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  • From: Bob Schacht <bobschacht AT infomagic.net>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] The defection of Corinthian God-fearers to Paul
  • Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2006 19:45:20 -1000

At 06:50 PM 8/5/2006, Richard Fellows wrote:
David Hindley wrote:
> Was that the lecture he gave in Detroit? I may be thinking of someone else.
It was in Vancouver, Canada.
> 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.

Crossan said that Acts implies that Paul's converts were
mainly God-fearers,
and that Acts is correct in that regard. Crossan suggested that letters such
as Galatians would not have been intelligible to pure pagans. In his book,
"In search of Paul", Crossan goes on to point out that the opposition that
Paul faced from Jews is understandable if Paul had been poaching their
God-fearers. He writes (p40) "But if his (Paul's) focus was on converting a
synagogue's sympathizers to Christianity, with the result of stripping from
Jews their intermediary buffer of support and protection, that would be
socially explosive".

[Emphasis added]
If this was the case, then Timothy would have been a rare exception, and the uncircumcision party that Peter was hanging out with before the visit of the men from James would have been insignificant.

*Of course* Paul would have appealed first to Jews. And I do understand that it can be a slippery thing to gauge the extent of the uncircumcised in Paul's congregations. But whatever the number, they seemed to have been *significant*.

We can then ask a different question, namely whether we can use Acts to
argue that Paul's converts were
mainly God-fearers. I would say yes, because
I tend to trust Acts in such matters (I tier of the "Acts is unreliable"
mantra, which is often repeated by rarely substantiated).

Then Paul either spent a lot of effort beating a dead horse, or was made to appear to do so.
Are you saying that all Paul's references to Gentiles (ethnos) in Romans really referred to circumcised Jews?
Or that all those references were red herrings? Paul says in Romans 1:13
I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as I have among the rest of the Gentiles.

This implies that a major amount of his time has been directed at this group. Who is he referring to in NRS Romans 2:14 ?
Gentiles, who do not possess the law,

Maybe I am missing the point.

Where does this term "God-fearers" come from? I cannot find it in any Biblical references.

Bob

Bob

Robert M. Schacht, Ph.D.
University of Hawaii
Honolulu, HI


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