2 Corinthians 11:32 —- Why Aretas?

[maryhelena]

Aretas III --- Nah.

Based on the history of the city of Corinth, the timeline for an Aretas III is not a good fit for Paul’s letter to the Corinthians ---

146 BCE --- the ancient city of Corinth is destroyed by the Roman army and mostly lay in ruins until about 44 BCE

87-62 BCE --- reign of the Nabataean King Aretas III

44 BCE --- the Romans begin to rebuild the city of Corinth

9 BCE – 40 CE --- reign of the Nabataean King Aretas IV

From the very last year of the reign of Aretas III until the Romans begin to rebuild the ruins of Corinth is 18 years. For the city denizens to become well-established and prosperous, as characterized in the Corinthian correspondence, would take significantly longer. Sure, I suppose one can attempt to stretch-out the amount of time between the purported event in Damascus, and Paul’s telling of the story to the Corinthians, but Aretas III is not really a good fit for 2 Corinthians 11:32.

By all means reject a historical Paul in Damascus under Aretas III ...

Yes, of course.

But that rejection does not allow you to assume that Aretas IV had control of Damascus in the lst century c.e..

I have not made that assumption. I think my relatively short OP in this thread was clear in that regard. I wrote ---

Yes, perhaps 'anyone' would have been better in that sentence rather than the 'you'. The issue being rejection of Aretas III as being the Aretas of 2 Cor. 11.32

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.

In the other thread, you recently acknowledged the uncertainty also ---

As it stands, the current arguments of Aretas IV are not conclusive.

That's not my position. Why would I uphold that position when I keep stating the opposite - that there is no historical evidence that Aretas IV controlled Damascus. ?
. - that sentence is reflecting the position of those upholding Aretas IV as controlling Damascus i.e. their scenarios are not conclusive evidence - scenarios are not historical evidence.

But then a few days later (addressing someone’s scenario) ---

Bottom line - Aretas IV did not control Damascus. All your scenario does is attempt to sidestep that historical fact.

A “historical fact”? For someone so vocal about putting an emphasis on documented history (not that there is anything wrong with that), you seem to be playing fast-and-loose with historical facts here.

Must I really go over my posts on this topic and count the number of times I have said - ''There is no historical evidence that Aretas IV controlled Damascus''.. Playing fast and loose ?

You have an argument from silence

?? I don't have an argument, neverminded an argument from silence, that Aretas III controlled Damascus. It's history, its a historical fact. Aretas III minted coins in Damascus.

(not that there is anything wrong with that). But how significant is that argument? If Aretas IV did at some point in time, even perhaps for a relatively brief and transitory period of time, have enough control in Damascus to fit the event described by Paul, then what is the expectation that the appropriate records would have survived for that relatively short and tumultuous period in the region which included the fog of war? I think the expectation would not be particularly high, but certainly it’s a matter of opinion.

Speculation.

That we have no extant records that clearly demonstrate the case --- sure. Historical fact --- No.

The wording of verse 11:32 seems a bit sly to me. As pointed out by Paul the Uncertain on the other related thread, it is not clear if the ethnarch was working with legal authority from inside the city, or if he was watching from outside the city gates to capture Paul if he tried to leave. I think it’s a consideration that needs to be included in the investigation. Either inside or outside, the ethnarch would need some men to watch the multiple city gates.

Of course these discussions often assume the basket event had some historical reality. My implication in the OP, and pointed-out by GakuseiDon in his initial response, is that the event might have been contrived by Paul. I think it is a very distinct possibility that the event did not occur, or at best was very loosely based on Paul having to flee Damascus for some reason.

Yes, the story of the basket case is fiction - but it's fiction that is reflecting the OT story of the spies escaping over the wall of Jericho prior to the conquests of the promised land. As Paul is set to lay the groundwork for the philosophical - spiritual - kingdom of neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female.

It’s quite possible that Paul was just using a reasonably well-known royal name of a king that had died 10 or 15 years prior in order to demonstrate his own importance. As I pointed out in the OP, it seems very unlikely to expect that the far-away Corinthians would be knowledgeable about the arcane details for the far-distant Damascus from perhaps a decade or longer in the past

There is no need to speculate - the only Aretas that controlled Damascus was Aretas III.

Just prior to Paul’s story of his daring escape in the basket, Paul makes all kinds of clams to bolster his importance in the eyes of the Corinthians. There are likely some kernels of truth in his brag-a-thon, but I certainly don’t buy it all. And directly following the story of the escape from Damascus is the very fantastical story of the man Paul knew that had made a journey into the 3rd heaven. Whether it was some guy Paul knew as he claimed, or Paul himself as many see it --- I don’t buy for a second that fantastical and desperate attempt to seem important.

No need to buy the story. The Paul story is about laying the groundwork for what became Christianity. Like Acts, the Paul story is not history.

Thomas Brodie: Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus.

PAUL: THE PENNY FINALLY DROPS

Historicized fiction.

A mass of data had suddenly fallen into place.
What hit me was that the entire narrative regarding Paul, everything the
thirteen epistles say about him or imply-about his life, his work and travels,
his character, his sending and receiving of letters, his readers and his
relationship to them-all of that was historicized fiction. It was fiction,
meaning that the figure of Paul was a work of imagination, but this figure had
been historicized-presented in a way that made it look like history, history like,
'fiction made to resemble the uncertainties of life in history'
......

So- and this reality took time to sink in-the figure of Paul joined the
ranks of so many other figures from the older part of the Bible, figures who,
despite the historical details surrounding them, were literary, figures of the
imagination.

[davidmartin]

If the Paul story is not history then what is the real history?
the problem is anyone who wishes to find proof of historicized fiction will find it, and anyone who wishes to find historical connections will also find it
how is one view supposed to prevail over the other?
the logical answer to this should be, to assume that there is at least some historical basis and try to isolate it and present that in it's best light - then if it comes up short perhaps suggest there were no historical base
however, the attempt to present no historical base as the premise from the start really isn't convincing unless it can tackle and take down every single element of the historical narrative and in it's place substitute the reasons and motivations for historicizing it all and evidence that this occurred
All of this seems like a gigantic problem to me, so ... the problem cannot be dismissed with a wave of the hand which is all i'm seeing when this argument is presented as orthodoxy
the problem is obviously one where there is some mixing of historical events with fiction thus the answer cannot be either one or the other in a simplistic way
ultimately if a scientific method is applied to any aspect of ancient history all of it comes into question given the sources, navigating this requires sensitivity and an open mind or it too easily is just swept up in our modern preconceptions which surely just not do it the justice it deserves. i think that is why the best scholars dance around the issues and engage in an elaborate drama over history which also guarantees a pay cheque. better that than some dull imposed viewpoint that sweeps it all up into a box as 'problem solved let's move on', when it isn't solved that's the ultimate betrayal of history, surely?
The lack of humour over this predicament is more worrying than any theory that may come out of it. Something has gone wrong in our appreciation of history if it can't express the richness of it, whatever point i'm trying to make i hope it annoys someone and touches a nerve. Good. then my point has been made. all orthodoxy must be questioned and academia should encourage that to earn it's pay cheque for the rest of us or it's just another tax

[maryhelena]

If the Paul story is not history then what is the real history?
the problem is anyone who wishes to find proof of historicized fiction will find it, and anyone who wishes to find historical connections will also find it
how is one view supposed to prevail over the other?
the logical answer to this should be, to assume that there is at least some historical basis and try to isolate it and present that in it's best light - then if it comes up short perhaps suggest there were no historical base
however, the attempt to present no historical base as the premise from the start really isn't convincing unless it can tackle and take down every single element of the historical narrative and in it's place substitute the reasons and motivations for historicizing it all and evidence that this occurred
All of this seems like a gigantic problem to me, so ... the problem cannot be dismissed with a wave of the hand which is all i'm seeing when this argument is presented as orthodoxy
the problem is obviously one where there is some mixing of historical events with fiction thus the answer cannot be either one or the other in a simplistic way
ultimately if a scientific method is applied to any aspect of ancient history all of it comes into question given the sources, navigating this requires sensitivity and an open mind or it too easily is just swept up in our modern preconceptions which surely just not do it the justice it deserves. i think that is why the best scholars dance around the issues and engage in an elaborate drama over history which also guarantees a pay cheque. better that than some dull imposed viewpoint that sweeps it all up into a box as 'problem solved let's move on', when it isn't solved that's the ultimate betrayal of history, surely?
The lack of humour over this predicament is more worrying than any theory that may come out of it. Something has gone wrong in our appreciation of history if it can't express the richness of it, whatever point i'm trying to make i hope it annoys someone and touches a nerve. Good. then my point has been made. all orthodoxy must be questioned and academia should encourage that to earn it's pay cheque for the rest of us or it's just another tax

Well said.

[mlinssen]

Well put, David. The binary scenario, as always, doesn't work out well.
Nature or nurture?
Science or religion?
Fact or fiction?

High school reunions are always fun, or any reunion for that matter. Multiple times, in conversations with other old farts like me, facts prove to be fictions and vice versa.
At some point in time any story is put in either box, while we forgo the opportunity to realise that in between that moment and all prior moments parts of it in fact were actually either fact or fiction and got treated like that, or their opposite. Read the Church Fathers and that labyrinth becomes evident

[neilgodfrey]

If the Paul story is not history then what is the real history?
the problem is anyone who wishes to find proof of historicized fiction will find it, and anyone who wishes to find historical connections will also find it
how is one view supposed to prevail over the other?
the logical answer to this should be, to assume that there is at least some historical basis and try to isolate it and present that in it's best light - then if it comes up short perhaps suggest there were no historical base
however, the attempt to present no historical base as the premise from the start really isn't convincing unless it can tackle and take down every single element of the historical narrative and in it's place substitute the reasons and motivations for historicizing it all and evidence that this occurred

But this is not how historians work (I'm excluding many biblical scholars). If we have stories then that's all we have - stories. We cannot assume they must be based on some history somewhere unless we have an independent reason, external to the stories, to think so. Otherwise we are arguing in a circle: this story is history because the author (whom we don't know) must have wanted to write history in some form and therefore we can say that the story has some history in it somewhere. No, that's not how historians work at all.

All of this seems like a gigantic problem to me, so ... the problem cannot be dismissed with a wave of the hand which is all i'm seeing when this argument is presented as orthodoxy
the problem is obviously one where there is some mixing of historical events with fiction thus the answer cannot be either one or the other in a simplistic way

There is no hand-waving in the way historians work. They do not assume historical sources. Historical information must be verified as such. Otherwise we really are in a black hole. There is nothing obvious about Acts being a mixture of history and fiction -- that's only what biblical scholars by and large have assumed because they need something to give at least a little history of Christian origins. But there is absolutely no way at all to confirm the historical basis of any of Acts. In fact, there are good reasons for seeing that Acts is a rewrite in many ways of the Gospel of Luke and other literature. It reads like a mythical foundation story woven together from other mythical tales and presented as "mytho-history" -- like Genesis, and Exodus, and Esther, and Jonah.... all fiction though read as history.

Certainly Acts appears as a foundational story of the church but there is no way at all to decide that it has any more historicity to it than the origin stories of Rome or Athens.

ultimately if a scientific method is applied to any aspect of ancient history all of it comes into question given the sources, navigating this requires sensitivity and an open mind or it too easily is just swept up in our modern preconceptions which surely just not do it the justice it deserves.

Or simple logic. Historians explain their methods and some of them have stood aghast at what they have seen practised among biblical scholars. One I like to refer to is Moses I. Finley, a highly reputable historian of ancient times. He said essentially the same thing other critics of biblical studies have said: their methods are circular; they just assume historical nuggets without any appeal to external support. Historians of ancient history simply avoid trying to write history of those times and places where they only have legends and stories and tales without verifiable, external support.

Philip R. Davies applied the methods of "proper" historians to the Old Testament and got into lots of hot water over it -- but he did a lot to popularize an approach that has now gained considerable respectability in some sections of biblical scholarship, though not so much among the conservatives:

notes from davies.png (818.51 KiB) Viewed 1242 times

[mlinssen]

If the Paul story is not history then what is the real history?
the problem is anyone who wishes to find proof of historicized fiction will find it, and anyone who wishes to find historical connections will also find it
how is one view supposed to prevail over the other?
the logical answer to this should be, to assume that there is at least some historical basis and try to isolate it and present that in it's best light - then if it comes up short perhaps suggest there were no historical base
however, the attempt to present no historical base as the premise from the start really isn't convincing unless it can tackle and take down every single element of the historical narrative and in it's place substitute the reasons and motivations for historicizing it all and evidence that this occurred

But this is not how historians work (I'm excluding many biblical scholars). If we have stories then that's all we have - stories. We cannot assume they must be based on some history somewhere unless we have an independent reason, external to the stories, to think so. Otherwise we are arguing in a circle: this story is history because the author (whom we don't know) must have wanted to write history in some form and therefore we can say that the story has some history in it somewhere. No, that's not how historians work at all.

What David is saying, I think, is

assume that there is at least some historical basis and try to isolate it and present that in it's best light - then if it comes up short perhaps suggest there were no historical base

Oh wait, that is exactly what he is saying!

[maryhelena]

If the Paul story is not history then what is the real history?
the problem is anyone who wishes to find proof of historicized fiction will find it, and anyone who wishes to find historical connections will also find it
how is one view supposed to prevail over the other?
the logical answer to this should be, to assume that there is at least some historical basis and try to isolate it and present that in it's best light - then if it comes up short perhaps suggest there were no historical base
however, the attempt to present no historical base as the premise from the start really isn't convincing unless it can tackle and take down every single element of the historical narrative and in it's place substitute the reasons and motivations for historicizing it all and evidence that this occurred

But this is not how historians work (I'm excluding many biblical scholars). If we have stories then that's all we have - stories. We cannot assume they must be based on some history somewhere unless we have an independent reason, external to the stories, to think so. Otherwise we are arguing in a circle: this story is history because the author (whom we don't know) must have wanted to write history in some form and therefore we can say that the story has some history in it somewhere. No, that's not how historians work at all.

What David is saying, I think, is

assume that there is at least some historical basis and try to isolate it and present that in it's best light - then if it comes up short perhaps suggest there were no historical base

Oh wait, that is exactly what he is saying!

To start from the assumption that the gospel story is purely a fictional enterprise without any historical base or relevance is shortsighted. One does not start from the gospel story - one starts with history. If one finds reflections of history within the story - then that story is not simply for theological or entertainment purposes. Th story becomes history fictionalized rather than fiction historicized. A political allegory rather than theological mysticism. Yes, the gospel story is itself fiction. But it is not only that. History is as much a core component of the NT story as it is for the OT stories. The Jews did not just live in their heads - they lived within a theocracy, a political and religious social construct. I find the idea that there is no history relevant to the gospel story to be an astonishing, un-Jewish, position to uphold.

[neilgodfrey]

What David is saying, I think, is

assume that there is at least some historical basis and try to isolate it and present that in it's best light - then if it comes up short perhaps suggest there were no historical base

Oh wait, that is exactly what he is saying!

Which is not how any serious historian works -- but I exclude many biblical scholars. Read what historians themselves say about their methods and then study how they apply them. But you can't resist yapping at my heels whenever I walk past, can you

[mlinssen]

To start from the assumption that the gospel story is purely a fictional enterprise without any historical base or relevance is shortsighted. One does not start from the gospel story - one starts with history. If one finds reflections of history within the story - then that story is not simply for theological or entertainment purposes. Th story becomes history fictionalized rather than fiction historicized. A political allegory rather than theological mysticism. Yes, the gospel story is itself fiction. But it is not only that. History is as much a core component of the NT story as it is for the OT stories. The Jews did not just live in their heads - they lived within a theocracy, a political and religious social construct. I find the idea that there is no history relevant to the gospel story to be an astonishing, un-Jewish, position to uphold.

Yes, if you don't assume that there's some history behind a story, or rather, if you do assume that there is no history behind a story, then your "job as a historian" is done and dusted and you can move on to the next story

There's a trigger for the creation of the Gospel(s), their modification(s), alterations, and so on. All of it is pure fiction but every text points to somethings that its intended audience can relate to, put in (contemporary or at least known) context - even Harry Potter does that with its locations, make up of actors, its society, its punishments and spells, and so on.
So one could assume a historical core or events there and dig deeper, as david suggested, and then come up with either something or nothing, like he suggested as well

There is story in the sons of Boanerges, the empty tomb, the Legeon demon and all that jazz. Much of that is contemporary to when the story of those stories got created, and relevant, and it forms the history for the story.
Are we talking about facts? Can anyone ascertain facts that go back almost two millennia?
Tracing history to and from the gospels will help us date them, as best as we can. And if we follow a lead that turns up empty, fantastic: we can tick off a box and continue in a different direction

[maryhelena]

To start from the assumption that the gospel story is purely a fictional enterprise without any historical base or relevance is shortsighted. One does not start from the gospel story - one starts with history. If one finds reflections of history within the story - then that story is not simply for theological or entertainment purposes. Th story becomes history fictionalized rather than fiction historicized. A political allegory rather than theological mysticism. Yes, the gospel story is itself fiction. But it is not only that. History is as much a core component of the NT story as it is for the OT stories. The Jews did not just live in their heads - they lived within a theocracy, a political and religious social construct. I find the idea that there is no history relevant to the gospel story to be an astonishing, un-Jewish, position to uphold.

Yes, if you don't assume that there's some history behind a story, or rather, if you do assume that there is no history behind a story, then your "job as a historian" is done and dusted and you can move on to the next story

There's a trigger for the creation of the Gospel(s), their modification(s), alterations, and so on. All of it is pure fiction but every text points to somethings that its intended audience can relate to, put in (contemporary or at least known) context - even Harry Potter does that with its locations, make up of actors, its society, its punishments and spells, and so on.
So one could assume a historical core or events there and dig deeper, as david suggested, and then come up with either something or nothing, like he suggested as well

There is story in the sons of Boanerges, the empty tomb, the Legeon demon and all that jazz. Much of that is contemporary to when the story of those stories got created, and relevant, and it forms the history for the story.
Are we talking about facts? Can anyone ascertain facts that go back almost two millennia?
Tracing history to and from the gospels will help us date them, as best as we can. And if we follow a lead that turns up empty, fantastic: we can tick off a box and continue in a different direction