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Here are two separate descriptions of Paul’s missionary activity. One is based on the letters and the other based on Acts. We see that the three missionary journeys really only exist in Acts.
Raymond E. Brown puts it this way in An Introduction to the New Testament:
“The three journeys are only a convenient classification developed by students of Acts. In his undisputed letters Paul gives us no information about the first missionary journey.”
Let’s see if we have any historical record here. Unfortunately, both descriptions look implausible
Looking at the realities of antiquity, Paul conducts an extremely expensive missionary activity. Constantly traveling long distances, expensive correspondence, expensive money transfer. Each shipment is a cost.
Who pays for it? Why does he pay?
BTW. Marcion had an incredible advantage with his transportation company.
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Looking at the realities of antiquity, Paul conducts an extremely expensive missionary activity. Constantly traveling long distances, expensive correspondence, expensive money transfer. Each shipment is a cost.
Who pays for it? Why does he pay?
Here’s how it probably worked. Paul went to a town and set up shop in his chosen profession as a leather worker or a tent maker or some such. He would have contacted the local synagogue or sought out interested people among his customers. At a certain time when he had achieved some level of success (or failure too I suppose) he moved to the next town and started over again. At some point he might have taken on traveling companions. He would have maintained contact with the converts he left behind. Perhaps the converts of one town introduced him to friends or relatives in another.
And Paul did this year after year after year.
I try to imagine it in a similar way, but I don’t think that a leatherworker is a profession that allows you to constantly move and start again with an immediate positive financial result each time.
There are certainly more plausible scenarios that don’t require Paul to build everything from scratch every time. Including the basics of his own survival in a new place. He could find a patron who supported him financially. The heroic description of Paul’s missionary activity from the letters may be partly made up.
That was all I cared about – it was probably different from the letters, less heroic.
Paul has a huge organizational advantage, which he skillfully uses. Churches are established, professionally edited correspondence flourishes, sent to many places, ending with an anthology copied further. Multilayer structure.
And suddenly it all disappears.
No one remembers anyone from his circle.
Paul tells us how he financed it: First, he worked, e.g., 1 Thess 2:8-9 (and I don’t see any particular reason that an artisan couldn’t successfully work in a new location–I’m imagining a guy setting up a stall in a marketplace and offering his wares for sale; why couldn’t he just pack up and resume business in a new city?). Second, he says he was financed by his prior converts; e.g., 2 Cor 11:8-9.
I just don’t see the problem here.
I see a whole lot of problems. Even with the simplest solution, someone is giving Paul room and board for his phisical labour. Only who will listen to him in such a case.
And already opening your own business in a foreign place chosen for mission purposes, setting up a workshop, buying materials and tools, buying a place to sell, attracting clients and then throwing it all away after 2-3 years definitely exceeds my vivid imagination.
Whether any existing description of Paul’s activities is a true historical account cannot be decided from the texts of the letters alone. Our hero successfully reboots his own life many times in different places, while maintaining constant, uninterrupted contact with the audience network. Which results in the indestructible Pauline Corpus, at the cost of losing everything else. Labors of Hercules is a more credible description as far as I’m concerned
Whether any existing description of Paul’s activities is a true historical account cannot be decided from the texts of the letters alone.
But here as everywhere the simplest explanation is undoubtedly the best one. A leather worker would have been an essential skill in the ancient world. Porphyry is right. There’s really no controversy here.
You come from outside with an offer that is competitive with local suppliers. In a business that requires cooperation with many sub-suppliers of materials. Materials that you have to buy yourself because no one else will trust you. You must offer the right products to the right audience, directly or indirectly. You will spend a whole lot of money before you know in a year or two whether you succeed or not.
Everything looks simpler on paper. To see if a paper contains a historical account, one must look at the details of the account from different points of view. The missionary action is the result of surpluses worked out in previous places and its course depends on the amount of these surpluses. Paul doing postal broadcasting of each of his letters to multiple recipients in an age when the cost of one postage is comparable to a monthly salary is something unrealistic.
The cost of sending a message thanks to satellite technology has fallen to zero and is covered by a subscription that most people can afford. If we used the methods available to Paul and sent as he did, most of us would not be able to afford it.
I drew a diagram based on your laconic statement that when a letter from Paul came, it was plugged into the codex and so was done with each subsequent one. And that’s logical. So you need to generate more and more surplus where you have been successful and writing letters. Money to pay for editing, copying and sending correspondence. Your costs as well as your revenues increase with size of the coverage of you mission. And it’s all about financial stability.
What Paul does in the letters is an invention of a man who has no idea what’s going on but has the task of writing an interesting story.
The narrative of the letters is the same fairy tale as Acts. Better written.
Zuntz noted the reference in the first patristic and NT testimonies to many epistles – hence the concept of the Corpus in 100 CE. He therefore shows the Corpus as the only source of letters except for the Galatians, of which he links some copy with Marcion.
I can’t imagine collecting Pauline Corpus in the way you present.
However, if a congregation developed in a normal, sensible way, the Corpus was created incrementally for some time – letter by letter. All the problems solved in the letters really happened in these congregations, only they were transferred narratively to the past and to another place. Individual questions and problems were collected and then answers were developed, which were given the authority of Paul the Apostle. And it was sent out to all the associated congregations. Marcion came along at some point when Corpus was 10 letters and it continued to grow.
Such a collector of letters actively looking for them in the field finds at least some in several copies. So he knows that some advanced editing of the material may turn out to be too visible. On the other hand, he is probably not the only seeker, he may not be alone and others may be searching too.
We would have different anthologies of Paul’s letters.
The editing of the material, its supplementation before its publication makes sense and is an established good practice to improve the quality of the publication before it reaches the audience. I found it more likely.
This whole process of creating an anthology and distributing letters drawn by me is very natural.
BTW. I was wondering why there is no earthly Jesus in the letters until it occurred to me that if Ludemann is talking about the 5% historical account in the gospel, then the question should be asked:
How much of the historical account in the gospel did the authors of the Galatians see?
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert