Corpus-Paul

[Jack Painter <jackp AT amdg.com.ph>]

Jack Kilmon wrote:
>There is much about Paul that does not make sense...but we must
>not forget his origins.  He is a diaspora Jew raised in Tarshish
>which was a significant gentile city and an important center of
>pagan influence for the entire Mediterranean.  It was the "Vatican"
>of Mithraism.

To call Tarsus "the 'Vatican' of Mithraism" is a statement far beyond the
evidence. If any place could be called the "Vatican of Mithraism" it would
be Rome and this during the second and third centuries AD. There are only
two pieces of actual evidence that link Mithraism to Tarsus at all.
Physically there is a single coin of Tarsus with the Mithras bull-slaying
scene from the reign of Gordion III (AD 238-244). Second, Plutarch writing
at the beginning of the second century has a story about pirates from
Tarsus during the time of Pompey's "pirate sweep" having practiced strange
rites on Mt. Olympus "among which those of Mithras continue to this day
(Plutarch, Pompey 24.5)." What exactly the Mithras worship of those pirates
actually was we do not know. It must be said that there is scattered
evidence of pre-Roman Mithras worship in other parts of Anatolia. Mithraism
as it occurs in the Roman Empire does not actually begin to show up with
any frequency until the late first century AD. Mithraic worship sites show
up early at Nida-Hedderhiem in Germany (c. 85) and at Caesarea Maritima in
Israel (latter half of first century). The vast majority of Mithraic
evidence however is from the second to fourth centuries, the bulk of which
comes from Rome and Italy, the Danube, Germany, and Britain (with some in
France, Spain and elsewhere). In my estimation, to imply that Paul was
influenced by Mithraism is speculation standing only on a shred of
anachronistic evidence.

Regards,
Jack Painter

R. Jackson Painter, Ph.D.
Acting Academic Dean and
Assistant Professor of New Testament
Alliance Biblical Seminary
Manila, Philippines