Corpus-Paul

["Kym Smith" <khs AT picknowl.com.au>]

Dear Ricahrd,

I have included only a couple of excerpts from your post, this is long
enough already.

To begin with, you need to decide whether or not you are going to accept
Acts as an accurate account of Paul’s travels. You can’t have it both ways
when it suits you. Yes, for some of it we have the ‘we’ passages, but we
also know that Luke was in regular if not constant contact with those who
had been with Paul when he was not. I think it unreasonable to think that
Luke would be less careful in those sections. Luke may not have recorded
everything, but what he has recorded should be taken as a reasonable
account. Certainly that is how I consider it and how I use it here. The
introduction to Luke’s gospel also applies to the second part of his work
(Luke 1:1-4).

You use Titus-Timothy as an example of alternate names to support your
case for Cripus-Sosthenes, but are you correct? I think not.. Paul meets
Timothy for the first time in Acts 16 (16:1f), following the Jerusalem
council (Acts 15). Now it may depend on where you date the Galatians
meeting of Paul with the apostles in 2:1-10. I consider that meeting to be
a pre-council meeting, perhaps only the night before, to ensure that they
were one with each other at the Jerusalem council. If this is so, then
Paul had Titus with him then (Gal 2:1) when, according to Acts, Paul had
not yet met Timothy. Certainly Barnabas was with Paul in the Galatian
meeting (Gal 2:1) as he was for the Jerusalem council in Acts (Acts 15:2),
but the two parted company before Timothy met and joined Paul (Acts
15:36-41). If you date the Galatian meeting at some later time then Titus
cannot be Timothy because, as Paul notes, at that meeting there was no
compulsion for Titus to be circumcised (Gal 2:3), but that would be a
non-issue for Timothy who had already been circumcised (Acts 16:3). The
fact that Timothy was circumcised from the beginning of his association
with Paul means that you cannot place the Galatian meeting anywhere and
maintain that Timothy and Titus were the same person without demanding
that Luke’s account is hopelessly inaccurate. It would be a nonsense,
also, to say that the ‘pillars’ at Jerusalem did not compel Titus to be
circumcised because he was already circumcised. Titus remained
uncircumcised, Timothy was circumcised. These are not alternate names for
the same person.

The exception you draw attention to where Simon is called Symeon (Acts
15:14) is simply explained. It was in James’ speech and Luke does not
intrude into the speech to clarify the name of one so well known. Besides
that, Symeon is hardly a major variant of Simon. If anything it shows
Luke’s care for detail that he includes it. “James uses the Jewish form of
Simon in referring to Peter. This is in keeping with the markedly Jewish
character of his speech” – William Neil / “an appropriate piece of local
color” – I. Howard Marshall.

<<< Luke is always careful to present Paul as the one whose preaching 
resulted in the conversions, so he was keen not to present Crispus as the 
"powerful saviour" of the Corinthians. I am not saying that Luke was wanting 
to present a distorted picture: he may have been correct in presenting Paul 
as the sole founder of the Corinthian church. We need not decide that issue 
now. My point is that Luke was probably reluctant to emphasize that the 
Corinthians had honoured Crispus with the name "powerful saviour". >>>

I think you do need to ‘decide that issue now’. You raise it to justify
Crispus’ name change and imply that Luke really was distorting the picture
to promote Paul instead of Crispus. This despite the fact that you are
happy that ‘Luke had accurate information on Paul’s Aegean period’. Only
accurate, it would seem, when it suits your purposes. I think it is
questionable for us to be selective about what part of the texts we are
prepared to accept.

Taking into account some of the ambiguities of the text to which you
refer, two  possible reasons for Sosthenes’ beating are 1. That he was too
much of a Christian sympathizer for the Jews – hence his subsequent
joining Paul (1 Cor 1:1) – and so the Jews beat him up, and 2. that it was
the Greeks who beat up Sosthenes, venting some of their anti-Jewish
feelings in the face of a disinterested proconsul. As it is not perfectly
clear, we have to sit with that, but it is not grounds upon which to
support a name change for Crispus.

<<< My reading of 1 Cor 1:14-15 is rather different from your's Kym. Paul 
writes, "I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so 
that no one can say that you were baptized in my name". Paul's point has 
force precisely because both Crispus and Gaius had left Corinth. He is 
pointing here to the fortuitous fact that the two people whom he baptized are 
no longer in Corinth. The "I thank God" or "I am thankful" reflects the 
fortuitous nature of the situation. It seems to me that Crispus and Gaius 
should be excluded from the 'you' in the verb 'you were baptized'. They had 
left Corinth. >>>

Even if Crispus was not in Corinth, it is an enormous leap to use that to
equate Crispus and Sosthenes. Nor is the absence of Crispus’ name at the
end of Romans is hardly evidence for his absence. There were probably many
other believers from that city who could also have been named but were not
(e.g. Chloe’s people – 1 Cor 1:11; Stephanas – 1:16; 16:15; Fortunatus and
Achaicus 16:17). The inclusion of Gaius’ name is because he was hosting
Paul at the time (Rom 16:23). If Paul were being hosted by Crispus, he
would have mentioned him and possibly not Gaius. There is no reason to see
the ‘except’ (1 Cor 1:14) as indicating Crispus’ and Gaius’ absence from
the ‘you’ who were still in Corinth. Had he recalled them at the same
moment he would have included ‘the household of Stephanas’ (1:16) with
Crispus and Gaius, and they were certainly in Corinth at the time of
writing (1 Cor 16:15f).

Your comparing Timothy’s apparently lone journey in 1 Corinthians (4:17;
16:10) with his journey to Macedonia in the company of Erastus in Acts
(19:22) is also flawed. It was not the same journey. In Acts, Timothy and
Erastus appear to have been going ahead of Paul, the apostle intending to
follow on. In 1 Corinthians, Timothy is sent to Corinth (probably directly
rather than via Macedonia) and was expected to return to Paul in Asia
‘with the brethren’ (16:10-11). Indeed, 4:17 and 16:10 may indicate
different trips. The fact that Paul says in 1 Cor 16:8-9 that’ a wide door
for effective work’ had opened for him in Ephesus may indicate that the
letter was written earlier in his stay in Asia rather than towards the
end, as is the case in Acts 19. His intention to stay until Pentecost does
not mean that he left then; he may have had a change of plans and stayed
on longer – even another year or more.

You do admit that there are ‘lots of uncertainties in this chain of
arguments’. Too many, it seems to me.

Sincerely,

Kym Smith
Adelaide
South Australia
khs AT picknowl.com.au