The Quest for the Historical Paul
James Tabor considers Biblical and external accounts of the apostle
This article was originally published in November 2012 on Dr. James Tabor’s popular Taborblog, a site that discusses and reports on “‘All things biblical’ from the Hebrew Bible to Early Christianity in the Roman World and Beyond.” Bible History Daily republished the article in 2012, with consent of the author. Visit Taborblog or scroll down to read a brief bio of James Tabor.
What can we reliably know about Paul and how can we know it? As is the case with Jesus, this is not an easy question. Historians have been involved in what has been called the “Quest for the Historical Jesus” for the past one hundred and seventy-five years, evaluating and sifting through our sources, trying to determine what we can reliably say about him.[i] As it happens, the quest for the historical Paul began almost simultaneously, inaugurated by the German scholar Ferdinand Christian Baur.[ii] Baur put his finger squarely on the problem: There are four different “Pauls” in the New Testament, not one, and each is quite distinct from the others. New Testament scholars today are generally agreed on this point.[iii]
Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860)
Thirteen of the New Testament’s twenty-seven documents are letters with Paul’s name as the author, and a fourteenth, the book of Acts, is mainly devoted to the story of Paul’s life and career—making up over half the total text.[iv] The problem is, these fourteen texts fall into four distinct chronological tiers, giving us our four “Pauls”:
- Authentic or Early Paul: 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Philippians, and Philemon (50s-60s A.D.)
- Disputed Paul or Deutero-Pauline: 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians (80-100 A.D.)
- Pseudo–Paul or the Pastorals: 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus (80-100 A.D.)
- Tendentious or Legendary Paul: Acts of the Apostles (90-130 A.D.)
Though scholars differ as to what historical use one might properly make of tiers 2, 3, or 4, there is almost universal agreement that a proper historical study of Paul should begin with the seven genuine letters, restricting one’s analysis to what is most certainly coming from Paul’s own hand. This approach might sound restrictive but it is really the only proper way to begin. The Deutero-Pauline letters, and the Pastorals reflect a vocabulary, a development of ideas, and a social setting that belong to a later time.[v] We are not getting Paul as he was, but Paul’s name used to lend authority to the ideas of later authors who intend for readers to believe they come from Paul. In modern parlance we call such writings forgeries, but a more polite academic term is pseudonymous, meaning “falsely named.”
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Those more inclined to view this activity in a positive light point to a group of followers of Paul, some decades after his death, who wanted to honor him by continuing his legacy and using his name to defend views with which they assumed he would have surely agreed. A less charitable judgment is that these letters represent an attempt to deceive gullible readers by authors intent on passing on their own views as having the authority of Paul. Either way, this enterprise of writing letters in Paul’s name has been enormously influential, since Paul became such a towering figure of authority in the church.
The Pastorals (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) are not included in our earliest extant collection of Paul’s letters, the so-called Chester Beatty papyrus, that dates to the third century A.D.[vi] Paul’s apocalyptic urgency, so dominant in the earlier letters, is almost wholly absent in these later writings. Among the Deutero-Pauline tier, 2 Thessalonians was specifically written to calm those who were claiming that the day of judgment was imminent—the very thing Paul constantly proclaimed (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3).
In tiers 2 and 3 the domestic roles of husbands, wives, children, widows, masters, and slaves are specified with a level of detail uncharacteristic of Paul’s ad hoc instructions in his earlier letters (Ephesians 5:21-6:9; Colossians 3:18-4:1; 1 Timothy 5:1-16). Specific rules are set down for the qualifications and appointment of bishops and deacons in each congregation (1 Timothy 3:1-13; Titus 1:5-9). There is a strong emphasis on following tradition, respecting the governmental authorities, handling wealth, and maintaining a respectable social order (2 Thessalonians 2:15; 3:6-15; 1 Timothy 2: 1-4; 5:17-19; 6:6-10; Titus 3:1). The Pastorals, in particular, are essentially manuals for church officers, intended to enforce order and uniformity.
Some have argued that the passing of time and the changing of circumstances might account for the differences, but detailed studies of the commonly used vocabulary in Paul’s undisputed letters, in contrast to the Deutero-Pauline and Pastoral letters, has settled the question for most scholars. I will make little use of these later documents in trying to reconstruct the “historical Paul.”
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The book of Acts, tier 4, presents a special problem in that it offers fascinating biographical background on Paul not found in his genuine letters as well as complete itineraries of his travels. The problem, as I mentioned in the Introduction, is with its harmonizing theological agenda that stresses the cozy relationship Paul had with the Jerusalem leaders of the church and its over-idealized heroic portrait of Paul. Many historians are agreed that it merits the label “Use Sparingly with Extreme Caution.” As a general working method I have adopted the following three principles:
- Never accept anything in Acts over Paul’s own account in his seven genuine letters.
- Cautiously consider Acts if it agrees with Paul and one can detect no obvious biases.
- Consider the independent data Acts provides of interest but not of interpretive historical use.
This latter principle would include biographical information, the three accounts of Paul’s conversion that the author provides, the various speeches of Paul, his itinerary, and other such details.[vii]
Before applying these principles here is a skeletal outline of Paul’s basic biographical data drawn only from his genuine letters that gives us a solid place to begin. Here is what we most surely know:
- Paul calls himself a Hebrew or Israelite, stating that he was born a Jew and circumcised on the eighth day, of the Jewish tribe of Benjamin (Philippians 3:5-6; 2 Corinthians 11:22).
- He was once a member of the sect of the Pharisees. He advanced in Judaism beyond many of his contemporaries, being extremely zealous for the traditions of his Jewish faith (Philippians 3:5; Galatians 1:14).
- He zealously persecuted the Jesus movement (Galatians 1:13; Philippians 3:6; 1 Corinthians 15:9).
- Sometime around A.D. 37 Paul had a visionary experience he describes as “seeing” Jesus and received from him his Gospel message as well as his call to be an apostle to the non-Jewish world (1 Corinthians 9:2; Galatians 1:11-2:2).
- He made only three trips to Jerusalem in the period covered by his genuine letters; one three years after his apostolic call when he met Peter and James but none of the other apostles (around A.D. 40); the second fourteen years after his call (A.D. 50) when he appeared formally before the entire Jerusalem leadership to account for his mission and Gospel message to the Gentiles (Galatians 2:1-10), and a third where he was apparently arrested and sent under guard to Rome around A.D. 56 (Romans 15:25-29).
- Paul claimed to experience many revelations from Jesus, including direct voice communications, as well as an extraordinary “ascent” into the highest level of heaven, entering Paradise, where he saw and heard “things unutterable” (2 Corinthians 12:1-4).
- He had some type of physical disability that he was convinced had been sent by Satan to afflict him, but allowed by Christ, so he would not be overly proud of his extraordinary revelations (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).
- He claimed to have worked miraculous signs, wonders, and mighty works that verified his status as an apostle (2 Corinthians 12:12).
- He was unmarried, at least during his career as an apostle (1 Corinthians 7:8, 15; 9:5; Philippians 3:8).[viii]
- He experienced numerous occasions of physical persecution and deprivation including beatings, being stoned and left for dead, and shipwrecked (1 Corinthians 3:11-12; 2 Corinthians 11:23-27).
- He worked as a manual laborer to support himself on his travels (1 Corinthians 4:12; 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 1 Corinthians 9:6, 12, 15).
- He was imprisoned, probably in Rome, in the early 60s A.D. and refers to the possibility that he would be executed (Philippians 1:1-26).
This is certainly not all we would want but it is all we have, and considering that we have not a single line written by Jesus or any of his Twelve apostles, having seven of Paul’s genuine letters is a poverty of riches.[ix]
The book of Acts provides the following independent biographical information not found in the seven genuine letters:
- Paul’s Hebrew name was Saul and he was born in Tarsus, a city in the Roman province of Cilicia, in southern Asia Minor or present-day Turkey (Acts 9:11, 30; 11:25; 21:39; 22:3)
- He came from a family of Pharisees and was educated in Jerusalem under the most famous Rabbi of the time, Gamaliel. He also had a sister and a nephew that lived in Jerusalem in the 60s A.D. (Acts 22:3; 23:16)
- He was born a Roman citizen, which means his father also was a Roman citizen. (Acts 16:37; 22:27-28; 23:27)
- He had some official status as a witness consenting to the death of Stephen, the first member of the Jesus movement executed after Jesus (Acts 7:54-8:1). He received an official commission from the high priest in Jerusalem to travel to Damascus in Syria to arrest, imprison, and even have executed any members of the Jesus movement who had fled the city under persecution. It was on the road to Damascus that he had his dramatic heavenly vision of Jesus, who commissioned him as the apostle to the Gentiles. (Acts 9:1-19; 22:3-11; 26:12-18).
- He worked by trade as a “tentmaker,” though the Greek word used probably refers a “leather worker” (Acts 18:3).
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So what should we make of this material from the book of Acts?
That Paul’s Hebrew name was Saul we have no reason to doubt, or that he was from Tarsus in Cilicia, though he never mentions this in his letters. Paul says he is of the tribe of Benjamin, and Saul, the first king of Israel, was also a Benjaminite, so one could see why a Jewish family would choose this particular name for a favored son (1 Samuel 9:21). Since Paul reports that he regularly did manual labor to support himself, and Jewish sons were normally taught some trade to supplement their studies, it is possible he was trained as a leather-worker. There is an early rabbinic saying that “He who does not teach his son a trade teaches him banditry.”[x]
Whether Paul was born in Tarsus one has to doubt since Jerome, the fourth century Christian writer, knew a different tradition. He says that Paul’s parents were from Gischala, in Galilee, a Jewish town about twenty-five miles north of Nazareth, and that Paul was born there.[xi] According to Jerome, when revolts broke out throughout Galilee following the death of Herod the Great in 4 B.C., Paul and his parents were rounded up and sent to Tarsus in Cilicia as part of a massive exile of the Jewish population by the Romans to rid the area of further potential trouble. Since Jerome certainly knew Paul’s claim, according to the book of Acts, to have been born in Tarsus, it is very unlikely he would have contradicted that source without good evidence. Jerome’s account also provides us with the only indication we have as to Paul’s approximate age. Like Jesus, he would have had to have been born before 4 B.C., though how many years earlier we cannot say. This fits rather nicely with Paul’s statement in one of his last letters to a Christian named Philemon, written around A.D. 60, where he refers to himself as a “old man” (Greek presbytes), a word that implies someone who is in his 60s.[xii]
Jerome’s account casts serious doubt on the claim in Acts that Paul was born a Roman citizen. We have to question whether a native Galilean family, exiled from Gischala as a result of anti-Roman uprisings in the area, would have had Roman citizenship. We know that Gischala was a hotbed of revolutionary activity and John of Gischala was one of the most prominent leaders in the first Judean Revolt against Rome (A.D. 66-70).[xiii] Paul also says that he was “beaten three times with rods” (2 Corinthians 11:25). This is a punishment administered by the Romans and was forbidden to one who had citizenship.[xiv] The earliest document we have from Paul is his letter 1 Thessalonians. It is intensely apocalyptic, with its entire orientation on preparing his group for the imminent arrival of Jesus in the clouds of heaven (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 2:19; 3:13; 4:13-18; 5:1-5, 23). One might imagine Paul the former Pharisee with no apocalyptic orientation whatsoever, but it is entirely possible, if Jerome is correct about his parents being exiled from Galilee in an effort to pacify the area, that Paul’s apocalyptic orientation was one he derived from his family and upbringing. Luke-Acts tends to mute any emphasis on an imminent arrival of the end and he characteristically tones down the apocalyptic themes of Mark, his main narrative source for his Gospel.[xv]
Acts is quite keen on emphasizing Paul’s friendly relations with Roman officials as well as the protection they regularly offered Paul from his Jewish enemies, so claiming that Paul was a Roman citizen, and putting his birth in a Roman Senatorial province like Cilicia, serves the author’s purposes.
Acts’s claim that Paul grew up in Jerusalem and was a personal student of the famous rabbi Gamaliel is also highly suspect. The book of Acts has an earlier scene, when the apostles Peter and John are arrested by the Jewish authorities who are threatening to have them killed, in which Gamaliel stands up in the Sanhedrin court and speaks in their behalf, recommending their release (Acts 5:33-39). The story is surely fictitious and is part of the author’s attempt to indicate to his Roman audience that reasonable minded Jews, like noble Roman officials, did not condemn the Christians. It is likely that the author of Acts, in making Paul an honored student of Gamaliel, the most revered Pharisee of the day, is wanting to further advance this perspective. Throughout his account he constantly characterizes the Jewish enemies of Paul as irrational and rabid, in contrast to those “good” Jews who are calm, reasonable, and respond favorably to Paul (Acts 13:45; 18:12; 23:12).
Whether Paul even lived in Jerusalem before his visionary encounter with Christ could be questioned. In Acts it is a given, but Paul never indicates in any of his letters that Jerusalem was his home as a young man. He does mention twice a connection with Damascus, the capital of the Roman province of Syria (2 Corinthians 11:32; Galatians 1:17). Whether he was in Damacus, which is 150 miles northwest of Jerusalem, in pursuit of Jesus’ followers, or for other reasons, we have no sure way of knowing. The account in Acts of Paul’s conversion, repeated three times, that has Paul sent as an authorized delegate of the High Priest in Jerusalem to arrest Christians in Damascus, has so colored our assumptions about Paul that it is hard to focus on what we find in his letters.
Paul connection to Jerusalem, or the lack thereof, has much to do with the oft-discussed question of whether Paul would have ever seen or heard Jesus, or could he have been a witness to Jesus’ crucifixion in A.D. 30. Since he never mentions seeing Jesus in any of his letters, and one would expect that had he been an eyewitness to the events of that Passover week he surely would have drawn upon such a vivid experience, this argues against the idea that he was a Jerusalem resident at that time.
Likewise, Paul’s high placed connections to the Jewish priestly class in Jerusalem we can neither confirm nor deny. All he tells us is that he zealously persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it (Galatians 1:12). Some translations have used the English word “violently,” but this is misleading and serves to reinforce the account in Acts that Paul was delivering people over to execution. The Greek word Paul uses (huperbole) means “excessively” or zealously. We take Paul’s word that he identified himself as a Pharisee, but there is nothing in his letters to indicate the kind of prominent connections that the author of Acts gives him.
Outside the New Testament
Our earliest physical description of Paul comes from a late second-century Christian writing The Acts of Paul and Thecla. It is a wildly embellished and legendary account of Paul’s travels, his wondrously miraculous feats, and his formidable influence in persuading others to believe in Christ. The story centers on the beautiful and wealthy virgin Thecla, a girl so thoroughly mesmerized by Paul’s preaching that she broke off her engagement to follow Paul and experienced many adventures. As Paul is first introduced one of his disciples sees him coming down the road:
And he saw Paul coming, a man small of stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked, full of friendliness; for now he appeared like a man, and now he had the face of an angel.[xvi]
We have no reason to believe this account is based on any historical recollection since the Acts of Paul as a whole shows no trace of earlier sources or historical reference points. The somewhat unflattering portrait most likely stemmed from allusions in Paul’s letters to his “bodily presence” being unimpressive and the subject of scorn, whereas his followers received him as an angel (2 Corinthians 10:10; Galatians 4:13-14).
It might come as a surprise, but outside our New Testament records we have very little additional historical information about Paul other than the valuable tradition that Jerome preserves for us that he was born in the Galilee. The early Christian writers of the second century (usually referred to as the “Apostolic Fathers”) mention his name less than a dozen times, holding him up as an example of heroic faith, but nothing of historical interest is related by any of them. For example, Ignatius, the early second century bishop of Antioch writes:
For neither I nor anyone like me can keep pace with the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul, who, when he was among you in the presence of the men of that time, accurately and reliably taught the word concerning the truth.[xvii]
Some of the second and third century Christian writers know the tradition that both Peter and Paul ended up in Rome and were martyred during the reign of the emperor Nero—Paul was beheaded and Peter was crucified.[xviii] The apocryphal Acts of Peter, an extravagantly legendary account dating to the third or fourth century A.D., explains that Peter insisted on being crucified upside-down so as to show his unworthiness to die in the same manner as Jesus.[xix]
Ironically it seems that we moderns, using our tools of critical historical research, are in a better position than the Christians of the second and third centuries to recover a more authentic Paul.
Dr. James Tabor is Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he is professor of Christian origins and ancient Judaism. Since earning his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1981, Tabor has combined his work on ancient texts with extensive field work in archaeology in Israel and Jordan, including work at Qumran, Sepphoris, Masada and Wadi el-Yabis in Jordan. Over the past decade he has teamed up with with Shimon Gibson to excavate the “John the Baptist” cave at Suba, the “Tomb of the Shroud” discovered in 2000, Mt Zion and, along with Rami Arav, he has been involved in the re-exploration of two tombs in East Talpiot including the controversial “Jesus tomb.” Tabor’s latest book is Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity. You can find links to all of Dr. Tabor’s web pages, books and projects at jamestabor.com.
Notes
[i] The Quest was given both its history and its name by Albert Schweitzer, whose groundbreaking book, published in 1906 with the nondescript German title, Von Reimarus zu Wrede (from Reimarus to Wrede), was given the more provocative title in English, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, translated by William Montgomery (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1910).
[ii] The beginning of the modern Jesus Quest is usually dated to around 1835 with the publication of David Strauss’s Life of Jesus. The full German title of Strauss’s work, Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet (Tübingen: 1835-1836) was published in English as The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined (3 vols., London, 1846), translated by George Eliot, the penname of British novelist Mary Ann Evans. Baur’s major work, Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi, sein Leben und Wirken, seine Briefe und seine Lehre (Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ: His Life and Works, His Letters and His Teaching) was published in1845. Strauss was a student of Baur at the University of Tübingen.
[iii] Most recently, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon (New York: HarperOne, 2009). A more conservative, but nonetheless critical treatment relying more on the letters of Paul than the book of Acts is that of Jerome Murphy-O’Conner, Paul: A Critical Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
[iv] An English copy of the New Testament, Revised Standard Version, with text only and no notes or references, runs 284 pages total. The thirteen letters attributed to Paul, plus the book of Acts, add up to 109 pages of the total—just over one-third.
[v] See Bart Ehrman’s summary analysis “In the Wake of the Apostle: The Deutero-Pauline and Pastoral Epistles,” in The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 272-394.
[vi] “Chester Beatty Papyri” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1992), pp. 901-903.
[vii] Not only was the composition of such speeches common in Greek literary histories, it was expected. Thucydides, in his History of the Peloponnesian war, says that he composed speeches according to “what was called for in each situation” ( 1. 22. 2). Josephus, a contemporary of the author of Acts, is a prime example; see Henry Cadbury, The Making of Luke-Acts (New York: Macmillan Company, 1927), and Arthur J. Droge and James D. Tabor, A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom Among Christians and Jews in Antiquity (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), pp. 53-112.
[viii] It is possible that Paul was once married since he says he advanced within Judaism beyond his peers. Jewish men his age would normally marry; not to marry would be considered abnormal. In his letters he speaks of the “loss of all things” and also refers to a situation where an “unbelieving wife” might leave one who has joined his movement, so it is possible he is alluding to his own personal situation since he says the brother or sister, so abandoned, should not feel obligated to heed Jesus’ teaching that there can be no divorce for any cause (Philippians 3:7; 1 Corinthians 7:12-16).
[ix] The letter of James and Jude might be exceptions though many scholars question if these two brothers of Jesus were part of the Twelve and others questions the authenticity of the letters themselves. Few scholars consider the letters of 1 and 2 Peter as written by Peter. 1 Peter, in particular, is surprisingly “Pauline” in tone and content and fits nothing we know of Peter based on more reliable sources—including Paul’s genuine letters. The letters of John are not from John the fisherman, one of the Twelve, but from a later John, sometimes referred to as “John the Elder,” who lived in Asia Minor (see Eusebius, Church History 3.39.4-7).
[x] Pirke Avot 2. 3.
[xi] Jerome, De Virus Illustribus (PL 23, 646).
[xii] See Jerome Murphy-O’Conner, Paul: A Critical Life, pp. 1-5. The translation “ambassador,” found in the Revised Standard Version, is conjectural, with no manuscript support. It assumes the misspelling of the Greek word “ambassador” (presbeutes), as “elder” (presbytes), but “elder” is the reading in all our manuscripts. The New Revised Standard Version and New Jerusalem Bible correctly have “elder.”
[xiii] Josephus, Jewish War 7. 263-265. Josephus mentions John of Gischala often in his history of the revolt.
[xiv] See Digest 48. 6-7, a compendium of Roman law in The Digest of Justinian, ed. T. Mommsen, translated by A. Watson (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1985).
[xv] A comparison of Mark 13, sometimes called the “Synoptic Apocalypse,” or the “Little Apocalypse,” with Luke 21, which is the author’s rewriting of Mark, one sees how the “end of the age” is indefinitely extended and no longer tied to the Jewish-Roman war of A.D. 66-74.
[xvi] Translation by Wilhelm Schneemelcher in Edgar Hennecke’s New Testament Apocrypha, edited by William Schneemelcher, translated by R. McL. Wilson, volume 2 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965), pp. 353.
[xvii] Ignatius, Philippians 3:2.
[xviii] See Eusebius, Church History 2. 14. 5-6 and 3.1.2, who says he is relying on Origen, an early third century Christian theologian.
[xix] An expanded legendary account is found in the apocryphal Acts of Peter 37-38.
Related reading in Bible History Daily
Paul’s First Missionary Journey through Perga and Pisidian Antioch
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I have been wondering for years why Paul paints the Pharisaic tradition as teaching that God demands ABSOLUTE perfection in following Torah, the alternative being ABSOLUTE damnation. Historical evidence shows that Judaism has never had such a narrow, extreme viewpoint; only those with a totally WICKED attitude are condemned, while God smiles on those who earnestly ATTEMPT to honor God’s teaching. Of course, in classical Pharisaic, or Rabbinical, Judaism, those who achieve greater righteousness are HONORED more than the ordinarily observant Jew, but there is no record of anyone OTHER than Paul teaching that Judaism, before Jesus, condemned anyone for less than perfect observance of either moral or ceremonial teachings. Indeed, the greatest figures in the Hebrew Bible had not only lapses in faith (e.g. Moses tapping the rock rather than commanding it to produce water), but moral lapses (e.g. David and Bathsheba, Solomon and his many foreign wives), that deprived them of the HIGHEST glory they could have achieved.
Bishop Spong speculated that the reason Paul taught that no amount of conscious moral observance would relieve divine condemnation is that he PERSONALLY felt that way, due to his latent homosexual feelings; making him feel condemned in his very nature. Thus, in Bishop Spong’s thought, Paul was relieved to believe in Jesus as the solution to his personal moral dilemma. Whether this is the case or not, it seems that Paul believed he had SOME kind of extreme moral failing that could not be atoned by any amount of “works of the Law” (Torah observance).
Given that some reasonable Gospel interpretations, as well as Jewish traditions, assume that humanity is already in God’s grace, except when deliberately rebelling against God, but that relationship can be IMPROVED by following enlightened spiritual teachings such as those of Jesus (the apocryphal teachings of Jesus would then refer to the condemnation of SOCIETY because of the PREVALENCE of rebellion against God, among those who had AUTHORITY over society, to be avenged by God). It would be ironic if the classical view of Jesus resulted from the personal lack of self-esteem in its greatest first century missionary.
So he takes Jerome’s account over Luke’s. Sure, that makes sense, since Luke is widely considered to be inspired and Jerome is not.
What a lousy attempt to tear down a religon….how many people got stoned to death for not keeping the law? Thousands? Mililons? The Torah is full of crimes punishable by death by stoning…
As far as I’m concerned Tabor does not like Christianity or religon…typical for a college professor since most are liberal godless atheists to start with…no disrepect meant..
Caleb, not at all, though your sarcasm here is witty! I think you miss the point. It is not a matter of taking Jerome over Acts but that Jerome, who surely knows Acts and believes it is inspired would not have reported the Galilee tradition unless it was very weighty. Also, historians do not deal operate with any view of texts that are “inspired.” It would make no sense. Each religion and traditions has its scriptures, even within Christianity, which has Western, Easter, Ethiopian, Armenian, canons–all different. What we have are historical sources and they are all given a level playing field, none put above another by a religious assumption. This is history, not theology. Notice, the Quest for the HISTORICAL Paul. Since Paul’s letters and Acts do not agree, as my article clearly shows, there is no reason to bring in which is “inspired” and which is not. As for Luke “widely considered to be inspired,” I have to ask–by whom? Most critically trained scholars, in and out of the church, would not take the N.T. in a fundamentalist way.
Ouch Robert…seems a bit nasty, and also presumptive. I use the same methods any historian uses. Do you think ALL historical work on our sources is done by liberal godless atheists who want to just tear down a religion? After all, if I am right, then we would not be tearing down Paul so much as freeing him from later traditions done in his name, so that would be a service right?
I just love how contemporary scholars decide which historically attested facts are fiction, or those “we have no reason to believe”. It’s great to be able to finally clear up these misunderstandings.
James, how can you make a historical assessment on Paul when you exclude a priori half the letters claimed to be written by Paul (and accepted as such by the congregations/persons who first received them)? How can you claim Luke’s “Acts of the apostles” to be of equal historical value as “The Acts of Paul” or “The Acts of Peter”? “Legendary” Paul? It seems to me that most of the “differences” between “authentic” and “unauthentic” (Disputed/Pseudo) Paul are the result of either incomplete accounts of events (both in Acts and in the letters) or of Paul correcting a misunderstanding of one of his earlier letters in a later letter (e.g. 1 & 2 Corinthians on how to treat a sinner in the congregation – both actually accepted as authentic! – and 1 & 2 Thessalonians on escatology). What “methods any historian uses” convinced you that group 1 was actually the authentic Paul and not group 2? Maybe group 1 should be the disputed Paul and group 2 is the authentic Paul? How do you know? On what evidence do you base your claims? E.g. “Pastoral” Paul (from the internal evidence of the letters themselves) are written to individuals, well-known to Paul, tasked with the job to establish congregations. Is there any reason that they would use the same vocabulary and have the same atmosphere as letters written to be written read in public in a congregation – even if written by the same person? Moreover, the situation of a specific congregation (and Paul’s own age and situation) should surely play a role in the tenor of any letter written by him? There is little doubt that there were pseudonymous “letters by apostle so-and-so” and we know a number of them. But in most, the difference between what is found in them and what is found in the New Testament books is large enough that even a non-historian can spot the difference. The matter of authenticity was important enough to the early church that they took care not accept these fakes into their group of sacred writings. And there was enough of a living tradition that any congregation would know that a letter claimed to have been written to them after Paul was already dead was a fake. I.e.: “I grew up in the congregation of the Thessalonians and our grandfathers never received a second letter from Paul!”
I haven’t read Dr. Tabor’s newly released book, so it wouldn’t be appropriate for me assume this blog piece contains his entire argument. However, I see a number of assumptions that give me pause.
Dr. Tabor states that “as a general working method [he has] adopted the following three principles [with regard to the book of Acts]:
1. Never accept anything in Acts over Paul’s own account in his seven genuine letters.
2. Cautiously consider Acts if it agrees with Paul and one can detect no obvious biases.
3.. Consider the independent data Acts provides of interest but not of interpretive historical use.
This seems a reasonable and responsible approach for an historian. So my question is this: Does Dr. Tabor apply these same three criteria with equal rigour to the Gospel of Luke? The Gospel of Luke was, after all, written by the same author as the book of Acts. It demonstrates many alterations of historical and theological content in comparison with the earlier Gospel of Mark.
As well, to assert that Jerome knew a different tradition of Paul is not much of a claim. As Dr. Tabor knows, there was a large body of literature to help “fill in the gaps” of early Christian figures. If Jerome had endorsed the Infancy Narrative of Thomas, would Dr. Tabor consider this colourful tale a valid historical source, too?
Is it possible at this point for any researcher to state (albeit with a modifying footnote) that “we have not a single line written by Jesus or any of his Twelve apostles”? This is a statement of belief, not a statement of fact.
Paul does a fine job in his widely-accepted Tier 1 letters of revealing the the theology of his Christ Movement. The points of contrast between Paul’s theology and Mark’s theology are easily studied.
If I had gone door to door in the recent election and claimed to be canvassing for Barack Obama, but I endorsed only Tea Party platforms, would it be fair for others to call me a genuine follower of Barack Obama despite my repeated use of his name? (Or the other way around, if you prefer, with me canvassing for Mitt Romney but touting only Obama’s policies.)
Whichever way you slice it, Paul was a very successful figure (in this I agree with Dr. Tabor), but he was no follower of the man named Jesus.
For Paul to be a follower of Jesus, there would have to be some major points of agreement in theological doctrine. There are not — not, at least, in comparison with the Gospel of Mark, which was written after Paul’s letters and arguably in response to Paul’s early letters.
Paul’s theology shows several points of similarity with sectarian books written by members of the yahad (some of whose members left behind the scrolls found at Qumran, eg. Charter of a Jewish Sectarian Association). This in itself isn’t a new or original point, but it’s important to note that the theology in Mark does not show similar resemblance to sectarian Jewish texts. Why not? Why does the Gospel of Mark make radically different claims about God and Jesus? Even if one dismisses this Gospel as “the odd man out” in an otherwise “coherent” belief system (perhaps Mark is the crazy one?), it cannot be ignored.
An exhaustive analysis of these points would fill a whole book, I suspect, but it would be helpful to begin with the known texts as they actually exist instead of the way we’d like them to be. Paul and Jesus weren’t on the same theological page. If they had been, there would have no reason for the author of Luke/Acts to write his long and reverent two-part ode to Paul.
I think the works of Josephus are very close to actual historical events. Here’s how see the best harmony between recorded history and the New Testament. I think Paul’s letters were the origin of Christianity, the gospels stories, Acts and many of the general epistles were much later. Consider the following when building the timeline.
1) Paul was given the Eucharist directly from the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:23-29).
2) Paul never mentions the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he only mentions the resurrection separately and as an expected ancestral event like the regeneration of the 12 tribes.
3) Paul never mentions the birth of Jesus or the Virgin Mary.
4) Paul never mentions the resurrection of the dead that occurred when Jesus gave up the ghost (Matthew 27:52,53) He certainly could have used these arguments while on trial, yet he didn’t know. 😉
5) Paul is a freeman in the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:22)
Historical letters of Paul
Here we have the freeman Pallas who was the brother of Festus (Acts 24, 25, 26) gets permissiojn from Nero to have a scribe write epistles in Greek to Jews that inflamed them and started the Jewish war (according to Josephus). However you look at this it’s also the start of Christianity. It looks like Nero actually and unwittingly started Christianity about 57 or 58 CE, then some 5 years {or so) later turned on Christians.
Antiquities XX, 8, 9
Now when Porcius Festus was sent as successor to Felix by Nero, the principal of the Jewish inhabitants of Cesarea went up to Rome to accuse Felix; and he had certainly been brought to punishment, unless Nero had yielded to the importunate solicitations of his brother Pallas, who was at that time had in the greatest honor by him. Two of the principal Syrians in Cesarea persuaded Burrhus, who was Nero’s tutor, and secretary for his Greek epistles, by giving him a great sum of money, to disannul that equality of the Jewish privileges of citizens which they hitherto enjoyed. So Burrhus, by his solicitations, obtained leave of the emperor that an epistle should be written to that purpose. This epistle became the occasion of the following miseries that befell our nation; for when the Jews of Cesarea were informed of the contents of this epistle to the Syrians, they were more disorderly than before, till a war was kindled.
Historical book of Acts
Bart Ehrman says the book of Acts purports to tell historical facts, but presents made up stories instead. He gives many examples of the differences between the letters of Paul and the book of Acts.
Josephus writes in his autobiography, “Life”, that while governor of Galilee (about 61-63 CE) there were two men, one named Jesus the other named Justus who controlled Tiberius and according to Josephus they were bad leaders. Josephus claims Justus wrote a false history of the events and waited 20 years until after Titus and Vespasian were dead to publish it. This is also the time most say the book of Acts was published (85 CE)
Life, 65 ….But perhaps thou wilt say, thou hast written of what was done against the people of Jerusalem exactly. But how should that be? for neither wast thou concerned in that war, nor hast thou read the commentaries of Caesar; of which we have evident proof, because thou hast contradicted those commentaries of Caesar in thy history. But if thou art so hardy as to affirm, that thou hast written that history better than all the rest, why didst thou not publish thy history while the emperors Vespasian and Titus, the generals in that war, as well as king Agrippa and his family, who were men very well skilled in the learning of the Greeks, were all alive? for thou hast had it written these twenty years, and then mightest thou have had the testimony of thy accuracy. But now when these men are no longer with us, and thou thinkest thou canst not be contradicted, thou venturest to publish it.
if thou art so hardy as to affirm, that thou hast written that history better than all the rest, why didst thou not publish
Shalom,
Rose
Josephus wasn’t appointed “governor of Galilee” (actually military commander of the district in charge of the Jewish rebels) until the outbreak of the rebellion in 66 AC. The question is, did the person who composed BOTH the “Acts of the Apostles” as part of the “Lukan Gospel” and the “Pauline Epistles” KNOW OF and USE the references of Josephus to the two characters of JESUS and JUSTUS of TIBERIAS, NOT “Tiberius”, though named after the emperor, to CONFLATE them into the character of JESUS JUSTUS mentioned in the epistle to the Colossians as being a circumcised Jewish companion of Saul Paul during his detainment in Rome??
I find it interesting that almost no scholar mentions the historic references in Eusebius. According to which Paul was married but did not take his wife on his journeys with him. It is also interesting that many modern scholars have often disputed the history of Josephus only later to find that his accounts were documented by archaeology. Everyone has a bias and that includes scholars. No one is totally objective apart from their inner belief systems and as such we should all be taken with the admonition of Paul “that we all know in part.” Even though we may often irritate one another we should none the less be respectful of our differing opinions and endeavor to understand the information we have in our search for truth.