Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

corpus-paul - Re: [Corpus-Paul] Sabbatical years and Paul's collections

corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Corpus-Paul

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Richard Fellows <rfellows AT shaw.ca>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Sabbatical years and Paul's collections
  • Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 09:32:46 -0800

Ron wrote:
>it seems to me inconceivable that
> Gentiles would have contributed generously (2 Cor 8:2) to such
self-imposed
> penury.

Josephus mentions the hardship resulting from Sabbatical years, and I do not
detect that he was at all embarrassed by it. Also, it seems that Sabbatical
year observance was compulsory, so the Aegean churches surely would not
blame the Judean church for the resulting poverty. I do not think that the
Gentile churches would have refrained from relieving poverty that was, in
part, caused by Sabbatical year observance.

However, I can imagine that later generations of Gentile Christians would
have been less sympathetic to poverty caused by Sabbatical years. If this
were the case for the audience of Acts, it could explain why Luke mentions
the famine collection but does not mention the collection from Galatia (1
Cor 16:1-3) or the Aegean collection.

We do not know how poor the Judean church was in non-sabbatical years.
People have proposed a lot of possible causes of its poverty. However, with
a little imagination, I am sure that we could find an equal number of
mitigating factors. All we know is that there was poverty in the church of
Judea when Paul hoped to deliver the collection. Now, my point is this:
whatever the level of poverty or otherwise in normal years, the poverty
would have been more extreme in Sabbatical years. Collections and requests
for aid are therefore more likely at these times. Not only does this stand
to reason, it is also supported by the fact that the Aegean collection can
be shown to have taken place (as far as we can tell) at the time of the
Sabbatical year.

2 Cor 8:14 mentions the 'present time'. Paul is asking for a one time gift
to meet a present need. Indeed, the second part of the verse seems to
suggest the possibility that Judea may give to Achaia in the future (though
we cannot be sure about this). The verse suggests that the acute poverty in
Judea is expected to be temporary and this is consistent with the Sabbath
year.

I remember only one argument in the literature against the suggestion that
Paul designed his Aegean collection to coincide with the Sabbatical year. It
is supposed that 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians are separated by 18 months
and that therefore Paul left Achaia for Jerusalem at least a year later than
he originally intended. This delay would not be sensible if Paul had a
Sabbatical year deadline to meet. However, the argument should be reversed:
the Sabbatical year deadline (along with many other pieces of evidence)
shows that there was no such gap between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians.

The Sabbatical year chronology is also important in confirming the
conventional date for the Gal 2 visit (49 or so). Gal 2:10 in combination
with the "14 years" of Gal 2:1 increase the probability that the Gal 2 visit
was during a Sabbatical year. This argues against Knox and his school, who
place it later. It also argues against equating Gal 2 with the famine visit,
which would have been before the Sabbath year. Acts 15 fits nicely.

During a Sabbath year people would be free from agricultural work and would
therefore have the time for other activities, such as travel. Even those in
other professions would be more inclined to travel in Sabbath years because
their wages would be lower because of the surplus of labour. Whereas we tend
to make our (shorter) trips at weekends, I imagine that Judeans tended to
make their longer journeys during the Sabbath year. Now, a lot of Judeans
travelled in Acts 15 and Gal 2 (those of Acts 15:1 as well as Barsabbas and
Silas, and Peter and those from James). This flurry of activity further
supports the view that Gal 2 = Acts 15 = Sabbath year.

Richard.







Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page