Deadly Aerial Combat

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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DCHindley
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Deadly Aerial Combat

Post by DCHindley »

The other day I speculated on another thread that Paul was perhaps not just a mere "tent maker," but a contractor capable of rigging a sailing vessel as well as utilizing pulleys to haul up those sails.

We know that open air coliseums and other arenas/theaters in Roman times often had canvas awnings which were manipulated exactly as a sailing ship. The rigging crew were actually sailors in the imperial navy. Since the sight of sailors in their uniforms swinging high up in the awnings to change their orientations was part of a coliseum show, it is only a little step to incorporate that into the planned entertainment, usually including gladiatorial demonstrations or shows.

Like many I used to watch those old swashbuckling pirate movies where the crew swung around the various spars like monkeys at the zoo swing around on vines hung in the trees of "monkey island." So, maybe just maybe I think, "Couldn't Paul have been able to do that?" If so, then those days were behind him if any of the letters attributed to Paul can be considered authentic (at least in part).

Maybe Paul had been to Rome already, not as a pastor over a flock of gentile God-fearers, but as a Cilician sailor (read "Pirate") able to swing around the rigging of a coliseum. Simon Peter was also there, a Galilean sailor who had joined the Egyptian wheat fleet. Grain and merchant ships utilized sails, not rowers, IIRC.

So, hear me out (this means you Jax), two condemned criminals are chosen for a special show. One (Simon) would wear the uniform of the imperial or old republican navy, another (Paul) the dress of a Cilician pirate! They would each have several belaying pins as weapons, which they would try to use upon each other as they swung around each other above the crowd, trying hard to knock the other to the ground. Simon's crime had probably been political agitation for an unauthorized Judean royal contender. Paul was likely a captured Cilician pirate.

There would be rehearsals, oh would there ever be rehearsals. They had to learn how to use the rigging available and maybe even socialized with one another, jovially engaged in gallows humor. Of course, there would be no net for the criminal shows. After all, only one of them could, at best, expect to walk away from this show. The winner might be granted his freedom. Each was working at his best, both in top physical condition, and able to think quickly, such as using their opponents' lines and heir tactics to their own advantage. This is very much like Martial Arts cage fighting today.

Paul, doing his best, was not as good as his opponent, and he was bumped out of his harness, falling to the ground below, a broken heap. The circles who had written the Pseudo-Clementine literature had seen the show, cast as a fight between good and evil. It was only later that Paul, having recovered his health somewhat to eek out a living as a tentmaker, became an advocate for gentile God-fearers.

Of course, the actual actors may have been just that, actors, and it was an acrobatic show that went bad, and Paul and Simon were in no way involved. This was just something in the imagination of the author(s) of the Clementine literature .

What does this dissertation prove? Nothing. But is sure was fun tellin' muh yarn.

DCH
Last edited by DCHindley on Tue Nov 06, 2018 7:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
perseusomega9
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Joined: Tue Feb 04, 2014 7:19 am

Re: Deadly Aerial Combat

Post by perseusomega9 »

That explains Paul's thorn in the flesh
The metric to judge if one is a good exegete: the way he/she deals with Barabbas.

Who disagrees with me on this precise point is by definition an idiot.
-Giuseppe
Garon
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Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2013 8:33 am

Re: Deadly Aerial Combat

Post by Garon »

Paul was a saddle maker....Rocco A. Errico Aramaic teacher.

Paul's thorn was not sitting under Jesus teachings...Rocco A. Errico Aramaic teacher.
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