Funny thing about Acts... (Paul's trial)

[Secret Alias]

So what was the meeting in Antioch all about mirrored in the Letter to the Galatians?

[John2]

So what was the meeting in Antioch all about mirrored in the Letter to the Galatians?

The meeting in Jerusalem in Acts is about whether Gentiles should be required to be circumcised and observe the Torah, and Jewish Christian elders decided they did not but that they should observe four things and can learn about the Torah in synagogues on the Sabbath if they choose to.

It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not cause trouble for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood. For Moses has been proclaimed in every city from ancient times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.

This is similar to the position in Rabbinic Judaism regarding "righteous Gentiles" who have a share in the "world to come" without being fully Torah observant.


https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/11647?lang=bi

[Giuseppe]

Yes, PAUL is on trial. What PAUL allegedly said and did was on trial. And Paul defends himself on what he said and did. So why the heck are you surprised that a human Jesus isn't being made part of the mix??? What is strange about that, in your mind? Doesn't that speak towards your own obsession about Jesus?

Does that answer to:

So if Jesus was seditious against Caesar, if Jesus profaned the Temple, if Jesus falsified what the prophets claimed, etc., and Paul not, then Paul could be absolutely innocent in the eyes of Festus and Agrippa.

[Secret Alias]

This is similar to the position in Rabbinic Judaism regarding "righteous Gentiles" who have a share in the "world to come" without being fully Torah observant.

No its not Steven.

[John2]

So the issue in Acts is whether Gentiles should be required to observe the Torah, and the Jewish Christian position is that they shouldn't but they are encouraged learn more about it and presumablyobserve if they choose to. In Galatians, Paul takes issue with this and also pushes the envelope regarding whether Jewish Torah observance is necessary, and those sent from James reprove him for this and James also reproves (but does not reject) him for this in his letter.

[Secret Alias]

Nonsense in Acts. Nonsense by you. Acts here is a glossing over of what appears in Galatians. But even this fabrication can't be construed as "continuity" with this fictionalized Jerusalem Church. Anyway Steven we've strayed way off the OP

[neilgodfrey]

So in this entire account of Paul's time in Jerusalem, at no point does anyone say anything meaningful about Jesus. The Sanhedrin doesn't say, "You're a believer in that heretic we executed!" Or, "Yes, we remember Jesus, he was a false prophet, and you are too!"

The Romans don't say. "Jesus was justly executed under the law, we know he is dead. You're claims of resurrection are false! We'll show you the body!"

Nothing even remotely approaching that happens. In my mind, if I were fabricating this account after the fact, that certainly is what I would have written, something along those lines. But even in Acts of the Apostles its as if the memory of Jesus has been entirely wiped from the minds of everyone in Jerusalem!

This leads me to think that this latter portion of Acts really is based on authentic accounts and that the writer of Acts stuck pretty close to his source, at least in perhaps Acts 15-27.

I wonder if there is a simpler explanation that does not call upon the need for pre-gospel sources of a very strange trial.

If we accept that the resurrection of Jesus was what vindicated Jesus' claims about himself then the narrator, by having the dialogue centre around the point of resurrection, is fulfilling the stated purpose delivered several times -- that Paul's mission was to declare the good news of Jesus before kings, his resurrection, which vindicated his claim to be messiah, etc.

Luke has already narrated the details of the Passion so he has no interest in repeating that episode. Luke doesn't like repeating much of anything in any sort of detail as we see with the three different descriptions of Paul's calling. What Luke does do, though, is have Paul emphasize throughout his preaching Jesus' vindication -- his resurrection -- to prove he is the Mesisah etc. That was the climactic point of his message to the Athenians in chapter 17, earlier to the Jews in chapter 13, and to the Jews again in chapter 28. The resurrection is the thing. So it's not a unique emphasis in the Jerusalem trial.

By having the trial of Paul focus on the point of the resurrection Luke is consistent with his narrative theme of Paul's mission.

It's not based on any history. It's entirely a piece of creative storytelling with a theological message, simple and direct.

The "we passages" are also a bit of creative fiction -- part of the "false anonymity" that was something of a known technique in the second century -- names of authors not announced but little clues dropped in the narrative to hint at who is the supposed author. Arthur Droge made that point very well in Did Luke Write Anonymously? There were no eyewitnesses and there was no source apart from the author's imagination. The message from the start right through to the end is that Jesus is vindicated and is who he said he was by virtue of the resurrection.

[Ben C. Smith]

There is a problem with using the logic of "where one would expect such references [to a human Jesus]". Who sets those expectations, and how are they determined? For example: if you expect such references in Acts, a text which no-one doubts is 'historicist', and those expectations are not met, then it may be your expectations are the issue. What are your expectations based on in the first place such that they are justified? In fact, unless shown otherwise, Acts is actually evidence against such expectations.

This failure to ground those expectations is a point I've long argued against both Doherty's and Dr Carrier's theories.

Without either endorsing or rejecting the argument you are countering on this thread, I can vouch for your observation that one of the biggest obstacles to actually figuring out what happened in antiquity is the set of expectations we bring to the table. That we carry such expectations is only to be expected (pun intended), since we are the products of our own time and place, but those expectations have to be disciplined and, if necessary, eschewed completely.

I once expected that, right in line with how the Bible is treated today, the gospels, acts, epistles, and apocalypses of early Christianity would have been viewed as central to the earliest Christians. But I no longer suffer from that expectation, which I believe to be inaccurate up to at least the time of Marcion and Justin Martyr. My most current view is partly laid out in a recent post of mine:

(I want to insert a bit about how I think our focus is often mistaken in approaching these Christian texts, especially with respect to their genres. It seems to me that we tend to think of gospels, acts, epistles, and maybe even apocalypses as the beating heart of the movement right from the start; but I think that such texts would have been considered peripheral at the time. They came to loom large once canonicity became a main factor, obviously; by that time they were triumphant; but in the early going I think that the rites and rituals, the catechismal materials, the mission instructions, the prayers, the hymns and odes, and the other set pieces I have listed were more important to the average Christian. The gospels were written at least in part precisely in order to explain the origins of those set pieces and of the Christian religion overall; we can see this purpose most clearly in the etiological narrative of the Last Supper, a quasi-historical explanation for one of the main sacraments current in the church. The epistles were written mainly to help maintain order and good sense in the congregations. The acts were written in order to fill in the history of the movement from the point at which the gospels leave off, a purpose similar to that for which the gospels were written, yet one even more relevant to Christian congregations around the Mediterranean. All of these texts originally bolstered the local congregation as a meeting, worshiping, functioning instance of the movement as a whole. To the average early Christian, these texts were nice to know, but their main concerns were what transpired with other local members of the church at the meetings and meals and such. I have stated this very forthrightly, and if you think that maybe I have overstated it, I certainly understand; I just do not think it is a conceptualization that ought to be missed.)

Whether I am correct or not in that assessment is not the point here and now. In fact, if I am incorrect, it would doubtless be at least partly down to unwarranted expectations on my part for antiquity.

[rgprice]

It's not based on any history. It's entirely a piece of creative storytelling with a theological message, simple and direct.

The "we passages" are also a bit of creative fiction -- part of the "false anonymity" that was something of a known technique in the second century -- names of authors not announced but little clues dropped in the narrative to hint at who is the supposed author. Arthur Droge made that point very well in Did Luke Write Anonymously? There were no eyewitnesses and there was no source apart from the author's imagination. The message from the start right through to the end is that Jesus is vindicated and is who he said he was by virtue of the resurrection.

The issue is not whether the underlying source is itself historically accurate, its whether there is an underlying source that was written prior to the first Gospel. The narrative may well be fictional, but but even so, its a fictional narrative created without a view of a crucifixion of Jesus at the order of the Sanhedrin in mind.

I think its a bit preposterous to simply explain away Paul facing Jesus' would-be executioners and not even make any refences to the prior deed. These people had just recently killed Jesus, the guy that Paul is now supposedly worshiping. Doesn't Paul know what they just did to him? Isn't he terrified for his life, now facing the very people that just executed his savior?

The narrative clearly reads as if the Gospel execution of Jesus had never taken place. Its on no one's mind, not even Paul's. They are having a debate about resurrection! Its being approached as a matter of theology. Where is Paul saying, "That guy that you executed came back to life. Remember him, that guy that you put on the cross. That's the guy that came to me!" I saw him, and I can prove that it was himself because of X, Y, or Z recognizable feature! You remember how you put a crown of thorns on his head? Well, I could see the scars from it when he visited me!"

And the idea that this was simply not a matter of interest is absurd. The legitimacy of the resurrection was absolutely in question at the time that Luke was writing. Here the writer has them in a court of law, the perfect place to make his case. But the case is not made because the writer is following close to his sources, just as he did in his Gospel, which is why he followed Mark over Matthew. He was a stickler for following sources when he had them. He followed his source here, his now lost "Acts of Paul", in which the trial of Paul took place before the idea that Jesus had ever been on trail even existed.

[neilgodfrey]

There is a problem with using the logic of "where one would expect such references [to a human Jesus]". Who sets those expectations, and how are they determined? For example: if you expect such references in Acts, a text which no-one doubts is 'historicist', and those expectations are not met, then it may be your expectations are the issue. What are your expectations based on in the first place such that they are justified? In fact, unless shown otherwise, Acts is actually evidence against such expectations.

This failure to ground those expectations is a point I've long argued against both Doherty's and Dr Carrier's theories.

Without either endorsing or rejecting the argument you are countering on this thread, I can vouch for your observation that one of the biggest obstacles to actually figuring out what happened in antiquity is the set of expectations we bring to the table. That we carry such expectations is only to be expected (pun intended), since we are the products of our own time and place, but those expectations have to be disciplined and, if necessary, eschewed completely.

There are two types of expectations. One type arises from our assumptions about our sources and the tales they tell.

• e.g. we would expect a biographer of Paul to write a more appropriate conclusion to Acts.

That expectation rests on a number of assumptions about the nature and origin of Acts that further inquiry may lead us to see are mistaken.

The other type of expectation arises from our understanding of the basics of how the world and people normally function and are effectively reasonable tests applied to a hypothesis.

• e.g. we would expect a fulfilled prophecy in a narrative to be have been written after the fulfilment of that prophecy.

Here we apply a reasonable expectation based on our general knowledge of how the world has always worked to lead us to conclude a relative date for a narrative. Someone, of course, might find reasons to challenge our expectations and conclusion but that is part of the discussion. The expectations are based on a generic or universal understanding of how the world normally works.