The great ahistoricity of Acts and radical thought on Paul's demise

With a flash of insight while out hiking recently, I thought of not only JUST how ahistorical the book of Acts is, beyond the “we” passages not at all being related to a possible companion of Paul, but well beyond that. (Contra William Ramsey, Paul almost certainly was not a Roman citizen, and we'll get to that as part of this piece.)

 

In fact, the flash led me to think of the likely actual reason for the demise of Paul.

 

Let’s dig in with a big-picture overview.

 

The ascension? Of course not historical.

 

As a good secularist who knows David Hume, Carl Sagan and in between on “miracles,” the tongues of fire and speaking in tongues on the Jewish Pentecost didn’t happen. So, neither did the conversion of thousands. (Besides that, such mass conversions would have had a ripple effect in total Christian numbers which we don’t actually see.)

 

The Stephen story? Critical scholarship knows it’s based on Tanakh types, tropes and stories. The stoning of the man of righteousness, for him to get a “crown” per his name in Greek, didn’t happen. Disputes between diaspora and homeland people (Greek vs Aramaic [Hebrew]) speakers? Something real may have been there, but we don’t know what. Not only did the Stephen story not happen, he didn’t exist? Beyond that, the idea that there were so, so many Jesus believers just a year or so after Jesus' death that Greek and Aramaic or Hebrew speakers would have had divisions, or that it was getting organized enough to need a group of deacons sounds like backward projection from some later time, perhaps the author's own Sitz im Leben.

 

Dorcas? Less tightly than Stephen, but, it’s based on Tanakh types, tropes and stories. See Elijah and the Shunamite widow. Didn’t happen.

 

Cornelius? If the Synoptics story about clean and unclean foods is true, Peter didn’t need a vision of a clean and unclean foods sheet to tell him about all foods being clean. That said, if the Synoptic story is true, why didn’t Mark have Jesus including the conclusion about Gentiles and a Gentile mission? But, if it’s not true, why did Luke include it? Or, since he of the three Synoptics stresses a Gentile mission, why didn’t he expand on the story in his Gospel? After all, only Luke of the Synoptics has a separate mission of the Seventy after that of the Twelve, and this is clearly a riff on the Seventy Nations of Deuteronomy.

 

On the clean vs unclean foods, some recent scholarship says that Mark's focus was to contrast internal self-purification to external purity. This ignores the Markan parenthesis, though, which Matthew omits. I consider it original. Contra the Jesus Seminar, I don't think it is a case of humor, either. Luke doesn't actually have the parallel in his gospel, unlike Matthew; rather, it's just a statement by Jesus that god made the outsides and insides both of things like cups and bowls that were ceremonially washed. 

 

So, Luke deliberately moved it. (Given Markan vs Matthean differences, it's questionable just what Jesus said, though he surely said something about foods and ritual purity, whether or not he did about clean vs unclean foods.)

 

In any case, Cornelius almost surely didn’t happen.

 

Conversion of Paul? Happened but not as Luke described it. Among other things, Damascus was almost certainly NOT under the control of Aretas IV at this time.

 

Missionary journeys? Yes, Paul went around the EASTERN Mediterranean to talk about Jesus and the pending apocalypse. (Don’t forget that part.) Did he have three specific, planned-out journeys? Maybe, maybe not.

 

And, before we forget, Paul was not a Roman citizen. Not historical. Per Roman census information, as of 14CE, the death of Augustus, by which time Paul had been born, only 10 percent of the whole Empire had citizenship. So, 7 percent outside of Rome. (I can't remember where I got that original cite, but after a mini-Me/on the spectrum mix/quasi-Nazi new mod at r/AcademicBiblical, I Googled some new information that wasn't the Wiki page on Roman citizenship I thought I had hit. Anyway, you don't get much more academic than St. Andrews, and my 7 percent guesstimate is indeed confirmed. Pages 2-3 of that link say 4-7 percent of provincials were citizens at the time of 14CE census. It gives an estimated imperial population of 33-48 million. Indeed, the author says no more than one-third of free provincials are likely to have been citizens as late as 212 CE and Caracalla's big grant. And, that's free people. Throw in slaves, and as late as 212, no more than one-quarter of provincials were citizens. More from this blog-type site confirms that at the Augustan time, no more than 10 percent of the entire imperial population, Rome and Italy as well as provinces, were citizens.

As for Tarsus? Julius Caesar gave it some freedom from taxation, and confirmed Jewish religious rights there. See here. It was NOT a Roman colony at this time, so Paul's father could not have obtained citizenship or even had the "Latin rights" that way. Colony designation did not come until Severan times. In addition, re Paul as "citizen of Tarsus ..., no mean city," that's in the section that we're discussing right now as ahistoric, That said, Luke has Paul/Saul give himself the same self-referral in Acts 9. Also, per the "here" link, Tarsus was a strong spot for Mithraism and other mystery/salvation cults. It is just possible that some Pauline thought was developed from here. (We should add that Paul never references his birthplace in his own letters.)

 

OK, that gets to the end of Acts — Paul’s arrest for allegedly bringing a goy into the Holy Place. (Per above, at the time of his arrest, he doesn’t claim Roman citizenship.)

 

Obviously, if he’s not a Roman citizen, he can’t appeal to Rome. So that didn’t happen and that wasn’t his ticket for getting to Rome, which likely never happened anyway.

 

Melvin Goodman, in his very good at times, but also very uneven, "Rome and Jerusalem," assumes that Acts is largely historical and that Paul was a Roman citizen. On the matter at hand, on direct and indirect power in both worlds, in his chapter on that, he talks about Agrippa II [and Berenice] sitting in on Festus' interrogation of Paul, and even has Agrippa hinting at his innocence, as Luke writes. 

 

The idea that this is historical? Tosh. Rather, it's a doublet from Luke's account of the trial of Jesus. Luke has Pilate discovering that Jesus is a Galilean, and packing him off to Antipas. Supposedly, that resulted in them being friends from that time on. And, yes, it's ONLY Luke that has a hearing before Antipas. Real biblical scholarship should start by recognizing the doublet angle.

Oh, while we're here? The idea that the "we" passages mean that Paul had a traveling companion taking notes? Tosh. Classicist history A.N. Sherwin White totally puts the kibosh on that in "Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament." Sherwin-White notes that Greco-Roman historic "romances" of the 1st-2nd centuries CE commonly, no matter what "person" the narrative had been voiced in up to that point, switch to first person plural when the protagonist is about to embark on a shipboard voyage, then switch back when the voyage ends. Except for one alternative in one portion, but not all, of the Western text with one of Paul's voyages, the "we" sections in Acts conform perfectly to that.

 

Besides, let’s assume, contra the claims of Acts 21, that Paul DID bring a goy into the city. Maybe it was “Trophimus the Ephesian.” Or maybe, contra Acts 16 that Timothy was circumcised, maybe Paul took an uncircumcised Timothy with him.

 

In either case, while the Temple warning only explicitly threatened goys, it could be seen as also saying that Jews who assisted goys in violating the Holy Place would also risk lynching.

 

And, remember what I said about Paul preaching Jesus AND the apocalypse?

 

Maybe he thought that bringing a goy into the Temple court would “bring it on.” After all, certain theories of Jesus' arrest and demise have him welcoming the arrest for broadly similar reasons. And, other Messianic claimants from time to time have held similar ideas, as have yet other cult leaders inside and outside of Christianity. Look relatively recently at the Hale-Bopp nutters.

 

I am thinking now of, at the risk of sounding like Robert Eisenman, that, in this case, maybe Josephus' claims that High Priest Ananus had James lynched, that maybe it was actually Paul. I mean, the time frame would approximately fit.

Update: Via James Tabor, I'd never heard Jerome's claim that Paul was actually born in Gischala, in Galilee. That and other items further undercut Acts claiming Paul was a Roman citizen. That, of course, undercuts again the whole "appeal to Caesar."

Sidebar: As for dating the historic Paul off his authentic letters? If 1 Clement is actually 130-140CE, it's of little help, re its reference to 1 Corinthians. 2 Thessalonians is surely 1st century, and does refer to 1 Thessalonians, but beyond that is not of much help.

As far as one other issue in Acts, tied with Paul's legitimate letters, namely, his conversion, details of King Aretas IV and Paul leaving Damascus to "immediately" go into "Arabia," presumably referring to Aretas' Nabatean homeland, are tough to reconcile.