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corpus-paul - RE: Horsley's use of Draper

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  • From: "David C. Hindley" <dhindley AT compuserve.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Horsley's use of Draper
  • Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 23:35:41 -0400


Bob McDonald said:

>>Paul is seldom seen as beloved (as in Acts where the
elders of Ephesus fell upon his neck and kissed him). It
strikes me as very unlikely that contemporaries of Paul
would have demonized him or even Christianized him as later
interpreters have. He was not beyond criticism of course as
none of us is in our inherent character. But if he had been
demonized by Antioch, how would James and the Jerusalem
church have accepted him in any respect as they appear to
have? There was considerable dispute over his message
whether from super-apostles or local Jewish communities (as
Mark Nanos argues well in his Irony of Galatians) and (Acts
again) from some in Jerusalem who thought he was advocating
abandonment of Torah. But these disputes are more likely to
have been internal to Judaism.<<

No doubt he had warts, as we all do. Draper drew on an
anthropological study to cast the Didache community as a
"witch believing" community, as these tend to demonize and
cast out witches (actually, non-conformists). I guess he
felt that placing this community at Antioch would allow him
to combine Paul's account in Galatians 2 with the story of
Acts 15. While in these stories Paul is not actually said to
have been driven out, but rather prevails, he may be
understanding Paul's trip to Jerusalem to be the result of
having been driven out of Antioch. Then again, I am hesitant
to place a great degree of confidence in the story of Acts,
assuming it will likely reflect the rhetoric of the party
that produced it.

Respectfully,

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA






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