Paul's letters of arrest for Damascus

[John2]

Lay has an interesting article arguing that the Damascus Paul was sent to in Acts is the wilderness of Damascus mentioned in the Damascus Document:

If we had only Acts to consider, we might well consider that the author of Acts was mistaken as to the Damascus he got from his source material. Perhaps the Damascus that he assumed was the large city by that name was in reality a symbolic name in his source for some other location. There are certainly grounds for such an idea in the so-called Damascus Document, a product of 2nd Temple Judaism that was partially discovered in a Cairo synagogue in 1896 and rediscovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The product of some Jewish sect, it talked about its first members having made a "new covenant" with God in the "land of Damascus". It is possible that the author of the Damascus Document actually meant the city of Damascus or its near surroundings. It is also possible that he meant some location in the area of the Decapolis city-states. Aramaic-speaker might well have referred to the Decapolis territories as the "land of Damascus" since Damascus was the political center of the confederation. However, the most likely explanation is that the "land of Damascus" in the Damascus Document had a purely symbolic significance, based on a sectarian reinterpretation of one or two passages in the Jewish scripture.

For this role, Amos 5: 21-27 fits the bill admirably:

"I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies, when you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings. I will not accept them and will not look upon the peace offerings of your fatted beasts. Take away from me the noise of your songs. I will not listen to the melody of your harps."

"Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

"Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You shall take up Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your stargod--your images, which you made for yourselves.

"Therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus," says Yahweh, whose name is the God of Hosts."

Now Amos was one of the earliest Hebrew prophets, and in his historical context it appears likely that, if he is prophesising anything, it is the removal of the royal house of the Northern Kingdom of Israel to some land so distant that it is beyond Damascus, as a result of their preferring sacrifices and offerings to real justice and their continuing to allow the worship of false gods.

Sects like the one that produced the Damascus Document, however, had an obsession with reinterpreting passages from Hebrew scripture to force them into prophecies relevant to their own times. In this process, they would readily change the apparent meaning of a passage to suit their own neo-prophetic notions. For them, "Damascus" remains a place of exile in concept. But instead of a place of punishment for unrighteous royalty, "Damascus" becomes a symbol for the place of refuge for righteous people, a self-imposed place of exile.

Another prophecy which may be relevant here is the oracle concerning Damascus in Isaiah 17:1-3, which begins "Damascus shall cease to be a city," and then goes on to predict that Damascus and other nearby cities will become deserted ruins where flocks can lie down and not be afraid. The prophet here was predicting a conquest of the kingdom of Damascus by the Assyrians involving the destruction of its capital city and other cities in the land of Damascus. But the prediction proved only half true. The kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians all right, but the city of Damascus was not destroyed. Passing under the rule of successive empires, it remained a large city. By using the term "land of Damascus" or "Damascus" for their wilderness refuge, the sect that produced the Damascus Document would be providing a complete validation of Isaiah's prophecy, at least to its own satisfaction. "Damascus" would cease to be a city because for the members of the sect it would now refer to their wilderness refuge, where they -God's flock-could lie down to sleep and not be afraid.

It is going too far to directly connect the early Jesus movement with the sect that produced the Damascus Document, although such a connection is entirely possible. All that is necessary here is to suggest that, stemming from the Amos and Isaiah passages, "Damascus" became a symbolic term in some spectrum of related sectarian groups for a wilderness location where self-proclaimed righteous people gathered together in an attempt to insulate themselves from the perversions of the prevailing society.

If "Damascus" is understood as meaning symbolically the location of some sectarian wilderness refuge that could be used by Jesus people, somewhere in or near Judaea itself, then the mission of Paul to "Damascus" becomes more logical. Whether his authority to act against Jesus people came from the Jerusalem temple priesthood, the Herodian ethnarch, or the Roman procurator, or some combination thereof, it would be limited to Judaea and/or its neighboring Herodian areas, and thus make some sense. One can easily imagine a scenario where talk by Jesus people or by Paul himself about his expedition against a Jesus people wilderness refuge called "Damascus" later came to be viewed as an expedition to the large, well-known city of the same name by people who were ignorant of the wilderness refuge.

http://www.christianorigins.com/pauldamascus.html

[John2]

Lay goes on to suggest that Paul's reference to Damascus in 2 Cor. 11:32 is not genuine, but I wonder if it could perhaps fit with the rest of his analysis given the way it is written.

In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas secured the city of the Damascenes in order to arrest me.

Why does Paul mention "Damascus" and then "the city of the Damascenes" if "Damascus" means the city of Damascus? Wouldn't the latter be redundant, if so? Is there something going on here in the Greek that necessitates this sentence structure? Could he not have said, "In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas secured the city in order to arrest me"?

[Ben C. Smith]

Why does Paul mention "Damascus" and then "the city of the Damascenes" if "Damascus" means the city of Damascus? Wouldn't the latter be redundant, if so? Is there something going on here in the Greek that necessitates this sentence structure? Could he not have said, "In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas secured the city in order to arrest me"?

There is nothing compelling the redundancy in the Greek. I do not know why it is there.

[John2]

Why does Paul mention "Damascus" and then "the city of the Damascenes" if "Damascus" means the city of Damascus? Wouldn't the latter be redundant, if so? Is there something going on here in the Greek that necessitates this sentence structure? Could he not have said, "In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas secured the city in order to arrest me"?

There is nothing compelling the redundancy in the Greek. I do not know why it is there.

I wonder then if by "Damascus" Paul means the land or wilderness of Damascus, as per the Damascus Document.

[John2]

I've been trying to figure out why Paul went to Arabia after his conversion to Christianity (which, after looking at various commentaries, I take to mean the Nabatean kingdom).


Gal. 1:15-17:

But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.

It's curious that he says he "returned" to Damascus after going to Arabia, since this is the first time he mentions Damascus (whether the region or the city), but I will assume for now that his conversion happened there (and set aside the account in Acts for the moment).

Anyway, I haven't been content with the idea that Paul went to Arabia solely to meditate and reflect on his conversion or to visit Mount Sinai. It would make more sense (as some say) if it had something to do with what he says right before this, "that I might preach [Jesus] among the Gentiles." But why couldn't he have done that in Judea or Damascus (whether the region or the city)? I think a sensible answer is (partly) in this commentary:

He may … have felt the need to remove himself from any tension that would have erupted between himself and his former Pharisaic colleagues …

https://books.google.com/books?id=vsNDE ... ia&f=false

Of course! I'd never considered what an awkward position Paul's conversion would have put him in with the Pharisees before, and it would make sense that he wouldn't want to go back to Judea immediately after that.

And I would suggest that he likewise left Damascus (whether the region or the city) because he "'felt the need to remove himself from any tension that would have erupted between himself" and Jewish Christians there (like he had with them later).

So it's a simple process of elimination. He couldn't go back to Judea (west) because of the repercussions he would have encountered among the Pharisees there (as was later the case), and he couldn't stay in Damascus, whether the region or the city (northeast), because of the repercussions he would have encountered among Jewish Christians there (as was later the case in Jerusalem, Antioch and wherever else) given his recent persecution of them and his gospel not being in line with theirs regarding Torah observance.

So he went to Arabia (southeast), presumably to try out his gospel on Gentiles there (as per Gal. 1:16: "that I might preach [Jesus] among the Gentiles"), though that ultimately may not have gone well either to judge from what happened to him later in 2 Cor. 11:32-33:

In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.

Maybe it was only after things had settled down (and/or after trying out his gospel in Arabia) that Paul felt comfortable (or bold) enough to return to Damascus (whether the region or the city). I suppose all we can do is guess, but these seem like satisfying guesses to me.

[neilgodfrey]

I see it as a place that "holy" people could go to be "holy" or escape persecution since OT times, and I reckon Christians were being persecuted because of their messianism and rejection of the Pharisaic establishment and oral Torah (i.e., their interest in "procuring innovations and changes of the government," as Josephus puts it above) rather than because they were "bandits."

Indeed, and since all we have are texts the safest and simplest explanation is that we have another instance of intertextuality. We need more than narratives alone to have reason to believe those narratives are pointing to real history.

In Acts it is Damascus that is the geographic focus of Paul’s conversion experience; in Galatians the notable geographical association is Arabia.

N.T. Wright makes a reasonable case in his 1996 JBL article (115, 683-692), Paul, Arabia, and Elijah (Galatians 1:17) that the author of the Galatians letter was casting himself as one who stood in the line of biblical prophets:

• he was separated “from his mother's womb”, 1.15 (compare Jeremiah 1.5; and Isaiah 49.1)
• he was known for his religious zeal — even killing those opposed to the law, 1.13-14 (compare Phineas and Elijah, Nu.25 and 1 Ki.18)
• he went to Arabia in response to his call from God, and the same letter spoke of Arabia as being the place of Mount Sinai, 4.25 (compare Moses and Elijah, Ex.3 and 1 Ki.19)
• he returned from Arabia to Damascus, 1.17 (compare Elijah, 1 Ki.19.15)

The author of Acts on the other hand had a different agenda, which was to cut Paul down to a subordinate position to the Jerusalem apostles. The various scholarly attempts to rationalize or harmonize the Paul of Acts with the Paul of the epistles, including Galatians, have struck me as strained to breaking point, but this is another discussion. It is easiest to read Acts treatment of Paul as an attempt to portray Paul in many ways echoing the accomplishments of Peter, but at the same time subordinate and conforming to the teachings sealed with the authority of Jerusalem. Acts rejects the Paul of the letter who sniffs at the status of Cephas, James and John, and who reminds readers he owes nothing of his conversion or gospel message to them.

The independent status and prophetic pretensions of the author of Galatians were all too clear to the author of Acts. The Acts narrative would erase anything that suggested an allusion to the callings of Moses and Elijah. The journey to Arabia had to be deleted because of its holy mountain associations, especially when referenced beside the prophetic allusion of being separated from his mother’s womb. Gentile Damascus, referenced as an aside to the Arabian journey in the letter, would be taken by the Acts narrator and made the central point of Paul’s conversion instead. And so would any reference to being destined for his role, like Jeremiah, from the time of his conception.

J. C. O'Neill in his 1972 The Recovery of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians argued that the Galatians verses speaking of Paul persecuting Christians were inserted by a second century interpolator wanting to glorify Paul.

His reasons:

• The argument is irrelevant and anachronistic, the concepts differ from Paul’s concepts, and the vocabulary and style are not his.
• What is at stake is his right to serve Christ as he has been called to serve him. The astounding reversal of roles he underwent, from a fierce persecutor of the Church to an evangelist of the faith, and from a precociously zealous Jew to an opponent of Jewish customs, is no argument in favour of Paul’s position.
• The interpolation is anachronistic because it regards Judaism as an entity distinct from Christianity.

[robert j]

J. C. O'Neill in his 1972 The Recovery of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians argued that the Galatians verses speaking of Paul persecuting Christians were inserted by a second century interpolator wanting to glorify Paul.

His reasons:

• The argument is irrelevant ...

Not relevant? Paul’s claim that he harassed early believers in Jesus Christ was absolutely relevant, necessary, and critical to his work and livelihood as an entrepreneurial Judean specialist among his Gentile patrons. The claim was central to his personal story and to his ability to explain his beliefs.

It seems apparent that Paul told the story of his earlier harassing to all his congregations during his initial evangelizing visit. In addition to the passage in Galatians, Paul mentioned it in passing in his letters to the Philippians and the Corinthians, as a brief reminder (Philippians 3:6 and 1 Corinthians 15:9)

Why was the story central to Paul’s work? Paul was promoting the idea that Gentiles could become full participants with the chosen people of the great and ancient God of the Jews --- without the benefit of circumcision --- in large part by using the Jewish Scriptures to demonstrate and argue for his positions.

However, in the Scriptures the very words of God are clear and unequivocal. If one wanted to join among God’s chosen people, circumcision was not an option, but rather an absolute necessity. There are at least three passages in which it is clearly required that converts and males of any age in life must be circumcised in order to gain full participation with the chosen people of God (Exodus 12:43-49, Joshua 5:2-5, and Genesis 17:9-13, LXX).

How could Paul, a zealous Jew, go against the clear and unequivocal words of God?

Hey, I thought it was a crazy idea too and railed against it--- or so Paul’s story goes. But God himself intervened, and in the fullness of time revealed his son to me so I could bring the Gentiles into the fold with a new covenant. Paul was smart enough to know that only God --- in the form of a revelation to Paul --- could possibly stand against the clear scriptural requirement. Only God could provide to Paul the standing and credibility to promote his own creative scriptural interpretations.

At least that was Paul’s story.


ETA: In addition, Paul’s claim of his harassment of early believers in Galatians provided a strong implied argument against those encouraging his converts to get circumcised. To wit —- those promoting circumcision are wrong now just like I was wrong before.

[neilgodfrey]

J. C. O'Neill in his 1972 The Recovery of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians argued that the Galatians verses speaking of Paul persecuting Christians were inserted by a second century interpolator wanting to glorify Paul.

His reasons:

• The argument is irrelevant ...

Not relevant? Paul’s claim that he harassed early believers in Jesus Christ was absolutely relevant, necessary, and critical to his work and livelihood as an entrepreneurial Judean specialist among his Gentile patrons. The claim was central to his personal story and to his ability to explain his beliefs.

O'Neill means not relevant to the point of what he was writing in Galatians. He explains why it is irrelevant in this context:

Paul is arguing that he was directly commissioned by God, through a revelation of his Son, to spread the good news among the Gentiles. Although he visited Jerusalem to get information from Cephas,1 and there saw James, the Lord’s brother, he was not indebted to them for his special commission. That visit was three years after his call, and his first reaction to the call had not been to go to Jerusalem but to go to Arabia.

Besides, there are good reasons, I think, to question the entire notion found in Acts that Paul ever killed or jailed or physically punished anyone for being a Christian. To paste here something I wrote elsewhere:

Reasons I am questioning the assumption that Paul before his conversion persecuted the church in the sense of haling people off to prison, engaging them with enhanced interrogation techniques, beating them, sometimes too severely so they died:

• The word for “persecution” is διωγμός — one could “pursue” [δίωκε] righteousness; Paul wrote that Ishmael “persecuted” [ἐδίωκεν] Isaac. The word can have very unpleasant associations when used negatively but does not necessarily mean to beat up and kill.
• The notion that Paul did beat and kill Christians before his conversion is derived from Acts. I argue elsewhere (following several scholars) that this is theologically motivated fabrication. I am arguing from the evidence of Paul’s letters alone.
• There were divergent views about Paul’s pre-Christian career. Marcionites denied he had been a “persecutor” of the church. How do we explain such diversity of opinion?
• What motive could Paul have had for “persecuting” the church in the whipping and killing sense? He himself said he was persecuted because of his views on the Law. But he was the one who introduced those views. So that cause could not have been the reason he himself persecuted Christians prior to his conversion.
• Second Temple Judaism, according to its literature, appears to have embraced views about the Messiah as diverse as the belief that he (or one of the messiahs) would be killed, so preaching a crucified Christ/messiah is not likely to have attracted murderous rage.
• Litwa shows us that it was not at all blasphemous for Jews to imagine a human being deified — so preaching that a man Jesus had become a divinity would not have overturned the world.
• The followers of Jesus were obviously not seen as a threat since they were left alone when the authorities arrested Jesus, so one finds it difficult to think that they would suddenly change their minds and persecute them for posing a threat to the “state”.
• There were other Jewish cults who protested against the Temple cult and it is difficult to imagine the authorities persecuting them or fearing a threat to their religious system. What would such a threat look like? A lone man overturning a table or two in one corner of the crowded precinct? A few more persons wandering off to join the Qumran community?

[robert j]

O'Neill means not relevant to the point of what he was writing in Galatians.

I think he missed the point. In part ---

In addition, Paul’s claim of his harassment of early believers in Galatians provided a strong implied argument against those encouraging his converts to get circumcised. To wit —- those promoting circumcision are wrong now just like I was wrong before.

The focus of nearly the entire letter to the Galatians was about circumcision. One only need to read Paul's closing that he wrote in his own hand to understand the focus of his letter.

Where did Paul go with his stories about James and Cephas? They added nothing to me, they didn't require Titus to be circumcised, and they granted to me the Gentile franchise --- and they are not even on the same page when it comes to the rituals in a Gentile context.

Besides, there are good reasons, I think, to question the entire notion found in Acts that Paul ever killed or jailed or physically punished anyone for being a Christian.

I certainly agree with that. Paul did not claim to do any of those things in his letters.

[John2]

Neil wrote:

In Acts it is Damascus that is the geographic focus of Paul’s conversion experience; in Galatians the notable geographical association is Arabia.

I'm thinking Acts at least got the impression from Galatians that Paul's conversion happened in (or on the way to) Damascus. Taking the text as we have it, it looks to me like that's where Paul's conversion experience happened to judge from his statement in 1:17 that he "returned" there after visiting Arabia.


1:15-17:

But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not rush to consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to the apostles who came before me, but I went into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.

So the only question I have is why doesn't Acts mention Paul's visit to Arabia?

My first thought is perhaps it's because Paul doesn't provide any details about his visit there, unlike his time in Damascus, i.e., that he spent up to three years there (Gal. 1:18) and had escaped from the city in a basket (2 Cor. 11:32-33, cf., Acts 9:25). And my second thought is perhaps there weren't any Jewish Christians in pre-70 CE Arabia, which wouldn't serve Acts' agenda of having Paul preach to Jews alongside the disciples (e.g., 9:28-29, "So Saul stayed with [the disciples], moving about freely in Jerusalem and speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. He talked and debated with the Grecian Jews," despite what Paul says in Gal. 1:16 and 2:7 regarding preaching his gospel only to Gentiles).

But Paul doesn't provide any details about his time in Cilicia either (Gal. 1:21), and that didn't stop Acts from mentioning Cilicia (15:41: "And he traveled through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches"). So I'm leaning towards the idea that Acts doesn't mention Paul's time in Arabia because there weren't any Jewish Christians there and thus it wouldn't serve its agenda of having Paul preach alongside the disciples. After all, Acts 15:41 says that Paul had strengthened the churches in Cilicia and not founded them, which might mean those churches were founded by Jewish Christians (and had a Jewish presence), and 15:21 says there were synagogues there given James' statement prior to mentioning the letter that was addressed to Gentiles in Cilicia:

For Moses has been proclaimed in every city from ancient times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.

Whatever the case may be, I wonder what the Jewish presence in Arabia was like pre-70 CE. As I poke around, in a partial view that cuts off at the key part for me I see that Horbury writes that "Arab-Jewish relations were inevitably close but often strained" (citing several examples) but that:

There was, however, a considerable Jewish population in Arabia itself, attested at the time of the early Roman empire through inscriptions and, in the regions to the east and [cuts off] ...

https://books.google.com/books?id=H0NpB ... om&f=false

Hm. I'm going to need a third thought then, so here are some more links for me to look at later:


https://books.google.com/books?id=FcAoB ... om&f=false


https://books.google.com/books?id=73-JA ... om&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=PRIKV ... om&f=false


But now I have my third thought (which is my second thought reconsidered). The question isn't whether there were Jews in pre-70 CE Arabia, but whether there were any Jewish Christians in pre-70 CE Arabia (i.e., for Paul to preach alongside as per Acts' agenda), and offhand I can't think of any sources that say that.