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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanosmd AT comcast.net>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Why did Paul choose the Aegean?
  • Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2003 14:11:23 -0600

Dear Jim,
I am surprised by your response, and will only seek to reply to a few of the
matters you raise, basically, to try to correct what I perceive to be
misunderstandings or misstatements. I thought I constructed a post that
allowed for a difference of opinion without ruling out the appeal to God's
leading as one of the reasonable ways that Paul, or alternatively the writer
of Acts, or a later interpreter such as you and the earlier participant
might claim.

on 12/4/03 11:51 AM, Jim West at jwest AT highland.net wrote:

> At 11:37 AM 12/4/03 -0600, you wrote:
>> Perhaps Paul would "only" say that he was "led" there, or that this was due
>> to the leading of "the Holy Ghost." Paul might say such a thing, but he was
>> also capable of attributing his actions to reasonableness,
>
> i reject your a priori presumption that people who attribute directions to
> some supernatural source are less than reasonable. i also reject your
> implication that only reason is able to direct lives.

Please note that what I wrote did not rule out attribution to supernatural
sources, but challenged it as the "only" explanation one finds Acts claiming
for such decisions (did Paul claim this about this matter?).

>
> [examples noted and clipped]. None of your examples are on point in the
> present discussion. the question was asked about why Paul went the way he
> did into europe. the answer, in the mind at least of the author of acts is
> because he was divinely led there. paul himself was not averse to such
> spiritual guidance. he did not separate reason from faith as postmodern
> thought attempts to.

First, I think that I said this too; Paul was not averse to it, but it was
not the whole story when seeking to speak for Paul. Second, you apparently
mean to denigrate postmodern thought; fine, I don't mind that or being
accused of attending to postmodern thought; but the separation of reason
from faith is not a postmodern invention! so I do not understand why you
have introduced this. Polemical purposes?

>
>>
>> The point is we should not make Paul too one dimensional, too
>> representative
>> of only one kind of soul
>
> but that is precisely what your examples would suggest.

I don't think that is the case; they are a brief effort to expand the
possibilities before limiting them.

>
>> (per William James analysis, which allows at least
>> for sick and healthy souls), personality, group tendency, and so on.
>
> i dont think Paul would care one driblet what william james thought. so
> dragging him into the discussion is likewise irrelevent.

I don't know if Paul would care what anyone after him and many of his own
time thought, although I think he was a philosophical kind of guy who just
might care. But I wonder why you or anyone interested in discussing how Paul
thought and why he acted as he did would not also be interested in bringing
to bear different ideas and methods that might aid in that investigation and
discussion. That is not anti-intellectualism?

>
>>
>> So while the answer, "by God's Spirit" or some such phrasing should be
>> included
>
> not merely included- it should be the central response with the other
> possibilities given lesser importance.

I will leave the ranking to you; my post was to keep the other possibilities
on the table.

>
>> in developing an answer to the question posed, it seems a bit to
>> trite and anti-intellectual to stand alone
>
> ah the old bugaboo anti-intellectualism... and so far as "triteness" is
> concerned, it is extraordinarily trite to dismiss Acts testimony as though
> 21st century folk somehow have a better eye for what motivated Paul than
> some first century writer did.

Did I really say all of that? Yet I don't mind being accused of reading with
the recognition I am reading rhetorical language when reading Acts, or Paul,
or anything else, for that matter. Do you?

>
>> (it at least seems to me to have
>> been delivered in the first case in a polemical way; no?).
>
> no.

Based on this reply, I find it hard to believe, unless we are working with
very different definitions of polemical. But if you think you were not and
are not being polemical, than who am I to stand in your way? Anyway, I was
referring to "the first case," as I sought to note, the post to which you
replied, not your own, and I framed it as a question precisely because it
was too short of a comment to make that judgement, and yet it seemed a
reasonable way to understand it.

>
> More importantly,
>> it does not lead to the kind of interesting discovery available to those
>> who
>> make the effort to see what the texts might say about the matter at hand,
>
> wow thats remarkable. you have quite a gift for demeaning the viewpoints of
> others while trying to appear pure in your scholarly objectivity. those who
> dont see things as you do, like the author of acts evidently, are simply not
> able to find anything interesting! yet i suspect that your disinterest in
> the centrality of spiritual leadership demonstrates your own bias.
>
>> and the range of interesting hypotheses that might result, and then the
>> search for logical probabilities, which can take a lifetime of work,
>> perhaps, some would claim, guided by God's Spirit too.
>
> perhaps. but if you dismiss the possibility in the case of pauls missionary
> direction why should it be granted to you?

I appreciate the logic of this question. But I did not claim it for me, and
I did not deny it to Paul. You are angry, to be sure, but there is no need
to get into such accusations.

>
>>
>> So I think the question still stands, for those who do not deny the place
>> of
>> reason in the pursuit of knowledge:
>
> there it is again. that subtle hint that anyone who thinks paul was led by
> the spirit to go to europe is unreasonable and in some way less intelligent.

Sorry, the direction you have taken this is not what I intended to
communicate, but I can see from reading this response how you might see it
that way.

>
>> why did Paul choose the Aegean?, and
>> when?, and from among what other available choices?, and how freely or
>> compelled by circumstances or convictions, including those derived from his
>> understanding of his role and its dependence upon his interpretation of
>> Scripture?, and so on...
>
> he went the way he went because he was impelled to by the spirit.

I see. And how do you know this from Paul's letters?

>that is
> what the text says.

I see. You mean the text of Acts; no? Or do you know of a text from Paul
about which I am unaware? What is one to do when Acts says one thing and
Paul does not write about it, or writes something that appears to be
different? Discuss some options; no?

You apparently operate with a different understanding of how to read a text,
and do not share the view that text's don't speak for themselves, but are
interpreted, that is, speak for the interpreter. But if so, then such
interpreters have a responsibility when they do so to explore multiple
interpretations, methods, any information that can be gained, and the
probable language usage and sensibilities of the audience to which they seek
to communicate, etc.; no? Or is it just, "because the Bible tells me so." If
so, then I understand that we have no chance of discussion here, that we
need not try.

now of course you can disagree with it, but
> disagreement is not demonstration.

Amen.

I have no interest in pursuing this kind of posting, but if the topic should
return to the question of why Paul might have chosen to go to the Aegean,
then that would be of interest. I am sorry to have insulted you instead of
merely disagreeing and keeping the potential for discussion of the topic
alive.

Let me state clearly: I do not believe that we should dismiss what Paul or
Luke or anyone else wrote in assessing the issue, and I do not think that
appeals to God's leading are necessarily unreasonable or anti-intellectual.
If "what the text says" is the only answer, and in this case for Acts about
Paul, and to be read off the top at that, then we hardly need such forums
for discussion, it would seem to me.

I hope we can drop this aspect of the thread with this response, but perhaps
you would like the last word.

Regards,
Mark
--
Mark D. Nanos, Ph.D.
Co-Moderator
http://home.comcast.net/~nanosmd/





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