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Re: Why Paul is made to go into Arabia in Galatians 1:17
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 10:40 am
by rgprice
I think you do touch on something here, which could indicate that Paul may have been sought by the ethnarch either before or after his "conversion". Which is that there were disputes regarding the transfer of monies to Jerusalem. Many local governments opposed the transfer of monies to Jerusalem, though Rome appears to have condoned it, at least according to proclamations supposedly preserved by Josephus, which are largely still considered authentic.
So at any rate, one plausible idea is that the ethnarch of Damascus sought to apprehend Paul because he was known to be collecting monies to transfer to Jerusalem. Which of course doesn't really have anything to do with being "Christian" or "Jewish", as there would have been no particular concern about his religion, but rather about the transfer of monies.
Paul of course does say many times that he was collecting and transferring monies, which according to him were for the poor, but whatever.
But regardless, Paul escaping by sneaking out in a basket is hardly being a hero facing his persecutors. And if anyone cared to present Paul s a hero taking on the forces of Aretas, the a passing mention of going to Arabia would hardly suffice. Saying, "I went to Arabia" is nothing like the story about Paul going to Jerusalem and being put on trial.
Re: Why Paul is made to go into Arabia in Galatians 1:17
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 10:49 am
by Giuseppe
DCHindley wrote: ↑Thu Jul 04, 2024 10:13 am
Προς Κορινθίους B΄ (GNT) |
2 Corinthians (RSV) |
| 11:32 ἐν Δαμασκῷ ὁ ἐθνάρχης Ἁρέτα τοῦ βασιλέως ἐφρούρει τὴν πόλιν Δαμασκηνῶν πιάσαι με, |
11:32 At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me, |
| 33 καὶ διὰ θυρίδος ἐν σαργάνῃ ἐχαλάσθην διὰ τοῦ τείχους καὶ ἐξέφυγον τὰς χεῖρας αὐτοῦ. |
33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped his hands. |
|
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It doesn't really say when this occurred. However, the term Ethnarch representing the interests of Nabateans ruled by king Aretas IV suggests that he "had his ways" to represent his own lord, Aretas.
If there was a real Paul, I think you endorsed Eisenman's article suggesting that Saul/Paul was a retainer of a Herodian house. I do not recall what Herodian prince he thought Paul was a retainer for, but I have recently suggested that the best fit might be Antipas.
Everyone remembers that Aretas spanked Antipas' army in the ass, and humiliated Antipas so badly that he pushed for the Roman emperor to send a legion to spank Aretas' ass. Why, because Antipas had previously divorced his wife, who happened to be Aretas' own daughter.
So, a time later, Antipas is banished to Spain via Gaul, and all his income lands were taken away. "Royal" wealth would be confiscated for the successor (Agrippa I), but Paul did not want to transfer his allegiance from Antipater to Agrippa I. Rudderless for the first time, he launches an effort to have himself appointed as an "Apostle" authorized to collect financial gifts for transfer to Jerusalem. An earlier case had established that the emperor(s) were cool with that, and regional governors could not interfere with the transport, or confiscate the money as suspect.
We get the name "Apostle" used for them in the 4th century CE (Epiphanius, SG wrote his thesis on his account of alleged shenanigans going on in the Jewish Patriarch's HQ), but I don't think it a stretch that this was a designation for the ones dispatched by the Temple authorities in Jerusalem in NT times as well. Just an accident of preservation.
Then he gets in trouble when he makes his delivery, and is directed to defray the costs of a group of pilgrims ready to fulfil Nazarite vows, who must be in a state of ritual purity the whole time. The whole mess may have been a reaction where locals suspected Paul and his associates were ritually unclean by Judean standards. While I am sure that they did what was required by Judean traditions, as they interpreted them in the Diaspora, the locals may have not wanted any part of that.
He is arrested by the Roman commander of the Cohort as a troublemaker, and he asked to see the emperor. Maybe he hoped that, at worst, he could join his former patron in Spain. Maybe he did, and like Antipas, disappeared from the stage.
DCH
It is an interesting scenario that fits the Doudna's hypothesis that the historical Paul was the Herodian prince Saul brother of Costobarus.
It assumes only a historical kernel behind 2 Corinthians 11:32.
Note that the marcionite Galatians was without the first visit to Jerusalem. After the visit in Arabia, according to the marcionite Galatians, only after 14 years Paul payed homage to the Pillars in Jerusalem. In Acts, Paul went immediately ("after some days") to Jerusalem after the conversion.
The marcionite Paul, compared to the Acts's Paul, was exposed to the accusation of cowardice: only after 14 years he found the courage to go in the lion's den where the Jews wanted to kill him.
By making Paul go immediately into Arabia, the author of Galatians exposed Paul to a greatest danger: just where king Aretas wanted to kill him.
Who is more courageous, now? The Paul who faced the Jews in their own capital? Or the Paul who faced king Aretas in person in his own kingdom?
There is no doubt: the
second Paul.
Galatians 1:17 is evidence that Galatians postdates Acts.
Re: Why Paul is made to go into Arabia in Galatians 1:17
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 12:16 pm
by rgprice
That is by no means evident in the letters. There is nothing that indicates Aretas wanted to kill Paul, and certainly not at the time he went to Arabia. There is little or nothing in the letters that indicates Paul would have faced any particular danger in Jerusalem. The closest thing is 2 Cor 11:22-29, but even that makes no particular distinction about Jerusalem.
There is perhaps some minor indication of danger in Jerusalem in Romans 16, but there are doubts that is authentic and wasn't in Marcion's letters.
I just don't see how you can make a case that in the letters alone there is any kind of indication that Paul faced dangers in Arabia, and that he went to Arabia to face these dangers. There is no indication that Paul going to Arabia was any kind of act of bravery. It's barely mentioned and trying to make this inference requires all kinds of suppositions that aren't evident or even in the text.
Re: Why Paul is made to go into Arabia in Galatians 1:17
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 9:08 pm
by Giuseppe
rgprice wrote: ↑Thu Jul 04, 2024 12:16 pm
That is by no means evident in the letters. There is nothing that indicates Aretas wanted to kill Paul, and certainly not at the time he went to Arabia. There is little or nothing in the letters that indicates Paul would have faced any particular danger in Jerusalem. The closest thing is 2 Cor 11:22-29, but even that makes no particular distinction about Jerusalem.
and rightly so. But the allusions and implications arise naturally when Acts is written (after the 3 cardinal epistles and before Galatians). After Acts one can't ignore that Paul could be killed if he had gone in Jerusalem.