Corpus-Paul

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

Jack Kilmon posted:

>>In 1 Timothy "Paul" speaks
of himself as free and traveling. The situation in 1 Tim cannot
fit into any of the time periods in Acts and Acts ends in 64.<<

And true this is! Of course, this is one of the reasons that Acts' value as 
an historical account has at times been questioned.

But, instead of supposing an unrecorded period of freedom following the 
imprisonment recorded in Acts, it could also be assumed that Acts is 
actually an arbitrary reconstruction that may, or may not, be closely 
related to the events related in the epistles. If so, then the events in 
the epistles can be reconstructed in a much different order, and even cover 
a broader range of dates than Acts would allow.

Such alternative dating schemes have been advocated by Knox, Buck & Taylor, 
Ludemann, Jewett, Murphy-O'Connor and Donfried, according to Raymond Brown 
(in his _Introduction to the New Testament_), but I have to confess that I 
have not yet reviewed any of thesae author's works on this subject. It 
looks as though at least some of these have interpreted the evidence in the 
epistles against the account in Acts, with added assumptions related to the 
date of Jesus' death.

My own hang-up on dating is due to 2 Thess 2:3-8a, which to me seems to be 
an unquestionable reference to Gaius' attempt to erect his statue in the 
temple, and the mediation of Petronius. However, the date would then be 
about 42 CE, a decade earlier than is usually assigned to this epistle. On 
the other hand, 1 Cor 11:1-15 appears (to me, anyways) to be an oblique 
(and reworked?) reference to the shaving of the head of Queen Helen of 
Adiabene after the completion of her first Nazarite vow around 52 CE.

If these relative datings are correct (and I am not saying catagorically 
that they are), then the chronology of Acts can be excusably disregarded to 
some extent. This would leave open the possibility that the pastorals were 
authentic, and written be earlier than the dogmatic epistles. But the 
composotion of the latter are another matter that would complicate the 
whole investigation of relative date.

Dave Hindley, BA
Cleveland, OH, USA
Dhindley AT compuserve.com