my legal expertise, such as it is, as one way I can contribute even though my knowledge of the New Testament is far inferior to many others in the forum.
spiker said
Ok so you agree, I assume on the population size? Do you also accept the numbers (4 to 5 times that size during Passover for example?)
There is an argument to be made based on the biblical account; however, there’s also the question of historicity. For our purposes, we want to set aside biblical accounts in favor of historical realities. However, your argument seems to assume that the disciples would be the only Galilean’s in the city during passover. Second, the point about “Peter, John and James the Just were in charge of the Jerusalem church for years” confuses your argument about whether they could hide from soldiers immediately after the crucifixion (that is, before their role as church leaders) and what there standing may have been much later. Similarly, since the Hollywood account is more likely entertainment than history, we would have to take its details with a grain of salt.
In short, I am not sure why we should take the account of Peter being recognized as a true story. If the disciples fled Jerusalem as many believe, the story about his being just outside during the trial could be an effort to rehabilitate him.
All I’m saying about population sizes that it must’ve fit inside the city walls. 30,000 seems about right to me, but it could have been more or less. I have no idea whether the Passover crowds were all inside the city or camped outside the walls. Based on your comments, I have grown to care less about the population because I think I can make my point with the more precise information about the size of the city.
I did not mean to focus on the time immediately after the crucifixion. According to Acts, great persecution began after the stoning of Stephen, and I don’t see that Acts says exactly how long it lasted. However, however long it lasted and whatever the population, I think it would be hard for three Galileans to hide inside .9 square kilometers if anyone had been looking for them very hard.
You’re quite correct that I should not assume the story of Peter’s denials to be true, but I’ve read elsewhere that Galileans could be recognized by their accents. Also, your point of historicity is well taken. However, I was not thinking so much about historicity as whether the Hollywood/apologetic view of persecution makes sense. It may be that neither Peter’s denials nor the great persecution after Stephan’s death are historically accurate. My point is that it is difficult for them both to be accurate.
Lawyerskeptic said
All I’m saying about population sizes that it must’ve fit inside the city walls. 30,000 seems about right to me, but it could have been more or less. I have no idea whether the Passover crowds were all inside the city or camped outside the walls. Based on your comments, I have grown to care less about the population because I think I can make my point with the more precise information about the size of the city.
Yes, I get that the pop had to fit inside the walls too and I think your number of 30,000 could be generous. For the sake of argument let’s eliminate the question of the transient festival population. Also let’s consider the stoning of stephen is dated to either 34 or 36 CE and that the crucifixion is dated to either 30 or 33 CE So our timeframe could be anywhere from 1 to 6 years.
I’ve read elsewhere that Galileans could be recognized by their accents.
Right! I don’t deny that. But how unique would they be, if Galileans were common in Jerusalem
However, I was not thinking so much about historicity as whether the Hollywood/apologetic view of persecution makes sense.
Sure, the problem there is once you start asking whether it makes sense, you bump up against historicity and then how much do you insist on. Thus we’re talking about plausibility. My suspicion is that persecution MIGHT have begun within a year or two , at least by Jewish authorities in the shape of Saul. I don’t think Rome was too interested after it cut off the head of the snake, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this was more in a be on the look out for. The other possibility is the disciples assumed they were being hunted and no one was looking.
Lawyerskeptic said
I think you exaggerate my powers if you think I have “resolved” anything about the Bible.
Not at all, Law. the reason the matter is resolved is because, while the idea was interesting, I asked for your opinion. The question wasn’t whether we settled some complex debate or what have you but whether your opinion confirmed my suspicion. Apart from all the problems the author ran into with his hypothesis before writing the book, a lawyer looking at it and going nah I don’t see it, resolves the issue for me.
I thank you again for bringing the book “Paul on Trial” to my attention, and it is certainly not your fault that it is so worthless. Just yesterday, I finished reading about as much as I was able to read before dying of pure boredom. I will not try to give you a detailed critique of the book because it is really hard to find anything sufficiently interesting to comment upon. Let one example suffice. In his summary on page 233, Mauck, the author, says:
“The accounts of Paul’s trials before Felix and Festus reveal procedural irregularities and violations which would have been apparent to the official knowledgeable in Roman law. Because Luke mentions them without elaboration, it is reasonable to conclude that Luke believed his reader to be legally sophisticated.”
In other words, we know that Acts is an appellate brief because it does NOT point out legal errors in the trial court. How is that a reasonable assumption? Moreover, when I read Mauck’s description of the trials before Felix and Festus he does not identify the procedural irregularities he relies upon in his summary. I give up. I see no point in spending more time trying to understand this book.
Also, he never addresses the original point that I made before ever reading the book. Acts does not ask for any legal relief. There is no place where it says anything remotely like “Please let Paul go.” I cannot conceive of how any lawyer could fail to notice that Acts lacks the most basic element of a modern legal brief, and yet Mauck never comments on why Acts has no “prayer” for legal relief. In my experience, when a lawyer says nothing about an important issue, it means that he knows the law is against him on that point.
I am really sorry the book turned out to be crap. If it helps I fell for the whole Historicity of the Resurrection debate to the extent that I bought the book produced by Habermas/Licona. Thi is to say I found the theory interesting and thought the book might
be both interesting and insightful. I don’t think I got halfway through it. Can we sue either for a defective product!? For some time I have had a rather low opinion of Christian apologetics, so after hearing Habermas a few times I decided that the book might actually-even if wrong- give me something to think about, a systematic treatment of the material. BOY was a wrong! Licona likes to pass himself off as a second guesser, but oddly he always comes back to what he was thinking before!
I used to work at a company who’s night watchman would do math problems between rounds to keep his mind sharp. My supervisor once joked that he always got three for an answer: “Oh look, 3 again! Wow I’m good!” That’s Licona. Well he gets 3 for an answer, doubts it’s really 3 and then decides that the answer actually is 3 until he is unsure again and so on
And PEE YEW, I apparently didn’t learn my lesson because I also bought the response book to Ehrman’s HJBG! That was the third book like that( and hopefully the last!) I bought.
About me being our resident lawyer, when I first joined the blog and selected the username “lawyerskeptic”, I did think one way or the other about whether the username would be used in communications like the members forum. I did not mean to present myself as the authority of all things legal.
Sorry Kid, didn’t really think of you that way. The question was just whether you could settle the question for me. Not for folks who seem to think assertion is evidence. It was good enough for me that someone with some understanding of the subject gave me a few reasons why Mauck might be wrong. This fit nicely with the list of problems he ran into early on both from both the legal and scholarly community. The whole hypothesis struck me a curious when he rattled on about how Pilate probably had an office of legal investigators just hanging out waiting to verify every single tiny detail.
gavriel said
All sorts of things can be imagined that fits in with the facts in some way, by assuming un-documented contexts – a favorite mythicist and fundamentalist method.
Well Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!! Another fundie/mythicist tactic is insinuation followed by a quick demonstration that they haven’t a clue.
The only one doing any imagining is you. I didn’t assume anything, I asked for someone’s opinion and was given a satisfactory answer. To be sure, let’s go back to the video tape, shall we:
” A bit off topic, but what do you think of the idea that Luke’s work is a legal brief for Paul’s trial. Is this just clever speculation or is there actually some substance to the idea?”
Asking for someone’s opinion is not assuming a context. That should have been as obvious as a neon sign when it’s followed by asking if there’s any substance to the idea. Now if that weren’t enough I also 1.) Described the author as confused. 2.) said I saw a lot of problems with his theory 3.)described one of his assertions as “a lot of bunk” 4.) ridiculed the authors reasoning.
So quite naturally this means I agree with him! Talk about “assuming “undocumented context”! Talk about mythicist or fundamentalist reasoning!
I never asked when ACTs was written or who the author was. In fact, I argued that this information probably couldn’t help answer the question of what the author (Whoever, he was)might have known And now you have offered the (argument!?) the author knew Paul was dead because all his other information was wrong. Well of course!
The simplest explanation then is this must be Steefan or Maryhelena using Gav’s ID. Identity theft is a serious thing. Not to be taken lightly. You should not steal someone’s identity! And if you do, you should, at least, have the temerity to drain his bank account rather than posting weird posts in his name. So what’s next, Gav (or whoever this REALLY is) my question was inappropriate because of the way Luke dressed? The style of sandals he might have worn?
spiker said
gavriel said
All sorts of things can be imagined that fits in with the facts in some way, by assuming un-documented contexts – a favorite mythicist and fundamentalist method.
Well Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!! Another fundie/mythicist tactic is insinuation followed by a quick demonstration that they haven’t a clue.
The only one doing any imagining is you. I didn’t assume anything, I asked for someone’s opinion and was given a satisfactory answer. To be sure, let’s go back to the video tape, shall we:
” A bit off topic, but what do you think of the idea that Luke’s work is a legal brief for Paul’s trial. Is this just clever speculation or is there actually some substance to the idea?”
Asking for someone’s opinion is not assuming a context. That should have been as obvious as a neon sign when it’s followed by asking if there’s any substance to the idea. Now if that weren’t enough I also 1.) Described the author as confused. 2.) said I saw a lot of problems with his theory 3.)described one of his assertions as “a lot of bunk” 4.) ridiculed the authors reasoning.
So quite naturally this means I agree with him! Talk about “assuming “undocumented context”! Talk about mythicist or fundamentalist reasoning!
I never asked when ACTs was written or who the author was. In fact, I argued that this information probably couldn’t help answer the question of what the author (Whoever, he was)might have known And now you have offered the (argument!?) the author knew Paul was dead because all his other information was wrong. Well of course!
The simplest explanation then is this must be Steefan or Maryhelena using Gav’s ID. Identity theft is a serious thing. Not to be taken lightly. You should not steal someone’s identity! And if you do, you should, at least, have the temerity to drain his bank account rather than posting weird posts in his name. So what’s next, Gav (or whoever this REALLY is) my question was inappropriate because of the way Luke dressed? The style of sandals he might have worn?
I presented some of the traditional arguments for the ideas that the author knew that Paul was dead at the time of writing, and that it was written long after, and what the thematic intent was. This means that it is not very likely that it was produced as a legal brief for Paul’s trial. It does not really matter if you yourself believe in or only refers to this proposition. I argued against the proposition, not your position – which no doubt is brilliantly fashioned far above any ridicule potential.
You say, ” And now you have offered the (argument!?) the author knew Paul was dead because all his other information was wrong. “. Not really. Luke has Paul say that he knows he’s going to disappear (the farewell speech in ch 20), a clear “hint”, and I gave one possible reason why I think Luke did not describe the death in direct terms. I could add more to that. Since I do not believe in supernatural gifts, it has to mean that Luke knew Paul was dead, and that the thematic aim of Acts( a title added by posterity) is more along the “harmonization” endeavor.
Greg Matthews said
Hasn’t Prof. Ehrman written on the blog at least once that the author of Acts was writing after the death of Paul? I’m certain I’ve seen on the blog although it’s been quite a while back.
Sure. It is the consensus view among critical scholars. Conservative scholars who believe in the CE 62 hypothesis, has to push the traditional dating of the synoptic gospels prior to that. This would imply that Paul had access to at least some of the synoptic material, which there are no traces of in his letters. Conversely, if Acts were written much later than 100 CE, “Luke” would have had access to the Pauline letters, which very likely were put in circulation as a corpus some time in the 90’ties , and would have avoided a number of contradictions.
Anyone seen the adverts for a new movie coming out next week called RISEN? Apparently it’s about a Roman centurion sent out by Pontius Pilate to investigate reports of Jesus’ resurrection. It seems to have a strong evangelical fundamentalist point of view although it’s looks high budget and is filled with pretty well-known actors.
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