Corpus-Paul

["Jack Kilmon" <jkilmon AT historian.net>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanosmd AT home.com>
To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 8:50 AM
Subject: [corpus-paul] Re: How did Paul take the collection to Jerusalem?


> > At 11:33 AM 2/13/01 -0000, Mark Goodacre wrote:
> >> When teaching about the collection for the saints in Jerusalem
> >> yesterday, I began wondering how Paul actually carried the offering
> >> to Jerusalem?  Does anyone care to speculate?  If I remember
> >> correctly, Murphy O'Connor (_Paul: A Critical Life_), ever able to
> >> use his imagination, suggested that he sowed the money into an
> >> inner tunic.  Were there no other means available in the ancient
> >> world for transporting large amounts of money around the
> >> Mediterranean, banks, cheques, IOUs?
> Mark,
> While this is not a specific answer to the details of how monies were
> transported for Paul, I hope this reply will be helpful.
>
> To the degree that one considers Paul's collection effort an aspect of
> Jewish communal (that is synagogue and Temple) Jewish life, as, for
example,
> I do, then it would be useful to check the sources related to the
transport
> of the Temple Tax from Diaspora communities to Jerusalem. (This would not
> seem to me to apply if Paul is already a Christian, that is, a
> representative of a religious order distinct from Jewish organizations,
> which the Romans and Greeks--not to mention Jewish groups in Judea or the
> Diaspora--would be left to regard as some new kind of pagan religion, and
> thus not similarly protected for transport of monies under these
provisions
> anyway; even so, information about the issue of just how some monies were
> transported might be gained.)
>
> Sacred monies were apparently kept by some Jewish communities of Asia
minor,
> e.g., in Sabbath-houses or banquet halls, and this arrangement was secured
> by a ruling from Augustus (Josephus, Ant. 16.164).
>
> Discussion of the rights granted by the Roman government for Jewish
> communities to save and transport monies to Jerusalem is referred to,
e.g.,
> in Josephus (Ant. 14.110-13, 213-16; 16.160-78 [note e.g., 166: "The
Jews...
> to bring sacred monies to send up to Jerusalem, may do this without
> interference"]), Philo (Embassy 156-57, 313-16; esp. 216: "for every year
> sacred messengers are sent to convey large amounts of gold and silver to
the
> temple, which has been collected from all the subordinate governments,
> travelling over rugged, and difficult, and almost impassable roads....").
> For some unfavorable Roman reactions which make salient the issues
> surrounding such transportation of monies from Diaspora communities to
> Jerusalem, Cicero defended Flaccus in the first century BCE when he sought
> to interfere in the sending of gold to Jer. (Def. of Flaccus, 28.66-69),
and
> Tacitus was none too pleased with the results either (Hist. 5.4-5, esp.
> 5.5.1).
>
> These references seem to imply that the monies (including gold, silver,
and
> other precious materials) were actually transported, but that protection
by
> Roman law was important for a voluntary association or group of any kind
> which sought to undertake this kind of activity.

As a collector of ancient coinage related to the "Biblical world" I cannot
imagine
Paul sowing up money in his tunic.  If it was more money than what was
required
for a weeks groceries at the local supermarket,  Paul couldn't carry it.  It
mmakes
me wonder about larger monetary portage.  Sure, bronzes and silver coins
could
be exchanged for gold coins but even then there is a limit in risk and
weight.

I should check Jeremias and Horsely on this when my books arrive but I
thought
the Temple acted as a bank also and the synagogues as "branch offices" and
there
was a sort of "checking/draft" system.  Just where did the economic upper
class
keep their wealth?


Jack
--
______________________________________________

taybutheh d'maran yeshua masheecha am kulkon

Jack Kilmon
Austin, Texas
jkilmon AT historian.net

http://www.historian.net

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