Corpus-Paul

[Richard Fellows <rfellows AT intergate.ca>]

John, here are some further difficulties that I find with your chronology
and method.

              Concerning 1 Thessalonians

John Hurd wrote on 1st Dec:
<<In the case of 1 Thessalonians one notes, e.g., that the disclosure
formula in 4:13 indicates that Paul is telling the Thessalonians for the
first time what to think about Christians who have died before the
Parousia.  How long would elapse between the founding of the
congregation and the death of one or more believers.  Not long, I think.>>

But now you are saying that there were five years between the
evangelization of Thessalonica and the writing of 1 Thess. Isn't your
chronology undermined by your own argument? If Paul was in Achaia for five
years before writing 1 Thess, why had the issue of 4.13 not been raised
earlier?

              Concerning the place of Gal 2.1-10 in the sequence

A certain J. Hurd argued in his book that 1 Corinthians shows that Paul had
been influenced by Jerusalem to take a strict stance on blood, sexual
immorality, and idolatry. If he is right, then the Jerusalem visit in
question is probably not to be equated with Gal 2.1-10 because they added
nothing to his message on that visit (see Gal 2.6). Notice that I have not
appealed to the authority of Luke here, but that of Hurd!

The simplest interpretation of Gal 1.1-2.10 is that Paul is telling the
Galatians that the gospel that he had preached to them had not been
influenced by the Jerusalem apostles. It is therefore preferable to place
all of Gal. 1.1-2.10 before Paul's first visit to Galatia.

              Concerning the place of Philippians in the sequence

We agree that Philippians belongs to an Ephesian imprisonment. However, I
place it before 1 Corinthians at a time before Paul started to organize the
collection. You place it after 1 Corinthians, when the collection was well
underway, and you suggest that the collection was initiated in Jerusalem
even before Paul's arrival in Ephesus. Can you explain why Philippians
makes no mention of the collection?

We gather from 1 Corinthians that Timothy was on his way to Corinth via the
land route (i.e. via Philippi). Philippians was written before Timothy's
journey to Philippi (2.19), so it should be placed before 1 Corinthians. We
have no evidence anywhere of another journey of Timothy from Ephesus to
Philippi.

             Concerning method

John, I was delighted to read your endorsement of the practice of tracking
probabilities when constructing hypothesese.* I think that a course in
probability theory should be compulsory for all historians. Anyway, my
concern is that you do not apply the same principle when discussing correct
methodology for reconstructing Paul's life. Paul's letters contain some
clear statements about itinerary and sequence, and some hints that are
rather less secure. Your discussion of method does not seem to distinguish
between the clear statements and the hints: you seem to treat them all as
'primary'. It is inconsistent, I think, to rule that Acts is 'out of
bounds' while admitting for consideration any crumb of evidence that
derives from the letters. While Gal 2.10 is 'primary', the interpretation
that says that the occasion must have immediately preceded the collection
period, is 'secondary'. In the sense that matters, the chronological hints
in Paul's letters are secondary and should be ranked alongside other
secondary statements, such as those found in Acts.

>    The fundamental rule is: One must NOT put the letter material and
>the Acts material on the same table at the same time.  

I disagree, for the reasons I have given. For the purposes of constructing
a chronology one must avail oneself of all the evidence and weigh it
appropriately. This, to me, is self-evident.

Regards,

Richard Fellows.

*[See, "Good News and the Integrity of 1 Corinthians" in Gospel in Paul:
Studies on Corinthians, Galatians and Romans for Richard N. Longenecker,
edited by L. Ann Jervis and Peter Richardson ("Journal for the Study of the
New Testament: Supplement Series," 108; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1994), pp. 38–62.]