Corpus-Paul

["David C. Hindley" <DHindley AT compuserve.com>]

Message text written by "Steve Davies"

>As always our knowledge depends on the trust we have in our
sources. If we trust Acts 22:4-5 then Paul persecuted to the death
(which probably speaks of capital punishment, less likely, of Paul's
level of intensity) and arrested both men and women and threw them
into prison. Also went to Damascus to deport prisoners to Jerusalem
for punishment (26:11). Word in Acts 22:4 and 26:11 is the same as Paul 
uses of his own activities in Gal 1:13 and 1 Cor 15:9 and so Acts
tells us more than just what Luke thought Paul did, it also tells us
what Luke thought that word means. When Paul says he tried to destroy
the church of god through persecution, we can reasonably think he was
at the minimum doing more than fussing about it and arguing publicly
against various of its tenets. His appeal to his zealousness for the 
traditions of Judaism indicates that his persecution was not some 
idiosyncratic whim of his own, but an activity in accord with 
Judaism as he then understood it. So, all in all, it seems Paul acted
as an agent of Jewish legal authority to arrest and imprison 
Christians. <

Regarding the level of "trust" that we can place in Acts, and how it
relates to Saul's activity in Damascus, do not forget that 2 Cor 11:32-33
has the city under control of a governor appointed by the Nabatean client
king Aretas (Harith IV). This governor, he says, tries to arrest him, while
the author of Acts (9:23-25) says instead that the "Jews" sought to kill
him. The answer to this question will affect what level of authority that
Saul, with letters from the -civil- government of a 3rd class Roman
province, could command in a city controlled by an independent client king.


This is especially important as Saul's activity in Damascus is set within
the general period when Aretas was either at war with his fellow client
Antipas (36 CE) or soon after. If so, then I would not expect officials
appointed by Aretas to be friendly towards representatives of Jewish
governments, especially ones overseen by the same Romans who were preparing
a military expedition to punish him for defeating Antipas' army. Why would
he go there as portrayed in Acts? 

Also, if Saul had defected as an agent of the Sanhedrin, I would have
expected him to be received (and protected?) by Aretas' officials. And even
if the Jewish citizens -did- plot against Saul, how could these Jews, in
circumstances such as I just described, been in a position to boldly try to
kill him? It just does not make any sense. Saul may have been there, and
may have somehow offended the king or his governor, but I do not think he
could have been there to arrest Jesish Christians in the manner described
by the author of Acts. 

Consequently, I think that this discrepency seriously weakens an equation
of the activities related in Gal 1:13-14 with those that the author of Acts
says occurred at Damascus. 

Respectfully,

Dave Hindley
DHindley AT compuserve.com