2 Corinthians 11:32 —- Why Aretas?

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robert j
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2 Corinthians 11:32 —- Why Aretas?

Post by robert j »

The point of the daring basket escape story was “I am important”. The short passage is contained in the much longer brag-fest in which Paul makes all kinds of claims in his own support --- claims to show how he is better than the Jewish missionaries that the Corinthians liked better than Paul. Paul was desperate.

But having been important enough to be singled out by the duly-appointed representative of a king. Yeah, that sounds good. An important king with an important name. Yeah, Aretas, the Corinthians would be impressed by that name.

Paul doesn’t specify the reason for being pursued, nor a time frame for the story beyond the name. The time frame of the reign of the Nabataean King Aretas IV (~ 9 BCE - 40 CE) can be seen as overlapping with a conventional dating for Paul.

Whether or not Aretas IV ever had enough authority over Damascus at some point during those occasionally tumultuous times to appoint an ethnarch is apparently too shrouded in uncertainty. But if not, would the far-away Corinthians even be knowledgeable about such an arcane fact?

I suspect Paul’s priority in writing the story was not on consistency with city records, but rather on the status conferred by an association with the widely known royal name, even as a fugitive. But apparently an important fugitive.

Paul was desperate. Whatever gossamer threads of authority he may have previously had with the Corinthians appear to have been broken at this juncture, or nearly broken.

robert j
Last edited by robert j on Thu Aug 12, 2021 5:48 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Jax
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Re: Aretas WHO? --- Yawn.

Post by Jax »

robert j wrote: Thu Aug 12, 2021 9:59 am The point of the daring basket escape story was “I am important”. The short passage is contained in the much longer brag-fest in which Paul makes all kinds of claims in his own support --- claims to show how he is better than the Jewish missionaries that the Corinthians liked better than Paul. Paul was desperate.

Is it likely that the Corinthians would know who might have ruled Damascus --- 1032 km distant as the crow flies over the Mediterranean --- at some unspecified point in the past? Would they get out their latest edition of the Imperial Encyclopedia?

But having been important enough to be singled out by the duly-appointed representative of a king. Yeah, that sounds good. An important king with an important name. Yeah, Aretas, the Corinthians would be impressed by that name.

Paul doesn’t specify the reason for being pursued, nor a time frame for the story beyond the name. The time frame of the reign of the Nabataean King Aretas IV (~ 9 BCE - 40 CE) can be seen as overlapping with a conventional dating for Paul.

Whether or not Aretas IV ever had enough authority over Damascus at some point during those occasionally tumultuous times to appoint an ethnarch is apparently too shrouded in uncertainty. But if not, would the far-away Corinthians even be knowledgeable about such an arcane fact?

I suspect Paul’s priority in writing the story was not on consistency with city records, but rather on the status conferred by an association with the widely known royal name, even as a fugitive. But apparently an important fugitive.

Paul was desperate. Whatever gossamer threads of authority he may have previously had with the Corinthians appear to have been broken at this juncture, or nearly broken.

robert j
If they were Roman veterans of the wars of the 1st century BCE then, yes, they would.
robert j
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Re: Aretas WHO? --- Yawn.

Post by robert j »

Jax wrote: Thu Aug 12, 2021 11:14 am
robert j wrote: Thu Aug 12, 2021 9:59 am The point of the daring basket escape story was “I am important”. The short passage is contained in the much longer brag-fest in which Paul makes all kinds of claims in his own support --- claims to show how he is better than the Jewish missionaries that the Corinthians liked better than Paul. Paul was desperate.

Is it likely that the Corinthians would know who might have ruled Damascus --- 1032 km distant as the crow flies over the Mediterranean --- at some unspecified point in the past? Would they get out their latest edition of the Imperial Encyclopedia?

But having been important enough to be singled out by the duly-appointed representative of a king. Yeah, that sounds good. An important king with an important name. Yeah, Aretas, the Corinthians would be impressed by that name.

Paul doesn’t specify the reason for being pursued, nor a time frame for the story beyond the name. The time frame of the reign of the Nabataean King Aretas IV (~ 9 BCE - 40 CE) can be seen as overlapping with a conventional dating for Paul.

Whether or not Aretas IV ever had enough authority over Damascus at some point during those occasionally tumultuous times to appoint an ethnarch is apparently too shrouded in uncertainty. But if not, would the far-away Corinthians even be knowledgeable about such an arcane fact?

I suspect Paul’s priority in writing the story was not on consistency with city records, but rather on the status conferred by an association with the widely known royal name, even as a fugitive. But apparently an important fugitive.

Paul was desperate. Whatever gossamer threads of authority he may have previously had with the Corinthians appear to have been broken at this juncture, or nearly broken.

robert j
If they were Roman veterans of the wars of the 1st century BCE then, yes, they would.
Fair point. The highlighted bit is confusing in light of the much earlier Aretas III, and otherwise poorly written. But the sentence is extraneous, as I make the same point again more clearly a bit further on. I've deleted the two sentences from the OP.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Aretas WHO? --- Yawn.

Post by GakuseiDon »

robert j wrote: Thu Aug 12, 2021 9:59 am The point of the daring basket escape story was “I am important”. The short passage is contained in the much longer brag-fest in which Paul makes all kinds of claims in his own support --- claims to show how he is better than the Jewish missionaries that the Corinthians liked better than Paul. Paul was desperate.
And also, Paul tells us he wasn't lying, which is a clear indicator that he's telling the truth! :tomato:

2 Cor 11:31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not.
32 In Damascus the ethnarch of Aretas the king kept watch, desirous to apprehend me:
33 And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.


The whole passage follows from Paul describing how much he has suffered in spreading his beliefs:

2 Cor 11:24 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;
27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
28 Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.


You can almost hear him adding at the end "... you ungrateful b*st*rds!"

Personally I like discussions over arcane points like "Aretas 3 or Aretas 4?" since usually it brings to light other aspects of the text I'd never considered. Especially the flow-on aspects: "If Aretas 3, then that means..." and "if Aretas 4, then that means..."

I've learned a lot from such arguments even when I haven't agreed with them. (Yes, even from my friend Giuseppe! :cheers: ) Each of us look at the texts from their own perspectives, which is what I love about this forum.
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Jax
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Re: Aretas WHO? --- Yawn.

Post by Jax »

GakuseiDon wrote: Thu Aug 12, 2021 1:07 pm
robert j wrote: Thu Aug 12, 2021 9:59 am The point of the daring basket escape story was “I am important”. The short passage is contained in the much longer brag-fest in which Paul makes all kinds of claims in his own support --- claims to show how he is better than the Jewish missionaries that the Corinthians liked better than Paul. Paul was desperate.
And also, Paul tells us he wasn't lying, which is a clear indicator that he's telling the truth! :tomato:

2 Cor 11:31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not.
32 In Damascus the ethnarch of Aretas the king kept watch, desirous to apprehend me:
33 And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.


The whole passage follows from Paul describing how much he has suffered in spreading his beliefs:

2 Cor 11:24 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;
27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
28 Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.


You can almost hear him adding at the end "... you ungrateful b*st*rds!"

Personally I like discussions over arcane points like "Aretas 3 or Aretas 4?" since usually it brings to light other aspects of the text I'd never considered. Especially the flow-on aspects: "If Aretas 3, then that means..." and "if Aretas 4, then that means..."

I've learned a lot from such arguments even when I haven't agreed with them. (Yes, even from my friend Giuseppe! :cheers: ) Each of us look at the texts from their own perspectives, which is what I love about this forum.
You might enjoy this then, this is something I posted on Richard Carrier's When was Paul Writing blog that MH reposted here recently.
While I feel that there is no way, just using the letters alone, to prove that Paul was writing in the 1st century BCE or even the 1st century CE, I have come to the conclusion that a Paul being a participant in the civil and other wars of the 1st century BCE to at least be a workable possibility.

My reasoning goes something like the following. Say Paul, and some others like ‘Petros’,1 are members of a military outfit in some place like, Syria for instance. When Pompey is making demands of client kings in the East for auxiliary troops, Paul is sent with his outfit to Greece to fight on the side of Pompey against Caesar.2 Paul and some of his auxiliary unit like ‘Petros’, are members of a Christ cult, and, while mingling among the regular troops of Pompey and the other auxiliaries, Paul and other Christ cult members of his assembly introduce this Christ entity to some of the Roman and Greek Gentiles there. Some of these Gentiles then become followers of this novel Eastern Christ cult.
Caesar defeats Pompey and absorbs Pompey’s armies into his own while sending Paul’s auxiliary unit back to Syria, or, whatever their place of origin. Not long after, Caesar restarts the polis of Corinth as a veteran settlement colony seeding it with his own veteran troops as well as former troops of Pompey, some of which have been introduced to the Christ cult by Paul and friends. We in this way now have Roman and Greek house assembles of the Christ cult in Corinth.

Later, Brutus and Cassius, in their civil war against Octavian and Anthony, once again make troop demands of the East and Paul and his auxiliary unit are sent, this time, to Macedonia. Again, in this way, Roman and Greek Gentiles are introduced to Paul’s Christ cult. This time the retired troops are settled in the cities of Philippi and Troas after the war, with some of Paul’s Roman and Greek Christ cult followers ending up in those cities with other Gentile members of the cult possibly returning to the city of Rome.
While we know that auxiliaries were returned home by Caesar after his war with Pompey, we have no information that I know of as to the fate of auxiliary units under the Liberators. Paul and members of his auxiliary unit could have remained in Macedonia and Greece at this time. No real way to know that I am aware of though. Further information on this would be very welcome.

All that I can say however is that the above scenario allows for valid reasons for a 1st century BCE Paul to be in places like Illyricum, Macedonia, and Greece and allows for a Christ cult to become established in the Roman veteran colonies of Corinth, Troas, and Philippi as well as in the city of Rome.
A Paul in and around Thessalonika, and therefore, Gentile Christ cult followers there also, is reasonable to this theory.

Some passages in the letters that suggest the above scenario to me include:

*1: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-2 “For of our entrance in among you, brothers, you yourselves know that it has not come about in vain; Rather, having previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi (as you are aware), we were bold in our God to speak God’s good tidings to you amid a considerable struggle.”

This seems like it could be a reference to conditions surrounding the camp of Brutus when it was besieged by the forces of Anthony, with Anthony’s army shouting insults at the troops of Brutus, trying to goad them into battle before the supplies of Anthony ran out.

2: 1 Corinthians 15:6 “Thereafter he was seen by over 500 brothers at one time, of whom the majority remain till now, though some have fallen asleep”.

500 men being about the size of a normal military cohort in the late Republic.
3: Philippians 2:25 “But I deemed it necessary to send you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, as well as your Apostle and attendant to my needs”.

4: Philemon 1:2 “And to Apphia, and to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the assembly that is in your house”.

5: 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 “For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, regarding the affliction that came our way in Asia: that we were placed under excessive pressure, beyond our power, of such a kind that we despaired of living; But we held the sentence of death within ourselves, so that we should be trustful not of ourselves, but of God who raises the dead: Who has rescued and will rescue us from so great a death – in whom we have hoped that he will rescue even yet”.

Most modern English translations of the above passage have ‘province of Asia’ in place of the original Greek ‘Asia’. Asia being all of the territories east of Asia Minor, Syria, and the Levant. If this is a reference to the disastrous campaign of Mark Anthony against the Parthians in 37 BCE then we have another event placing Paul in the later half of the 1st century BCE.

The above examples, while perhaps suggestive, can not in any way be considered proof of a pre-CE Paul, but when one makes the paradigm shift of a mid 1st century missionary Paul to a mid to late 1st century BCE participant in the events surrounding the civil and other wars of that period, some of the perplexing language in the letters seem to make a little more sense. And while a case for an Aretas IV being in control of Damascus can be made it is still a historical fact that Aretas III was in control of that city except when Tigranes II took control of it between 72-69 BCE. Is this time interval the one mentioned by Paul as the three years following his return from Arabia until his need to escape, for whatever reason, when Aretas III regained control of that city? Numerous scholars have opined that the only dateable event in Paul’s letters is the Aretas reference, but if this is so then we as historians really need to go with the only historical reference available to us, being the Aretas III reference, as that is the only Aretas that we can say was in control of Damascus regardless of the implications for a mid 1st century Paul. Aretas IV in Damascus is speculation, Aretas III in Damascus is fact.

Now if we posit a Paul around the age of 20 (pulling a number out of my butt a la Rodney Stark) escaping Damascus in 69 BCE we have a Paul in his 30s through his 50s for the civil wars and campaign against Parthia and in his mid 40s through late 60s for letters written between 44-19 BCE (reestablishment of Corinth through the end of the Cantabrian war). Timeline wise anyway it could work.

One final observation. When Paul is writing to people in Rome, a place that he obviously has never been, asking for assistance in his plans to travel on to Spain, could this be a reference to the last BCE war effort of the Republic? The Cantabrian war of Augustus? If so then it would seem to fit in with the timeline so far proposed. According to our (imaginary) age timeline for Paul, Paul would be getting a little long in the tooth at this point but it would still be feasible for him in his late 50s to participate in that campaign.
Anyway, no way to prove any of this but it is fun and a great way to study the history of the period. Paul in the 1st century or 1st century BCE regardless, all that this illustrates is the impossibility of assigning a historical Paul (core or otherwise) to any timeline with any certainty. This is what makes it an interesting challenge historically and why attempts at a definitive timeline for Paul must be viewed with skepticism and mistrust. And we haven’t even addressed all of the possible interpolations and editing that many, including myself, feel that making interpretation of the letters somewhat problematic, even the so called authentic ones.

Here is a cheat sheet for my BCE Paul:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5464&start=40

A few more thread links of conversations concerning this theory if you’re interested:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5464

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5446

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3889


1: Petros is not a proper name in Greek and as far as I know is usually a reference to a slinger in the ancient literature.

2: Paul need not be an actual combatant as he could instead be a camp follower; a tent maker perhaps.
I personally feel a Paul as combatant being the best fit however, especially with the fellow soldier references and his rather lengthy list of disciplinary punishments and marine mishaps, but anything is possible.

*Note: I am using The New Testament by David Bentley Hart for quick simplicity as the English translation of the Greek by him is very reasonable for our purposes here. If clarification is desired however I would prefer using The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts by Philip Wesley Comfort and David P. Barrett or the actual photographs of those texts. The photographs being the final word in my opinion.
Giuseppe
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Re: 2 Corinthians 11:32 —- Why Aretas?

Post by Giuseppe »

In whiletime, Carrier calls "rambling crank" Doudna. :?
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Aretas WHO? --- Yawn.

Post by GakuseiDon »

Jax wrote: Thu Aug 12, 2021 3:53 pmWhile I feel that there is no way, just using the letters alone, to prove that Paul was writing in the 1st century BCE or even the 1st century CE, I have come to the conclusion that a Paul being a participant in the civil and other wars of the 1st century BCE to at least be a workable possibility.
That's interesting, Jax. Can I ask: in your scenario, how much of Paul's letters do you attribute to that Paul? Do you accept the usual scholarly list of letters as being "genuinely Paul's". If so, on what basis do you come to agreement with them on which letters are Paul's and which are not? Other than the timing, does your theory require additional explanations for the contents of Paul's letters?
gryan
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Re: 2 Corinthians 11:32 —- Why Aretas?

Post by gryan »

Re: Aretas was important

Aretas IV died in AD 40
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aretas_IV_Philopatris

Supposing that an actual, historical Paul (who really escaped Damascus in a basket) was talking about Aretas IV (not Aretas III), and that this Paul dictated 2 Cor 10-13 not long after AD 40, and that Paul and the first readers in Corinth knew Aretas was dead. I wonder what the recently deceased status of Aretas signified for Paul and his first readers (if indeed Paul's the main motive for mentioning Aretas was to convey the idea of importance).
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Jax
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Re: Aretas WHO? --- Yawn.

Post by Jax »

GakuseiDon wrote: Thu Aug 12, 2021 10:57 pm
Jax wrote: Thu Aug 12, 2021 3:53 pmWhile I feel that there is no way, just using the letters alone, to prove that Paul was writing in the 1st century BCE or even the 1st century CE, I have come to the conclusion that a Paul being a participant in the civil and other wars of the 1st century BCE to at least be a workable possibility.
That's interesting, Jax. Can I ask: in your scenario, how much of Paul's letters do you attribute to that Paul? Do you accept the usual scholarly list of letters as being "genuinely Paul's". If so, on what basis do you come to agreement with them on which letters are Paul's and which are not? Other than the timing, does your theory require additional explanations for the contents of Paul's letters?
Currently I am of the opinion that the actual content of Paul's letters is this:

viewtopic.php?p=100479#p100479

From this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3487

I do have some reservations about Galatians however, based on the oddness (to me) of the letter and that Tertullian seemed to imply that Marcion had 'found' it. Whatever that means.

While I am keen to follow the original Greek of these letters as much as I can, I will probably never be proficient enough at it to have any worthwhile opinion on the subject and must therefore defer to those that do have that expertise. Not ideal but there it is.

Lane
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Jax
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Re: 2 Corinthians 11:32 —- Why Aretas?

Post by Jax »

GakuseiDon, Please feel free to comment in the above thread viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3487 so we don't siderail this thread too much.

Lane
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