[Corpus-Paul] protective anonymity in 2 Corinthians

tim at timgallant.org tim at timgallant.org
Sun Mar 18 18:38:44 EST 2007


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Fellows" <rfellows at shaw.ca>
To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2007 4:41 PM
Subject: [Corpus-Paul] protective anonymity in 2 Corinthians


> Paul's collection for Jerusalem may have been illegal (so Nickel) and Jews
> may have found it highly provocative (so Georgi). It seems to have 
> provoked
> the attack on Paul just before he was about to sail (Acts 20:3). So, it is
> likely that his involvement in the collection put him in danger and it is
> reasonable to conjecture that his accomplices in the project would also 
> have
> been at risk if their involvement had become widely known.

What about the collection does Nickel claim was illegal?

What about Acts 20.3 suggests the opposition was in any way related to the 
collection? To the contrary, we find non-Christian Jews repeatedly opposing 
Paul throughout the Acts record, and the motivation we see has to do with 
the related issues of Torah and Paul's Gentile focus. I see no evidence that 
the plotting in 20.3 is collection-related.

Did the collection put Paul in danger. Sure. But not in the provinces. It 
put him in danger, because it involved taking him back to Jerusalem.

> I propose that this explains the very strange anonymity of the two
> 'brothers' of 2 Cor 8:18-9:5. Why else would Paul not name those whom he
> commends so highly? It also explains the equally strange anonymity of the
> brother of 2 Cor 12:18, who accompanied Titus on his earlier visit to
> Corinth, in which he started the collection (2 Cor 8:6). If Paul had named
> these individuals the information could have leaked out to opponents, so 
> he
> kept them anonymous so as not to expose them to possible persecution. Not
> only does Paul not name the individuals, he also fails to specify where 
> they
> came from or give any information that could be used by opponents to
> identify them. Moreover, he nowhere connects the collection with any
> particular congregations, preferring to refer to provinces. In Romans he
> uses the first person singular when talking about his anticipated visit to
> Jerusalem, and while he names Timothy and Sosipater, he does not mention
> that they were to travel with him. In fact he nowhere implicates any of 
> his
> friends in involvement in the collection, except the anonymous brothers.

But this is completely explicable if "brothers" are visiting the 
congregations he is writing to for the sake of the collection, it seems to 
me. They were hardly "anonymous" if they were present in person.

> Acts also seems to take pains to protect those who were involved in the
> collection(s). Rather than omit the names, Luke chooses to omit all
> reference to the collections, except where he can present them as very
> innocent acts of charity (Acts 11:27-30; 24:17).

I fail to see how Luke's records show a different sort of collection from 
Paul's.

tim


---------------------------------
Tim Gallant, M.Div.
Elder, Christ Covenant Church
Grande Prairie, Alberta
Web site portal: http://www.timgallant.org/portal.php
MSN: tim at timgallant.org / Yahoo: rabbisaul7 



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