Corpus-Paul

["David Inglis" <david AT colonialcommerce.com>]

Eric Zuesse wrote:
[snip]
> Given that there do not exist, within present, very formative and early,
> legal/forensic rules of evidence concerning documentary evidence, any
> distinctions between different classical documents as "evidence," such that
> one classical document can be said to be "better evidence" than another,
> much less "best evidence," it is incumbent upon us as historians, if we are
> to have any serious aim to meet a scientific standard in our reconstructions
> of ancient history from the documents that we do possess, to employ, in our
> reconstruction efforts, rules of evidence that *would* meet a court's
> standards *if* courts dealt with such ancient documents--which, as
> mentioned, they do not.

This sounds like putting the cart before the horse.  Given that such rules
do not exist, surely any attempt to apply hypothetical ones must fail, as
we do not know what would meet such a court's standards.
[snip]
>
> Therefore, if we are to be scientific in our reconstructions of historical
> events from the available documentary evidence, we will, indeed, be very
> attentive to the respective datings of the various documents. We will not be
> satisfied to be guided by Stephen's "*both* Galatians and Acts are hearsay
> from a legal perspective." And the 20-year-rule likewise does not apply to
> the work we do.

... But to do this we must actually *know* the datings of our source
documents!
[snip]
> 
> Instead, taking our guidance from the *purposes* that are intended to be
> served by such rules of evidence, I would infer the following guidance to us
> from courts:
> 
> Paul wrote his letters to congregations of people who, in a sense,
> constituted a jury, who could--and who might reasonably be assumed to have
> done so--cross examine him, in the sense, that is, that anything he said in
> his letters that *explicitly* contradicted what those people knew or
> possibly might have known or be able to come to know concerning the people
> and events he described, could have destroyed his credibility with them; and
> Paul can not reasonably be expected to have been able to afford that risk.
> 
> Consequently, overt and explicit falsehoods, which would have been
> disconfirmable by such an audience, would simply not have appeared in his
> authentic letters. Any falsehoods from him would have been of the implict
> kind, or else would have referred to matters (such as his Damascus road
> experience) that they wouldn't have been able to test by other sources
> available to them.

Regarding the Damascus road experience, we don't know what Paul's
companions on the road saw/heard/reported, and so we can't say what was
testable and what was not.  However, in general I agree with you regarding
writing letters to people could reasonably be expected to have personal
experience of many of the things described in the letters, or who at least
could refer to other people who had such personal experiences.  The
problem is, of course, is that we don't have these letters!  We only have
later copies, with unknown variations from the original, which *may* have
been altered for all sorts of reasons.
> 
> This is a very different situation than for Acts, which faced no such
> opportunity for such a proxy cross-examination function. Acts was written at
> a later time, by which time there might have been no, or virtually no, such
> opportunity for its readers to "test out" the truthfulness of its
> assertions.

You are making a *big* assumption here, namely regarding the late dating
and testability of Acts.  To make your point you first need to prove that
Acts was late enough to prevent there being opportunities to test the
truth of its' assertions.  As one possible dating for Luke/Acts is prior
to Paul's imprisonment in Rome then it is perfectly possible that Acts was
written before some of the Paulines.  Also, I don't thing we should lose
sight of Luke 1:1-4, which in my view implies that the readers of
Luke/Acts *could* compare the statements made in these documents with
other written or oral reports.  In other words, I do not believe there is
any reason to suppose that Acts was any less 'testable' to its' readership
than were the Paulines.
> 
> I accept and agree with Hyam Maccoby's statement that Paul nonetheless
> should also be taken with great skepticism, because Paul had his own axe to
> grind.

This is true of *all* the NT authors, and so I don't see why Paul should
be treated with any more skepticism for this reason than any other NT
author.

> Where I differ from Hyam is in my recognizing that the scope of
> Paul's ability to get away with any lying on his part was much more severely
> restricted than was Luke's or any other of the Gospel writers, all of whom
> had vastly greater license to lie than did Paul.

Please could you explain why you think this is the case.  Are you simply
assuming that *all* the Gospels were written much later than the Paulines,
or is there some other reason?  If you are simply relying on the dating,
then I think you should avoid making assumptions about the reliability of
Paul vs. the Gospel writers until such time as the relative datings are
certain, which (despite statements made by various people) they are not.

Dave Inglis
david AT colonialcommerce.com
3538 O'Connor Drive
Lafayette, CA, USA