This is all I have found Bart says about the death of Paul.
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I find the analysis a little underwhelming. I would think it is obvious that if people didn’t know how Paul died, they would later claim he was martyred. But why would they not know how he died? Paul was obviously prominent with many students and many early accounts of his life. We have his letters which were copied and passed around. Doesn’t that imply that whatever the truth of his death was, it was something that his followers did not want to talk about, pretty much ruling out martyrdom? The lack of anything elaborately documenting his supposed martyrdom seems to me to be proof that however he died, it certainly wasn’t martyrdom. I would have an easier time believing that the account in the Acts of Paul is indication he just fell out of a window and broke his neck.
I realize arguments from silence are weak. But this silence seems notable to me. Thoughts?
One of the frustrating problems with scholarship is that no matter how smart one might be, and how much research one might do, there are many, many issues where the ultimate answer, at least under current conditions, is that we do not know. In a lot of cases, especially for historical questions, the information that exists is fragmentary or even contradictory, and picking and choosing the right bits is not really possible. A good scholar should be willing to admit these situations, even if he or she might be willing to add that a certain answer is (or set of answers are) the best one might guess given what is known at the moment.
There are hints in the Didache that Paul was martyred and towards the end of Acts there seems to be an implicit knowledge of this fate but the truth is we have no real idea. It is somewhat surprising that there is no early account if the story his of his death was widely known. For all we know he began his ministry in Spain and was lost to history.
I tend to think it more likely than not that the author of Luke’s gospel was a disciple of Paul, and he seems to hint at Paul’s fate at the end of Acts. The entire period post-Temple destruction really to the writing of Clement is a bit of a black box for the early Christian community. One wonders if the author of Luke-Acts intended to, or did, write a third work, which would have addressed the deaths of Paul, Peter and James, and the fall of Jerusalem.
vergari said
I tend to think it more likely than not that the author of Luke’s gospel was a disciple of Paul, and he seems to hint at Paul’s fate at the end of Acts. The entire period post-Temple destruction really to the writing of Clement is a bit of a black box for the early Christian community. One wonders if the author of Luke-Acts intended to, or did, write a third work, which would have addressed the deaths of Paul, Peter and James, and the fall of Jerusalem.
It almost seems like a perfect opportunity for someone to write a bit of fan fiction…. A sequel to Luke Acts. For optimal audience engagement, make sure it is the type of thing that Christians will be least offended at…
Qther than the references in Luke and Acts by the alleged writer that the writer is writing for Theophilus, I’ve always thought for many reasons that the Writers of Luke and Acts were not one and the same.
Has there been any research on this issue? There are plenty of inconsistencies between Acts and Paul’s letters. Any between Luke and Act?
It seems that Acts is attempting to bridge the chasm and meld together the enormous gap that exists between the historical Jewish Jesus as set forth in Mark and Matthew, and the Gentile Jesus as set forth in John.
altruitypublicationsllc said
Qther than the references in Luke and Acts by the alleged writer that the writer is writing for Theophilus, I’ve always thought for many reasons that the Writers of Luke and Acts were not one and the same.Has there been any research on this issue? There are plenty of inconsistencies between Acts and Paul’s letters. Any between Luke and Act?
It seems that Acts is attempting to bridge the chasm and meld together the enormous gap that exists between the historical Jewish Jesus as set forth in Mark and Matthew, and the Gentile Jesus as set forth in John.
Inconsistencies between Luke and Acts don’t really make for a strong argument in favor of different author, since the author of Acts — even if it was not the author of Luke — would have been intimately familiar with Luke. Indeed, inconsistencies between the two make the likelihood of a common author stronger, since a forger would be more interested in concealing the forgery by hewing more closely to the original work (Luke).
Additionally, it was common for ancient authors to write inconsistent accounts of the same event in different works.
I think Paul’s death was not that of a martyr and probably some kind of a shame for the early church.
The key is Philemon/Colossians/Ephesians, the first letter is included in the so-called “undisputed” but the other two are considered forgeries.
The background of the three letters is the same, an imprisoned Paul that never visited Colossians nor the location targeted in Ephesians (that clearly was not Ephesus, perhaps Laodicea?) although he was informed about the progress of the evangelization in those location in the Lycus valley
The story of Onesimus the fugitive slave from Colossae suggest that he is imprisoned in a nearby location., I think Onesimus story clearly routed out Rome as a place for imprisonment, it would be too much a coincidence for a fugitive slave to reach Rome and then ended up in the same prison with Paul
Since both Colossians and Ephesians are considered forgeries I think that they could be forged in times of Paul by some followers in Ephesus where Pauls was imprisoned, maybe because Paul was isolated and could no longer write letters or even he was finally killed or just died (Paul says he was an “old man” Phlm 1:9).
Luke invented the voyage to Jerusalem and then to Rome avoiding Ephesus (“Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus to avoid spending time in the province of Asia” Acts 20:16). Clement of Rome made Paul even reach Hispania. Obviously those two stories were based in Romans that depicted Paul’s expected schedule before he was finally imprisoned, maybe in relation with the collection. Luke’s theological goal was to show how the gospel reached Rome out from Jerusalem so he completed Paul’s expected trips.
Perhaps some problems arouse in the church in Paul’s final days, in the later and also forged second letter to Timothy Paul speaks about being abandoned by some of his followers (2 Tim 4:9-11 16) , although this allegedly happens while Pauls was imprisoned in Rome maybe was part of what actually happened in Ephesus.
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