Corpus-Paul

["Eric Zuesse" <cettel AT shoreham.net>]

Re: Loren Rosson's:

> 1. Gal 2:1-10 refers to a private meeting either
> referred to in Acts 11:29-30 or not by Luke at all.
> Acts 15:1-20 refers to a later official council, which
> addressed additional issues.
>
> Actually, I have worked out a chronology for Gal
> 2:1-10=Acts 11:29-30, with Acts 15:1-20 coming later
> on. It works.

I reply:

Acts 11:29-30 is prior to 13:9 "Saul" becoming "Paul." It is also prior to
12:23 the death of Herod Agrippa I in 44 CE. You are assuming that the
council in Jerusalem that Galatians 2:1 places 14 years after Paul's 1:18
visit to Jerusalem that had itself taken place three years after his
conversion--in other words, the council that occurred in Paul's 17th year of
Christian ministry--occurred within the first few years after Saul's
conversion and before Saul had even adopted the name of Paul. This would
have been well prior to Paul's having built up enough converts for his
conversion-practices to have precipitated that council in Jerusalem. Indeed,
the passage you refer to as this council calls Paul by the name of "Saul" in
11:30.

Furthermore, 11:29-30 refers to whatever it refers to as an event that is
far less contentious, and also far less important, than the Galatian 2
council meeting. Especially, circumcision is not even so much as referred to
in it, whereas circumcision is the core issue in the council meeting
described in both Galatians 2 and Acts 15.

Clearly, the same council meeting is being referred to in Acts 15 and
Galatians 2, but the accounts differ in their details regarding James's
decision. In both accounts, circumcision was the issue, and in both
accounts, James permitted Paul, at least for the time being, to continue
without demanding his Gentile male "converts" to be circumcised.

The difference between the two accounts is not greater than the difference
that a court of law routinely expects to encounter between the accounts from
two different witnesses to the same event. However, Paul was a witness to
this event, and Luke knew of it only by hearsay. A court would question and
cross-examine Paul's account, but would admit Luke's hearsay account only
under special conditions, and even then only to provide confirmation for a
hypothesis that is, itself, derived entirely from such direct witness
testimony and from other non-hearsay evidence. Consequently, whereas a
legal/forensic explanation can employ Gal. 2 for hypothesis-formulation and
not only for hypothesis-confirmation, it can employ Acts 15 only for
hypothesis-confirmation, and cannot formulate any explanatory hypothesis on
the basis of that account of the council meeting.

Eric Zuesse
cettel AT shoreham.net