Paul as persecutor

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rgprice
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Paul as persecutor

Post by rgprice »

I've grown increasingly suspicious of the claims that Paul engaged in persecution of Christ worshipers before converting to become a Christ worshiper himself. @neilgodfrey has argued that the story of Paul as persecutor seems to be a second century contrivance, which I'm starting to agree with.

What is the evidence for Paul's persecution? Firstly, there are the three "confessions" of persecution in the Pauline letters:

1 Cor 15:
3 For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.


Gal 1:
13 For you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; 14 and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. 15 But when He who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace was pleased 16 to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus.

18 Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him for fifteen days. 19 But I did not see another one of the apostles except James, the Lord’s brother. 20 (Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying.) 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which are in Christ; 23 but they only kept hearing, “The man who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they were glorifying God because of me.


Philippians 3:
2 Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision; 3 for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and take pride in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh, 4 although I myself could boast as having confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he is confident in the flesh, I have more reason: 5 circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.

Of these, 1 Cor 15:5-10 is clearly an interpolation. This is an obvious anti-Marcionite statement that was later added. I'm not going to go into the case for it here, as it has been discussed many times.

Philippians 3:6 I find very suspect, as I've discussed in this recent thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8140

But this still leaves us with the statements in Galatians. Before tackling Galatians, let's look at what Acts of the Apostles has to say.

Acts 8
1 Now Saul approved of putting Stephen to death.

And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except for the apostles. 2 Some devout men buried Stephen, and mourned loudly for him. 3 But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house; and he would drag away men and women and put them in prison.


Acts 9
1 Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, 2 and asked for letters from him to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them in shackles to Jerusalem. 3 Now as he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; 4 and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” 5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, 6 but get up and enter the city, and it will be told to you what you must do.” 7 The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus. 9 And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

There is more, but that's the crux of it.

Saul's persecution of the Lord, or of the disciples of the Lord, is very much patterned on the story of David and Saul from 1 Samuel. From 1 Samuel we read:

1 Sam 18:
10 Now it came about on the next day that an evil spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved in the midst of the house while David was playing the harp with his hand, as usual; and a spear was in Saul’s hand. 11 Then Saul hurled the spear, for he thought, “I will pin David to the wall.” But David escaped from his presence, twice.

12 Now Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him but had left Saul. 13 So Saul removed him from his presence and appointed him as his commander of a thousand; and he went out and came in before the people. 14 David was successful in all his ways, for the Lord was with him. 15 When Saul saw that he was very successful, he was afraid of him. 16 But all Israel and Judah loved David, for he would go out to battle and return before them.


1 Sam 24:
24 Now when Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, it was reported to him, saying, “Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi.” 2 Then Saul took three thousand chosen men from all Israel and went to search for David and his men in front of the Rocks of the Mountain Goats. 3 And he came to the sheepfolds on the way, where there was a cave; and Saul went in to relieve himself. Now David and his men were sitting in the inner recesses of the cave. 4 Then David’s men said to him, “Behold, this is the day of which the Lord said to you, ‘Behold; I am about to hand your enemy over to you, and you shall do to him as it seems good to you.’” Then David got up and cut off the edge of Saul’s robe secretly. 5 But it came about afterward that David’s conscience bothered him because he had cut off the edge of Saul’s robe. 6 So he said to his men, “Far be it from me because of the Lord that I would do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed, to reach out with my hand against him, since he is the Lord’s anointed.” 7 And David rebuked his men with these words and did not allow them to rise up against Saul. And Saul got up, left the cave, and went on his way.

8 Afterward, however, David got up and went out of the cave, and called after Saul, saying, “My lord the king!” And when Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the ground and prostrated himself. 9 And David said to Saul, “Why do you listen to the words of men who say, ‘Behold, David is seeking to harm you’? 10 Behold, this day your eyes have seen that the Lord had handed you over to me today in the cave, and someone said to kill you, but I spared you; and I said, ‘I will not reach out with my hand against my lord, because he is the Lord’s anointed.’ 11 So, my father, look! Indeed, look at the edge of your robe in my hand! For by the fact that I cut off the edge of your robe but did not kill you, know and understand that there is no evil or rebellion in my hands, and I have not sinned against you, though you are lying in wait for my life, to take it. 12 May the Lord judge between you and me, and may the Lord take vengeance on you for me; but my hand shall not be against you. 13 As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness’; but my hand shall not be against you. 14 After whom has the king of Israel gone out? Whom are you pursuing? A dead dog, a single flea? 15 May the Lord therefore be judge and decide between you and me; and may He see and plead my cause and save me from your hand.”

16 When David had finished speaking these words to Saul, Saul said, “Is this your voice, my son David?” Then Saul raised his voice and wept. 17 And he said to David, “You are more righteous than I; for you have dealt well with me, while I have dealt maliciously with you. 18 You have declared today that you have done good to me, that the Lord handed me over to you and yet you did not kill me. 19 Though if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go away unharmed? May the Lord therefore reward you with good in return for what you have done to me this day. 20 Now, behold, I know that you will certainly be king, and that the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hand.

This symbolism was not lost on early apologists. In fact, the relationship between Saul and Paul was central to Tertullian's defense of the correctness of the orthodox Pauline letters vs Marcion's letters, due to the alignment of the orthodox Pauline letters with the account in Acts of the Apostles. Tertullian states: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03125.htm

Let there be a Christ, let there be an apostle, although of another god; but what matter? since they are only to draw their proofs out of the Testament of the Creator. Because even the book of Genesis so long ago promised me the Apostle Paul. For among the types and prophetic blessings which he pronounced over his sons, Jacob, when he turned his attention to Benjamin, exclaimed, Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf; in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall impart nourishment. He foresaw that Paul would arise out of the tribe of Benjamin, a voracious wolf, devouring his prey in the morning: in order words, in the early period of his life he would devastate the Lord's sheep, as a persecutor of the churches; but in the evening he would give them nourishment, which means that in his declining years he would educate the fold of Christ, as the teacher of the Gentiles. Then, again, in Saul's conduct towards David, exhibited first in violent persecution of him, and then in remorse and reparation, on his receiving from him good for evil, we have nothing else than an anticipation of Paul in Saul — belonging, too, as they did, to the same tribe — and of Jesus in David, from whom He descended according to the Virgin's genealogy. Should you, however, disapprove of these types, the Acts of the Apostles, at all events, have handed down to me this career of Paul, which you must not refuse to accept. Thence I demonstrate that from a persecutor he became an apostle, not of men, neither by man; Galatians 1:1 thence am I led to believe the Apostle himself; thence do I find reason for rejecting your defense of him, and for bearing fearlessly your taunt. Then you deny the Apostle Paul. I do not calumniate him whom I defend. I deny him, to compel you to the proof of him. I deny him, to convince you that he is mine.


We have laid down this as our first principle, because we wish at once to profess that we shall pursue the same method here in the apostle's case as we adopted before in Christ's case, to prove that he proclaimed no new god; that is, we shall draw our evidence from the epistles of St. Paul himself. Now, the garbled form in which we have found the heretic's Gospel will have already prepared us to expect to find the epistles also mutilated by him with like perverseness — and that even as respects their number.


His meaning, however, is clear, for he has mentioned himself first (in the anathema): But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel. Galatians 1:8 It is by way of an example that he has expressed himself. If even he himself might not preach any other gospel, then neither might an angel. He said angel in this way, that he might show how much more men ought not to be believed, when neither an angel nor an apostle ought to be; not that he meant to apply an angel to the gospel of the Creator. He then cursorily touches on his own conversion from a persecutor to an apostle — confirming thereby the Acts of the Apostles, in which book may be found the very subject of this epistle, how that certain persons interposed, and said that men ought to be circumcised, and that the law of Moses was to be observed; and how the apostles, when consulted, determined, by the authority of the Holy Ghost, that a yoke should not be put upon men's necks which their fathers even had not been able to bear. Now, since the Acts of the Apostles thus agree with Paul, it becomes apparent why you reject them. It is because they declare no other God than the Creator, and prove Christ to belong to no other God than the Creator; while the promise of the Holy Ghost is shown to have been fulfilled in no other document than the Acts of the Apostles. Now, it is not very likely that these should be found in agreement with the apostle, on the one hand, when they described his career in accordance with his own statement; but should, on the other hand, be at variance with him when they announce the (attribute of) divinity in the Creator's Christ — as if Paul did not follow the preaching of the apostles when he received from them the prescription of not teaching the Law.

Tertullian essentially states that Paul, as described in Acts of the Apostles and the orthodox version of the Pauline letters, was pre-figured in the Jewish scriptures. However, Tertullian knows that Marcionites don't place any value in the Jewish scriptures, so he also appeals to the agreement between the orthodox Pauline letters and Acts of the Apostles. But, this actually lays out the logic of the invention of Paul's persecution.

Marcion did not believe that the Jewish scriptures were valid, or that they were able to foretell the coming of Jesus. And Marcion claimed that Paul was "his" prophet, the prophet of Jesus, who was the son of the Unknown God. The casting of Paul as a persecutor of Jesus' followers, then served to re-identify Paul as an agent of the Jewish Creator God, as opposed to Marcion's supposed Unknown God.

By casting Paul as a persecutor, now Paul could be identified with Jewish prophecy and it could be claimed that his actions were foretold by the Jewish scriptures. Tertullian, lays out as proof that all of this is valid, the fact that the claims of Paul's persecution are attested to in both the orthodox Pauline letters and in Acts of the Apostles. The agreement between those two sources is used to corroborate one another.

This, then, drives back to my proposition, that this agreement was actually the product of the editing of the Pauline letters by the writer of Acts of the Apostles.

We know that the casting of Paul as a persecutor served an apologetic goal. Thus, it is my strong suspicion that all accounts of Paul as persecutor are post-Marcionite inventions, created in reaction to Marcionism. This would imply that Marcion's version of the Pauline letters contained no claims about Paul having engaged in persecution.

Such a position is not clearly supported by Tertullian's commentary, because Tertullian is at times unclear about what he finds in his version of the letters vs Marcion's. Tertullian does not specifically call out Marcion for having removed all claims as to Paul's persecution, but he does make the case that Marcion's version of the letters are in error and that the orthodox version is correct, in part because of agreements between Acts and the orthodox version of the letters.

The importance of Paul's role as a persecutor was certainly amplified by anti-Marcionite Christians because it was seen as evidence that Paul was an agent of the Jewish Creator God as opposed to Marcion's supposed Unknown God. Thus, we have to ask if any claims of persecution in the Pauline letters is authentic, including that found in Galatians.

Is there substantial evidence that Paul was known as a persecutor prior to the mid second century?
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Re: Paul as persecutor

Post by Giuseppe »

rgprice wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 12:03 pm Is there substantial evidence that Paul was known as a persecutor prior to the mid second century?
(Compliments for the post). I think that the answer is yes precisely in virtue of your previous claim (here in the forum) that Jesus is simply Joshua tout court. I.e. even at all apart from late anti-marcionite polemic, there would be a plausible reason to see a Paul persecutor intrinsic in nuce in the same concept of Jesus as Joshua.

It can be shown as a logical implication:

If Jesus is Joshua, then Paul is Saul.

Why this? Because the first "anointed one" - hence, the first true "Christian" someway - after the biblical Joshua is precisely the first king of the Jews: Saul.

Because the biblical Saul, by his crowning, marks the end of the time of the Judges (the end/mitigation of the Law?).

Hence, insofar one sees as plausible the Jesus' derivation from Joshua, so one has also to see as well as plausible the Paul's derivation from Saul, for what Saul represents in relation to the biblical Joshua (he is the first anointed one after him) and not for what Saul does with David (he persecutes David).
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maryhelena
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Re: Paul as persecutor

Post by maryhelena »

rgprice wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 12:03 pm I've grown increasingly suspicious of the claims that Paul engaged in persecution of Christ worshipers before converting to become a Christ worshiper himself. @neilgodfrey has argued that the story of Paul as persecutor seems to be a second century contrivance, which I'm starting to agree with.
Arguing for a second century Pauline persecution scenario is to miss the point of the NT Paul story. It's a conversion story, a conversion story, in and off itself regardless of dating Paul. Paul persecutes the church, sees the light on the road to Damascus, and Bobs your uncle, he is converted to the new Jesus idea.

What is the evidence for Paul's persecution? Firstly, there are the three "confessions" of persecution in the Pauline letters:
The 'evidence' is the NT Pauline story.

One can read that story as history or one can read it as a christian origin story.

As you have demonstrated Philippians 3.4-6, translating the Greek as 'persecutor', presents problems.
1) circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews;
2) as to the Law, a Pharisee;
3) as to zeal, a devout follower of the assembly;
4) as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.

is a more coherent collection of statements than this list:

1) circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews;
2) as to the Law, a Pharisee;
3) as to zeal, a persecutor of the church;
4) as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.

In your other thread, GakuseiDon, made a good suggestion:

But, doesn't it make perfect sense? For example, "As evidence of my Catholic Church credentials, I despise the Catholic Church." Someone who thinks that the main church is corrupt or wrong might well consider opposition to that corrupt church as evidence of "real" Catholicism. Think Vatican 2 for example. The expression is something that could be used by anyone who thinks that the mainstream orthodox version of some religious, political or social group has lost its way.

Opposition, or what we in the UK would say with reference to the parliamentary opposition party - Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition. As regards the Catholic Church we have Thomas Brodie and Hans Kung - who even when censored by the church chose to remain loyal to it.

If this is the case with Philippians 3.4-6 - then maybe the other Pauline persecution stories relate not to persecuting Christians at all. Whether one views the Paul figure as historical or ahistorical the persecuting narratives need not reflect person to person persecutions. The figure of Paul is a figure of a Jewish heretic. i.e. as one who goes against the set order of things. As such it is ideas that are being 'persecuted'. In other words, Paul saw the 'light', he saw a way forward for Judaism. A way to break free from the curse of the Law and allow that freedom, an intellectual freedom, to allow Jew and Gentile to be as one in a new spiritual - philosophical - world view. Yes, of course, Law is a fundamental condition of our humanity - but it needs it's counterpart, spirituality or intellectual freedom in order to prosper. So, for Paul, it was as it were, the time had come to let Freedom have its day. The fight, the persecution, was an intellectual fight of ideas. Played out not, re the NT story against Christians but with a Judaism that failed to seize the moment and take up the challenge Paul presented it with.

Ephesians 6:12, NIV: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

The NT origin story is not early christian history - or more to the point, it does not deal with the Jewish roots, the Pauline Jewish roots, of early christian history. Paul is the Jewish heretic who turned the curse of the cross into a cross of salvation.
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flowers_grow
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Re: Paul as persecutor

Post by flowers_grow »

I looked through the Paul and Patristics database at https://paulandpatristics.web.ox.ac.uk/ for (near) quotations of the Pauline epistle which mention persecution in Galatians, 1 Corinthians and Philippians, up to about 150 CE. I probably haven't found everything in there.

The Epistula Apostolorum references Saul, later Paul as a persecutor (31-33) and is dated to the mid second century, though I don't know how solid that dating is - it's certainly aware of a lot of NT. It presents itself as the apostles reporting on prophecies given on the future by Jesus, and Paul features in them (entertainingly it has both Peter and Cephas as separate apostles, but that's a whole other tangent)

There are references to 1 Corinthians 15:9 in Ignatius' epistles (Smyrnaeans and Ephesians) but only the "I am least" bit, not the persecution.

First Clement is suggestive. In a whole section of Hebrew bible figures who suffered through envy:
4:13 Through envy David suffered jealousy not only of foreigners, but was persecuted also by Saul, king of Israel.
And then in chapter 5, apostles who suffered through envy:
5:1 But let us pass from ancient examples, and come unto those who have in the times nearest to us, wrestled for the faith.

5:2 Let us take the noble examples of our own generation. Through jealousy and envy the greatest and most just pillars of the Church were persecuted, and came even unto death.

5:3 Let us place before our eyes the good Apostles.

5:4 Peter, through unjust envy, endured not one or two but many labours, and at last, having delivered his testimony, departed unto the place of glory due to him.

5:5 Through envy Paul, too, showed by example the prize that is given to patience:

5:6 seven times was he cast into chains; he was banished; he was stoned; having become a herald, both in the East and in the West, he obtained the noble renown due to his faith;

5:7 and having preached righteousness to the whole world, and having come to the extremity of the West, and having borne witness before rulers, he departed at length out of the world, and went to the holy place, having become the greatest example of patience.
Chapter 4 ends with Saul, chapter 5 ends with Paul. This suggests a connection with Acts.

(Dating for both the Ignatian correspondence and First Clement has long been debated. Consensus is first half of second century)
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Re: Paul as persecutor

Post by neilgodfrey »

rgprice wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 12:03 pm I've grown increasingly suspicious of the claims that Paul engaged in persecution of Christ worshipers before converting to become a Christ worshiper himself. @neilgodfrey has argued that the story of Paul as persecutor seems to be a second century contrivance, which I'm starting to agree with.

What is the evidence for Paul's persecution? Firstly, there are the three "confessions" of persecution in the Pauline letters:

. . . .

Tertullian essentially states that Paul, as described in Acts of the Apostles and the orthodox version of the Pauline letters, was pre-figured in the Jewish scriptures. However, Tertullian knows that Marcionites don't place any value in the Jewish scriptures, so he also appeals to the agreement between the orthodox Pauline letters and Acts of the Apostles. But, this actually lays out the logic of the invention of Paul's persecution.

. . . .

The importance of Paul's role as a persecutor was certainly amplified by anti-Marcionite Christians because it was seen as evidence that Paul was an agent of the Jewish Creator God as opposed to Marcion's supposed Unknown God. Thus, we have to ask if any claims of persecution in the Pauline letters is authentic, including that found in Galatians.

Is there substantial evidence that Paul was known as a persecutor prior to the mid second century?
I thought you captured the pros and cons fairly well, rg, so wasn't going to say anything else. But for sake of the record and in response to off-line communications elsewhere I'll add one thing.

The problems set out here concerning the evidence for Paul/Saul having once been a persecutor of the "church" are enough for any historian (I'm thinking of historians in History and Classics departments, not theologically-focussed historians) to declare that we cannot say if Paul ever persecuted the church. The evidence we have is far too late, inconsistent, and problematic for us to affirm one way or the other. The earliest independent evidence we have of any of Paul's letters comes from the late second century and the context here is heated theological debates. Such sources cannot be used as reliable evidence for events supposedly having taken place in the mid-first century.

If this discussion were taking place among non-biblical historians the conclusion would surely be that there were late accounts of Paul having been a persecutor but these are contested; the writings of Paul that we read today are from centuries after the supposed persecutions and we know they have suffered all sorts of textual corruptions, so they cannot be considered reliable evidence.

We simply don't know.

Now that's too piss-weak a response, I'm sure, to satisfy anyone. But "here I sit; I can do no other."
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Re: Paul as persecutor

Post by neilgodfrey »

There is always the Bayesean option. Go through each point listed in the OP and any others and systematically and cumulatively apply a Bayesean assessment of each one. Carrier did that with Jesus and I did it with James the Lord's Brother -- no doubt a probability assessment will end all debate! :cheeky:
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Re: Paul as persecutor

Post by GakuseiDon »

rgprice wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 12:03 pmWhat is the evidence for Paul's persecution?
I wonder if there is a connection of Paul being a persecutor and Paul being persecuted?

In 2 Cor 11:

22. Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I.
23. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.
24. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
25. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
26. In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren


If early Christians were persecuted by the Jewish authorities, then it lends indirect support to the idea of Paul being a Jewish persecutor. OTOH if early Christians weren't persecuted by Jewish authorities, then that knocks on the head the idea of Paul being a Jewish persecutor.
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Re: Paul as persecutor

Post by maryhelena »

GakuseiDon wrote: Tue Jul 27, 2021 10:57 pm
rgprice wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 12:03 pmWhat is the evidence for Paul's persecution?
I wonder if there is a connection of Paul being a persecutor and Paul being persecuted?

In 2 Cor 11:

22. Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I.
23. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.
24. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
25. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
26. In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren


If early Christians were persecuted by the Jewish authorities, then it lends indirect support to the idea of Paul being a Jewish persecutor. OTOH if early Christians weren't persecuted by Jewish authorities, then that knocks on the head the idea of Paul being a Jewish persecutor.
How about the idea that Paul (whether historical or a literary figure) was going through a crisis of conscience. The beatings, the stoning, shipwreck, a day and night in the deep etc were just symptoms of his mental anguish over the break he was going to make from Jewish tradition.

Paul, a man of conscience who could do no other. Being true to ones conscience could well come with a cost (as modern day whistleblowers know only too well). The cost for Martin Luther was being branded a heretic. For Paul? His historicity can't be established - we only have the teaching, the ideas, attributed to this figure in the NT story. A Jewish figure who turned the curse of the cross into a cross of salvation. Enough there to label this figure a Jewish heretic.

Martin Luther and the Long March to Freedom of Conscience[

Condemned as a heretic by Pope Leo X, Martin Luther defended his beliefs at the Diet of Worms, an imperial assembly held in April 1521.

<snip>

This was the crux of Luther’s defense of his writings at the Diet of Worms in 1521. “My conscience is captive to the Word of God,” he told his accusers. “I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand.” The individual believer and his conscience, standing before God and his Word—here was a confession that redefined the meaning of faith and the dignity of the human person.

<snip>

Nevertheless, the moral courage and intellectual coherence of Luther’s dissent should not be undervalued. If Luther was a flawed prophet of human freedom, his voice was nonetheless vital in the long march toward a more just and pluralistic society. In Luther, we find an advocate for human dignity who defied the forces of religious oppression and reimagined the political ideals of medieval Europe.

In his defiance, Luther delivered a challenge to the conscience of the West like no other since the Sermon on the Mount—as essential today as it was half a millennium ago.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/hist ... mation-500

Martin Luther laid down a challenge to the Catholic Church - as before him the NT Paul laid down a challenge to traditional Judaism. So - Christian Protestants and Jewish Christians......the focus of both being Freedom from constraints of law.

(However, methinks, Freedom has run it's course in our modern Christian world - a world clearly in needs of some Law and Order.....when anything goes everything goes.....)
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Re: Paul as persecutor

Post by neilgodfrey »

Of likely interest to some of us here:

Why did Paul persecute the church? -- a book chapter by Justin Taylor
rgprice
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Re: Paul as persecutor

Post by rgprice »

I don't agree with the case made by Taylor there. If we work from the material that we are most confident existed in both Marcion's letters and the orthodox letters, then it seems quite clear that the motive behind the most certain cases of persecution was enforcement of circumcision.

In Galatians, it is clear that the Galatians themselves were facing persecution. The reason for the persecution was very plainly that they were trying to convert to Judaism without undergoing circumcision. The reason that Paul was facing persecution was that he was engaged in a ministry that sought to convert people to Judaism without undergoing circumcision.

So to me, any real persecution that did happen would have taken place by Jewish enforcers of the laws of circumcision against people who claimed to have converted without being circumcised. There is extensive evidence for this.

The only reason really, that Paul as a Pharisee would have persecuted any given "church" would have been that they were violating the laws regarding circumcision.

Now, all of this is doubly confused by the fact that whoever wrote Acts of the Apostles, and potentially also revised the orthodox Pauline letters, was intentionally re-writing this aspect of Paul's ministry, to turn Paul into someone who supported circumcision and was thus not at odds with Jewish law. This is because the Marcionites claimed that the "law and prophets" were the work of the evil Jewish Creator God, not the new Unknown God of Jesus. Marcion claimed that Paul was a prophet of the Unknown God.

The writer of Acts was intent on showing that Paul was a prophet of the Jewish Creator God who was the same God as the Father of Jesus. Thus, the writer of Acts put Paul in-line with the "Law and Prophets" with his endorsement of circumcision. IN fact it even looks like the trial scene in Acts is a redaction of a longer text, in which the charges against Paul were simply removed by the writer of Acts, with the rest of the scene being put in as it was in some source text. That's why no charges are made against Paul in the Sanhedrin trial, the priest just slaps him and claims that he's violating the Law, without any explanation.

And prior to that they have Paul to to James and be subordinated to James, where he professes that he supports circumcision. This is all because Paul actually opposed circumcision, which was the law of the land in Judea and among other Jewish communities that followed Torah law. That was the motivation behind whatever persecution took place.

Which is why, I don't think that Paul ever actually engaged in persecution or that the original version of the letters made any claims about Paul persecuting anyone.
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