Robert
presuming that he subsequently visited Rome
Steefen
There is a chance that Paul did not have problems in Jerusalem and requested to bring his case before the Roman emperor rather than be found guilty in Jerusalem?
You are leaving the door open to the possibility that Paul did not visit Rome?
Steefen said
Robert
presuming that he subsequently visited Rome
Steefen
There is a chance that Paul did not have problems in Jerusalem and requested to bring his case before the Roman emperor rather than be found guilty in Jerusalem?
You are leaving the door open to the possibility that Paul did not visit Rome?
I mean, the door has to be left open for a lot of these questions, even when there is reasonable evidence in support of a position.
(A1) Concluding that Acts is a historical fiction leaves “the door open” on a lot of questions about Paul’s movements.
… but, on the other hand …
(A2) Accepting Acts as based on historical accounts still leaves “the door open” that not all of the historical accounts it is based on are accurate, so that even if the visit occurred, the details of the visit may have grown in the telling during the intervening period.
… and then, on the gripping hand …
(A3) The claim was made regarding the context when Paul wrote Romans, where even if Acts is accepted as based on accurate historical accounts on that point, the letter is explicitly set in a time before Paul did the visit.
Paul made it to Rome but the Christian community there soon found him insufferable so they took a collection, gave it to Paul and hastened him on his way. Paul journeyed to Roman Hispania where he was strangled and eaten by cannibals after an injudicious and misunderstood sermon about the Last Supper.
Stephen said
Paul made it to Rome but the Christian community there soon found him insufferable so they took a collection, gave it to Paul and hastened him on his way. Paul journeyed to Roman Hispania where he was strangled and eaten by cannibals after an injudicious and misunderstood sermon about the Last Supper.
Yes, this version is compatible with both canonical Acts and the Marcionite version of Acts (the latter is mathematically provable, as the empty set is a subset of all sets).
The Pauline letters in the New Testament do not detail the narrative of Paul’s arrest, imprisonment in Caesarea, or his voyage to Rome. Instead, these events are recounted in the Book of Acts (chapters 21–28). Paul only expresses his desire and plans to visit Rome as a missionary stop in Romans 15:22–29.
, while the Book of Acts narrates his arrival there. Paul expresses a strong desire to visit the Roman church to preach the gospel, secure their support for a mission to Spain, and bolster unity (Rom. 1:10–12, 15:23–24).
- Intent to Visit: In Romans 1:13 and 15:22–24, written around 57 A.D. during his third missionary journey, Paul explicitly states his intent to visit Rome.
- Purpose: He viewed Rome as a base to support his planned missionary trip to Spain and desired to strengthen the Roman believers, as he had never met them.
- Delayed Journey: Paul acknowledges in his letter that he had previously been hindered from coming to them (Rom. 1:13)
= = =
So that second passage after the TF, The Jewish Affairs / Fulvia sending purple and gold passage links to Acts, not the Pauline letters.
So, Acts has to be written before TF Passage II, the Jewish Affairs for Josephus to reference it
or
Acts (written after Josephus’ TF Passage II) is getting information from Antiquities.
I wonder what the comments to this will be.
= = =
Google AI Overview:
likely written in the early-to-mid 60s AD, although many scholars propose a date between 80–90 AD. The earlier dating (c. 60–64 AD) is supported by the abrupt ending of the book, which concludes with Paul in prison in Rome, likely before his trial, martyrdom, or the persecution under Nero.
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- Early Dating (c. 60–64 AD): Arguments for this period rest on the lack of mention of major events like the deaths of Paul and Peter, or the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.
- Later Dating (c. 80–90 AD): Many scholars believe it was written after the Gospel of Luke, which they place after 70 AD, arguing it reflects a later, more developed church structure
.
- Alternative Views: Some scholars suggest an even later date, possibly in the early 2nd century (c. 100–120 AD), based on the premise that the author of Acts was familiar with the writings of Josephus.
- Context: Acts is considered the second part of a two-volume work (Luke-Acts), written by the same author, who is traditionally identified as Luke the Evangelist.
BruceRMcF said
Stephen said
Paul made it to Rome but the Christian community there soon found him insufferable so they took a collection, gave it to Paul and hastened him on his way. Paul journeyed to Roman Hispania where he was strangled and eaten by cannibals after an injudicious and misunderstood sermon about the Last Supper.
Yes, this version is compatible with both canonical Acts and the Marcionite version of Acts (the latter is mathematically provable, as the empty set is a subset of all sets).
The absence of an account of Paul’s death in our surviving literary traditions becomes, like the lack of resurrection appearances in Mark, the Zero of the Signified.
Steefen said
… The Pauline letters, specifically the Book of Romans, discuss Paul’s plan to visit Rome, while the Book of Acts narrates his arrival there. Paul expresses a strong desire to visit the Roman church to preach the gospel, secure their support for a mission to Spain, and bolster unity (Rom. 1:10–12, 15:23–24).
Key Details on Paul and Rome in the Letters:Intent to Visit: In Romans 1:13 and 15:22–24, written around 57 A.D. during his third missionary journey, Paul explicitly states his intent to visit Rome.
Purpose: He viewed Rome as a base to support his planned missionary trip to Spain and desired to strengthen the Roman believers, as he had never met them.
Delayed Journey: Paul acknowledges in his letter that he had previously been hindered from coming to them (Rom. 1:13)= = =
So that second passage after the TF, The Jewish Affairs / Fulvia sending purple and gold passage links to Acts, not the Pauline letters.
So, Acts has to be written before TF Passage II, the Jewish Affairs for Josephus to reference it
or
Acts (written after Josephus’ TF Passage II) is getting information from Antiquities.
I wonder what the comments to this will be.
Well, to reduce the height of the suspense, my share of the comments will be, yeah, it’s door number 2.
The “general view” is exactly where we would expect to get some degree of AI slop, since the presently widely available AI is not, actually, AI, but rather II, Imitating Intelligence, so is unable to read and think about the actual arguments presented.
But the argument that Acts draws from Josephus is very strong once you go into it, especially Richard Pervo’s argument regarding Acts21:38, where Acts confuses and conflates two successive accounts in Josephus, one account of the sicarii which were an issue in crowded urban areas in the Roman empire and a following account of “the Egyptian” leading men to the Mount of Olives, where Luke has the Egyptian leading the sicarii, which is as strong an evidence of literary dependence combined with evidence of the direction of the literary dependence as we could hope to have.
Then examination of Luke/Acts for seeming drawing on Josephus reveals enough examples that it becomes hard to argue that this is just a random later interpolation by a scribe who’d read Josephus.
And even if you totally discount the stylometric analysis of Luke as a means to reconstruct Marcion’s Evangalion, it still remains the case that stylometric analysis places all of the passages of Luke that provide strong evidence of the compiler of canonical Luke having read Josephus into a common clade, and identifies a contrasting clade that has no strong witness to knowledge of the text of Josephus, so it appears that canonical Luke is an edition of Luke compiled after Josephus’s work was disseminated.
The evidence for that conclusion doesn’t really depend on whether or not one further concludes that the traces of the earlier edition is likely to be to be Marcion’s Evangalion.
To tie it back to the OP, there is similar evidence that canonical Romans is a later edition of an earlier version, but without any strong witnesses to literary dependence on a work with a known autograph date{*}, it seems to me to be a lot less clear how early the canonical edition of Romans should be dated, and without a strong arrow of time witness, the judgement as to which clade is the work of the editor is more subjective.
_______________
{* At least, that I know of — I am obviously no expert in the field!}
So, Josephus is not referencing Acts with the Paul-figure living in Rome, raising purple and gold for Jerusalem.
Acts is referencing Josephus with Paul living in Rome.
= = =
I’ve seen so many people who want to make a presentation that Paul never existed, but the Jewish historian Josephus presents a Paul figure.
Paul in Acts grows out of the historical Paul in the works of Josephus, AND
Paul in the Pauline Letters grows out of the historical Paul in the works of Josephus, AND
Paul in Acts has to be a reaction to Paul in the Pauline Letters.
Robert said
OMG, the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by Tiberius, set theory from abstract algebra, and semiotics, all within 48 hours of the initiation of a new thread asking about scholarly commentaries on Paul’s letter to the Romans.
Don’t freak out, Labergemann, all of this thread drift can be moved, if you or others want to keep this discussion focused on topic.
I was showing off for Connor.
You answered Labergemann’s question. Everything else is gravy.
Steefen said
So, Josephus is not referencing Acts with the Paul-figure living in Rome, raising purple and gold for Jerusalem.
Acts is referencing Josephus with Paul living in Rome.
= = =
I’ve seen so many people who want to make a presentation that Paul never existed, but the Jewish historian Josephus presents a Paul figure.
Paul in Acts grows out of the historical Paul in the works of Josephus, AND
Conceivably … whether the Paul in Acts is drawn from the historical Paul in the works of Josephus, or is drawn from sources or tradition and elaborated using the historical Paul in the works of Josephus, to quote canonical Paul, “God knows, I do not know”.
Paul in the Pauline Letters grows out of the historical Paul in the works of Josephus, AND
In the two (or more) edition view of the Pauline letters, it may be that the historical Paul grows in part from the earlier editions of Paul’s letters, and then the Paul in the canonical Pauline Letters could grow from that and also from the historical Paul in the works of Josephus.
While a “composite” character is a fictional character that the author developed by drawing from multiple real world characters, this could be what we might call a “synthetic” character, synthesized from different characterizations of the same historical figure.
Paul in Acts has to be a reaction to Paul in the Pauline Letters.
In the evolution of the Canon, IIUC, there is some early witness to Acts followed by the Catholic Epistles, perhaps with Acts in lieu of the Epistles, but once Acts moves to reside in front of the Epistles of Paul, that seems to stick fairly well. So it could be that the Paul in Acts is a reaction to Paul in the Pauline letters (whether in some pre-canonical edition or in a canonical edition), and then it is discovered that putting it in front of the canonical Epistles helps to frame those Epistles and kind of “tames” the Paul in the canonical Epistles through the emerging harmonizing tendency to read the canon as univocal.
Paul in the Pauline Letters grows out of the historical Paul in the works of Josephus…
Wait…what? I missed a step. Paul is in Josephus? Can someone help me here? A relevant passage perhaps?
So it could be that the Paul in Acts is a reaction to Paul in the Pauline letters…
The problem here is that Acts get everything wrong when we can check it against Paul’s own claims. Isn’t it likely that Luke stands in relation to Paul in Acts as he does to Jesus in his gospel? Luke didn’t know Jesus or Paul. He’s passing on stuff he read and/or heard or he’s making it up? Both Paul and Jesus were well known enough to have books written recounting their adventures.
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