Dr. Tabor,
Thessalonians, Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, Philippians, and Philemon, leader of the Colossian church (50s-60s A.D.)–6 churches.
There are no letters to these churches that Paul had died, and for Rome, let’s ask for a eulogy.
Steve Campbell, author of
Historical Accuracy
currently working on the second edition
Original Post by Tabor:
[Paul] had some type of physical disability that he was convinced had been sent by Satan to afflict him,
but allowed by Christ,
so he would not be overly proud of his extraordinary revelations (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)
Paul refers to the POSSIBILITY that he would be executed (Philippians 1:1-26).
Paul may not have been born a Roman citizen ! ! !
Tabor
Whether Paul was born in Tarsus one must doubt since Jerome, the fourth century Christian writer, knew a different tradition. He says that Paul’s parents were from Gischala, in Galilee, a Jewish town about twenty-five miles north of Nazareth, and that Paul was born there.[2] According to Jerome, when revolts broke out throughout Galilee following the death of Herod the Great in 4 B.C., Paul and his parents were rounded up and sent to Tarsus in Cilicia as part of a massive exile of the Jewish population by the Romans to rid the area of further potential trouble. Since Jerome certainly knew Paul’s claim, according to the book of Acts, to have been born in Tarsus, it is very unlikely he would have contradicted that source without good evidence.
Jerome’s account also provides us with the only indication we have as to Paul’s approximate age. Like Jesus, he would have had to have been born before 4 B.C., though how many years earlier we cannot say. This fits rather nicely with Paul’s statement in one of his last letters to a Christian named Philemon, written around A.D. 60, where he refers to himself as a “old man” (Greek presbytes), a word that implies someone who is in his 60s.[3]
Jerome’s account casts serious doubt on the claim in Acts that Paul was born a Roman citizen. We have to question whether a native Galilean family, exiled from Gischala as a result of anti-Roman uprisings in the area, would have had Roman citizenship. We know that Gischala was a hotbed of revolutionary activity and John of Gischala was one of the most prominent leaders in the first Judean Revolt against Rome (A.D. 66-70).[4] Paul also says that he was “beaten three times with rods” (2 Corinthians 11:25). This is a punishment administered by the Romans and was forbidden to one who had citizenship.[5]
Paul may not have been a student of Gamaliel
Acts’s claim that Paul grew up in Jerusalem and was a personal student of the famous rabbi Gamaliel is also highly suspect. The book of Acts has an earlier scene, when the apostles Peter and John are arrested by the Jewish authorities who are threatening to have them killed, in which Gamaliel stands up in the Sanhedrin court and speaks in their behalf, recommending their release (Acts 5:33-39). The story is surely fictitious and is part of the author’s attempt to indicate to his Roman audience that reasonable minded Jews, like noble Roman officials, did not condemn the Christians. It is likely that the author of Acts, in making Paul an honored student of Gamaliel, the most revered Pharisee of the day, is wanting to further advance this perspective. Throughout his account he constantly characterizes the Jewish enemies of Paul as irrational and rabid, in contrast to those “good” Jews who are calm, reasonable, and respond favorably to Paul (Acts 13:45; 18:12; 23:12).
= = =
Whether Paul even lived in Jerusalem before his visionary encounter with Christ could be questioned. In Acts it is a given, but Paul never indicates in any of his letters that Jerusalem was his home as a young man.
Comment for Part 2
Dr. Tabor:
It might come as a surprise, but outside our New Testament records we have very little additional historical information about Paul other than the valuable tradition that Jerome preserves for us that he was born in the Galilee.
Reply:
There was a man who was a Jew but had been driven away from his own country by an accusation laid against him for transgressing their laws and by the fear he was under of punishment for the same; but in all respects a wicked man. Living at Rome, he professed to instruct men in the wisdom of the laws of Moses.
Source: Josephus
= = = =
The evidence is insurmountable at this point. For almost four hundred years, there were no manger scenes anywhere in the Roman world. There were no crucifixes displayed in homes or schools. We actually don’t even know what “churches” looked like, at least, not until the middle of the third century. (source: Biblical Archaeology
So Paul built no places for congregating/Christian Synagogue in Thess, Gal., Cor., Rome, Philippi, Colossae? No archaeological inscription: Founded/Erected by Paul.
None of the local leaders wrote back to him so we can see how he was being received.
Comment/s?
My question is more about the history of the Near East from the Merneptah Stele to the medieval Radhanite traders but I’ll include the apostle Paul in order to be germane for this history of Christianity blog.
I recently saw a Tedx talk about the Ashkenazi bottleneck – a crazy idea that all Ashkenazi Jews are descended from 330 people from as recently as 1350 CE.
There are databases with over 10,000 of ancient DNA. I was able to compare my Ashkenazi wife’s DNA with 2,500 of these ancient samples.
Out of the 2,500 samples, the second smallest genetic distance was to this person:
Late Bronze Age Outlier Canaanite Megiddo
1570 BC – Genetic Distance: 8.819
Among the stones and dust of Tel Megiddo, an ancient site that bore witness to the ebb and flow of civilizations, a remarkable discovery was made, a snapshot of genetic heritage nestled within the embrace of the ancient earth. Here, in what was once the powerful Canaanite city-state, was unearthed the remains of a man who lived and died in the shadows of the monumental end of the Middle Bronze Age, around 1570 BC.
This individual was something of an enigma. His genetic composition, with Y-DNA haplogroup R and mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U3b, marked him as an outlier to the local Canaanite population. The diversity of his genes hinted at a story of migration, intermingling, and the complexity of human connections in a region that was a crossroads for culture, trade, and conflict.
As we delve into his final resting place, we encounter artifacts that conjure a vivid tableau of the life that once thrummed through Megiddo, a place known to many through its Greek name, Armageddon. This man was entombed with objects that suggest a life intertwined with the material culture of his time, pottery that held the sustenance of the Late Bronze Age palate and tools that may have once been grasped by calloused hands.
The rest of my wife’s DNA matches are almost all Greek or Greek colonies including 40% Minoan when looking at the best samples.
Here’s my wild hypothesis.
Tel Megiddo was the hub of a Minoan trade network during the height of the Bronze Age. Although they were Minoan, they were known as Israel and Hebrews. When the Merneptah Stele says Egypt destroyed Israel, they actually expelled the Minoans from the Levant. Some local, semitic, stragglers from Tel Megiddo moved into the central highlands and kept the names Israel and Hebrews. The Minoans came back with vengeance as the Sea People but failed to conquer Egypt with some settling as the Philistines and causing the Bronze Age collapse. The Minoans turned their focus to colonies on the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
Alexander the Great brought the Levant back into the Greek sphere and the Greek traders wanted access to Sanhedrin to help them enforce contracts in faraway lands. The Hebrew bible was translated into Greek and the Greek traders converted to Judaism. The Hasmoneans didn’t like how powerful the Greek Jews were so Judah Maccabee rose up against them. Soon the Romans conquered the Levant. By this time, the Roman Empire was 10% Jewish including the apostle Paul (see how I worked that in).
The Roman Empire traded with the Han Dynasty even though they were thousands of miles apart, had no common language and no diplomatic relations. How did that happen? How do you enforce contracts without a common legal authority or diplomatic relations? Well, the Jewish merchants had a system of courts and judges that followed them when they crossed boundaries. (Hebrew means crossed over or boundary crosser).
When the Arab Empire blockaded Christian ships in the Mediterranean, the Jewish Radhanites were able to maintain a trade network from France and Spain to China and India. If the European part of the Radhanite traders were like my wife and the Ashkenazi Bottleneck implies they were, they had mostly Minoan DNA from 2,500 years in the past (now 3,500 years ago) – no wonder there is a genetic bottleneck.
My question for Dr. Ehrman, do you think an actual scholar would entertain my hypothesis?
These are the links for the original post pertaining to this thread.
The Quest for the Historical Paul:
Sorting Through Our Sources
Part 1
Dr. James Tabor
9/7/2024
** you do not have permission to see this link **
The Quest for the Historical Paul:
Sorting Through Our Sources
Part 2
Dr. James Tabor
9/8/2024
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Paul says he was a Hebrew. He’s going to “cross over” an into this particular messiah group and to be the leader of his own church. His church is the body of the messiah, which didn’t fully exist yet but he plans on in the future with the support of Gentiles, having all the power and authority as the new head of his church. It’s the tribe of Benjamin and king Saul versus the tribe of Judah and king David.
He got killed in Rome one day as just another incident by Peter with a stone, and by James and John, the sons of thunder, with fire and brimstone and a for being the “Antichrist” character of Revelation, who is also Simon the sorcerer.
This is the wonderful story I told to rabbi Yoshi whom I delivered the fish to and he made it into Gefilte fish to be shipped overseas to Israel but then the war happened and the business operation shut down because the ports were closed. Bummer. But we both agreed that the story does not violate the Law of Moses.
The Muslim conspiracy?
Saul of Tarsus never existed. Same person as Jesus of Nazareth. Part of the coverup story for Pontius Pilate when he and the Sanhedrin let Jesus go free on trial under orders that he end his own group and teachings about drug induced miracles. So as Islam began to spread they already knew that nobody in Tarsus or the general area had ever heard of Saul of Tarsus except from these new Christian stories about Paul. That’s where the Muslim story that Jesus was not on the cross came from. They had no records in the area of Tarsus, a famous Pharisee supposedly, had ever existed there in Tarsus. The Muslims and Jews there suspected that Jesus might’ve been Paul which explains why Saul of Tarsus doesn’t exist on paper or memory anywhere.
Paul is Jesus. Jesus on the run from the law again. Only his closest apostles, Peter, James, and John know about it. The disciples of them don’t know.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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