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  • From: "David Hindley" <dhindley AT compuserve.com>
  • To: "'Corpus-Paul'" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] The defection of Corinthian God-fearers to Paul
  • Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 11:55:31 -0400

Richard,

Was that the lecture he gave in Detroit? I may be thinking of someone else.

Anyways, I am sure that Crossan would have based that statement on what he
found in the letters, which are more or less firsthand
accounts, and treated Acts as secondary support, being a hearsay narrative
retelling of Paul's reputed historical actions.

That Paul was dealing exclusively with gentile God-fearers is a pretty good
bet. I know you have read Mark Nanos, who has reached a
similar conclusion. I cannot think of any evidence in the letters that
support the idea that Paul evangelized gentiles who did not
already have some appreciation for Judaism or its God, although Acts does
seem to suggest that.

Off the top of my head I cannot recall the source, but there are critics who
theorize that Paul's target audience were members of
households. I would go even further and say the household of prominent
Hellenistic Jews. Every major city certainly had a few, and
then there are the households of members of the Herodian family, households
which could be very extensive in size and organization.

Jewish law forbids enslaving fellow-Jews, so in most all cases the slaves of
these households would be gentile. Some of these, for
whatever personal reasons they had, would have associated with aspects of
Jewish history and beliefs that would benefit them either
individually (psychological comfort) or collectively (help secure eventual
freedom, increase their network of patrons, etc),
including a reverence for the household God. As a result, they would likely
attend Sabbath at the local synagogue, and associate
with other God-fearing slaves of the household and possibly other households.

Then there is a whole network of retainers/clients who would have
relationships with influential Jewish patrons. Inscriptions
suggest that not a few gentiles fell into this class and actively networked
through Jewish synagogues, supported them in various
ways, and may have even admired aspects of Jewish faith such as their God.
Some of these gentiles may have been freed slaves and
sons of freedmen, and continued to maintain friendly relationships with the
households of their/their parent's former masters. While
there is lots of literary evidence that gentiles directed a lot of hostility
towards Jews and their beliefs, the inscriptions tell
us there was this other side who were friendly and close to the Jewish
communities. I would also suspect that some elite gentiles
acted as patrons to members of elite Jewish households and to Jews in general
(merchants, artisans, what have you), and reached out
to them, maybe even visited the synagogue on important days, etc, and a few
may even counted the Jewish God among the select number
they principally worshiped.

Just keep in mind that Acts reflects the author's beliefs at the time of
writing, and also his understanding of and interpretation
of events that happened in the past. Historical narratives tend to
reinterpret past events to make them conform to the author's
then-current views about the world, and are often idealized portraits of the
past. This is how critics like Jacob Neusner say we
should take the descriptions of past events, beliefs and rituals found in the
Mishna and Talmuds, etc. They are idealized
representations of a real past, but should not be taken at face value as
direct evidence, rather as indirect evidence we can use to
reconstruct events and beliefs of a past time.

Respectfully,

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio USA

-----Original Message-----
From: corpus-paul-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:corpus-paul-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Richard Fellows
Sent: Saturday, August 05, 2006 2:00 AM
To: Corpus-Paul
Subject: [Corpus-Paul] The defection of Corinthian God-fearers to Paul


Last week I attended a talk by John Dominic Crossan, who suggested that
Paul's converts were mainly God-fearers. Reflecting on this
theory, I am struck by how much sense it makes of Acts 18:4-17.

...

Does [my] reading of the passage work? What do the Corinthian letters
indicate about whether the church was formed from Jews,
pagans, or God-fearers?

Richard





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