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  • From: "John C. Hurd" <John.Hurd AT Squam.org>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Hurd's chronology
  • Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 11:26:29 -0500


I really did not mean to reopen a lot of the past discussion on Paul's
life and bore the readership out of their collective skulls. I
appreciate the comments from Richard Fellows and Loren Rosson, and I
will comment on their comments as I have time and to the extent that it
seems constructive. One comment is easy to respond to: Richard was kind
enough to ask what else besides The Origin of 1 Corinthians I have
written. I append the table of contents to my recent collection of
essays, together with the original place of publication for the five
previously published.
I would like to begin with a general comment. The references to
Acts which appear in my Life of Paul are quite secondary and have
nothing to do with sequence of events proposed. They are merely
parallel traditions which seem to have survived in Acts. I am not a
"North Galatianist", although I put Galatians just before Romans. I am
not a "South Galatianist", although I think that Galatians was probably
written to converts in Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. These terms derive
from the attempt to harmonize Acts and the letters, which is, I think, a
mug's game.
The fundamental rule is: One must NOT put the letter material and
the Acts material on the same table at the same time. Unfortunately a
good many of the comments about my chronology fall into this category,
and are therefore out of bounds. The letters are primary source
material; Acts is secondary source material. To say this is not to say
that one is more accurate than the other. They are two different types
of material and must be treated in different ways. Look at the
difference between the uncritical way most life-of-Paul writers use Acts
and the way modern Acts scholars use Acts. On the Acts list they are
debating the function of Acts 1:15-26: why did Luke write that bit?
Not, where can we fit this bit into the history of the early church.
Acts is a very complicated document and one cannot assign a general
reliability quotient to it. The study of Acts is a different ball game,
which needs to be kept separate from the sequencing of Paul's letters
(although it can benefit from reaching as clear a view as possible of
Paul's life from his letters).
A few random comments:
(1) I very much doubt that 2 Thess. 2:2 refers to "bogus letters . . .
circulating in his name" (Rosson). See commentaries. Paul is imploring
the Thessalonians not to be upset by any conceivable form of
communication (spiritual, oral, or written) which might be supposed to
come from him, any rumour at all attributed to him, to the effect that
the Day of the Lord has come, because that emphatically is not what he
believes. hos di hemon applies to all three modes of communication.
(2) Caesarean imprisonment? (Rosson) The end of Paul's career is much
less clear than the earlier sections. The three late letters (if
genuine, but I guess that they are) are from prison. Where? Acts has a
couple of traditions. More important is Phlm 22 (certainly genuine),
"prepare a guest room for me". Paul has expressed his intention of
moving west past Rome to Spain (Rom. 15:22-29). If he has gone as far
as Rome for his imprisonment, where is this guest room? Thus I suggest
an imprisonment to the east of Rome someplace where Paul (if released)
would go past Asia on his way to Rome and the west.
(3) 2 Cor. 1-9 at Pentecost? (Fellows) Just a guess based on the
juxtaposition of Exodus 34 and Jeremiah 31:31-34 both in the lections
(Torah and Haphtorah) for Pentecost and in the text of 2 Cor. 3. Cf.
the Passover references in 1 Cor. 5:6-8 as a clue to the time of year
for the writing of 1 Corinthians. The dates seem to fit with Paul's
travels during this period.
Enough for now. Best wishes! -- John


==============================================
THE EARLIER LETTERS OF PAUL — AND OTHER STUDIES
John C. Hurd (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang: 1998)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. (1967) PAULINE CHRONOLOGY AND PAULINE THEOLOGY, pp. 9–30
["Pauline Chronology and Pauline Theology" in Christian History and
Interpretation: Studies Presented to John Knox, edited by C. F. D.
Moule, W. R. Farmer, and R. R. Niebuhr (Cambridge: The University Press,
1967), pp. 225–248.]

II. (1967) THE SEQUENCE OF PAUL'S LETTERS, pp. 31–45
["The Sequence of Paul's Letters," Canadian Journal of Theology 14
(1968), 189–200.]

III. (1972) CONCERNING THE STRUCTURE OF
1 THESSALONIANS, pp. 47–83

IV. (1973) ISAIAH'S CURSE ACCORDING TO MARK, pp. 85–96

V. (1977) THOUGHTS PRELIMINARY TO WRITING A
COMMENTARY ON 1 & 2 THESSALONIANS, pp. 97–108

VI. (1979) CERTAIN UNCERTAIN CERTAINTIES IN NEW
TESTAMENT STUDIES, pp. 109–116

VII. (1980) PAUL AHEAD OF HIS TIME: 1 THESS. 2:13–16, pp. 117–133
["Paul Ahead of His Time: 1 Thess. 2:13–16" in Anti-Judaism in Early
Christianity, edited by Peter Richardson with David Granskou ("Studies
in Christianity and Judaism / Études sur le christianisme et le
judaïsme," 2; Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1984), pp.
21–36.]

VIII. (1983) CONCERNING THE AUTHENTICITY OF
2 THESSALONIANS. pp. 135–161

IX. (1984) "THE JESUS WHOM PAUL PREACHES"
(ACTS 19:13), pp. 163–181
["‘The Jesus Whom Paul Preaches' (Acts 19:13)" in From Jesus to Paul:
Studies in Honour of Francis Wright Beare, edited by Peter Richardson
and John C. Hurd (Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1984),
pp. 73–89.]

X. (1994) GOOD NEWS AND THE INTEGRITY OF
1 CORINTHIANS, pp. 183–206
["Good News and the Integrity of 1 Corinthians" in Gospel in Paul:
Studies on Corinthians, Galatians and Romans for Richard N. Longenecker,
edited by L. Ann Jervis and Peter Richardson ("Journal for the Study of
the New Testament: Supplement Series," 108; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1994), pp. 38–62.]

--

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: Prof. John C. Hurd Internet: John.Hurd AT Squam.org
:: Bradgate Arms, Rm. 210 Tel.: (416) 935-4010
:: 54 Foxbar Road
:: Toronto, Ont. M4V 2G6 Hotel FAX (24 hrs): (416) 968-3743






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