Corpus-Paul

["Mark D. Nanos" <nanosmd AT home.com>]

on 2/16/01 4:06 AM, Peter M. Head at pmh15 AT cam.ac.uk wrote:

> 1 Cor 16.3f hardly seems to suggest or require any particularly complicated
> arrangements for transporting the collection: it will be taken by
> representatives of the Corinthian congregation, along with Paul. 2 Cor 8.18
> speaks of a particular administrator of the collection. A group of such
> people from the various Pauline congregations (such as is preserved in Acts
> 20.4) would have safeguarded the cash transfer, protected Paul's
> reputation, and functioned as a symbolic expression of the offering of the
> Gentiles.
> 
> There is a fair bit of info in the Oxford Classical Dict on "Banks',
> "Coinage", "Finance", "Credit" etc.; but it hardly seems to me that the
> likely amount of the collection would require much more than a purse or two
> of gold coins.

Peter,
I do not think the issues that arise can be so easily brushed aside. Apart
from the initial question of how the goods were carried, there are
interesting questions that remain. Your last sentence in par. 1 brings up at
least two issues. You write, "protected Paul's reputation." What reputation,
and to whom? As he (and this group) moved through the Greco-Roman world
toward Jerusalem with these goods (by the way, how do you know it is a purse
or two of gold coins?), did they do so as representatives of a non-Jewish
institution (Christianity, however labeled)? In other words, in the identity
terms of the time, was this a Jewish group, and thus working under the
prevailing law for such transport of goods to Jerusalem allowed Jewish
groups, or a "pagan" group, and if so, on what grounds was this acceptable?

The same kinds of questions arise with your last statement, "and functioned
as a symbolic expression of the offering of the Gentiles." What does this
mean to Greeks and Romans and other indigenous groups of people through whom
these "strangers" moved, or to the Jewish groups, if this is not a Jewish
group, upon the arrival of these "strangers"? If they are not a Jewish
group, what does "gentiles" mean to non-Jewish people through whom they
pass? Since they do not share the symbolic meaning of "the offering of the
non-Judeans," how would they comprehend such a statement? Would it not be an
offering from a "pagan" entity (Roman or Greek or some other ethnic group)
being transported to Judeans? And symbolizing a new kingdom? How would this
group with Paul, or those along the way, understand the justification for
such action under the Roman regime? How would they react? Would they not
perhaps feel the right to stop such treasonous actions? To take the
"unprotected" goods? (Would not similar issues arise in their own locations
when this "collection" was being raised and stored? By whom? Where? For
whom? On what grounds?) And so on...

Are these not the kinds of issues that arise from these matters? Do they not
make salient the identity issues that were arising for Paul and his groups?
To those outside as well as inside of this coalition, was the offering and
were these groups collecting and transporting it Jewish/Judean, or not? This
seems to me to get at some complicating issues that arise, interesting ones
too.

Regards,
Mark
-- 
Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D.
313 NE Landings Dr.
Lee's Summit, MO 64064
USA
nanosmd AT home.com