It was decades after Paul’s conversion. And it was local to Rome. Looking at the actual lives of the apostles and therefore the earliest Church, persecution didn’t even briefly reach subsequent antisemitic levels in the next two centuries and was not, unlike that, distinctive, even under Decius.
But the year of Paul’s conversion is irrelevant. The point was at the time Paul’s early creed (1 Corinthians) was being circulated to the churches (AD54), his skeptical audience still had the opportunity to fact-check him by speaking to eyewitnesses and/or apostles he mentioned in the creed. And how do you know persecution was just local in Rome in AD 64? Persecution has its effect also by the threat of violence, which would have occurred by the decree of Nero broadly throughout the Roman Empire. Do you have any evidence that Christians were lauded by political leaders and gained wealth and status in the Roman Empire in the first 2 Centuries?
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What sceptical audience? The one in the Athenian agora? What opportunity did tent makers in the Antiochs have to fact check?
Christianity was a grassroots religion that subverted the Roman Empire from below by networking kindness, equality of outcome; not many mighty. But a few:
- Joseph, called Barnabas (Acts 4:36-37)
- Dorcas (Acts 9:36)
- Cornelius (Acts 10:1)
- Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:6-12)
- Lydia (Acts 16:14-15)
- Jason (Acts 17:5-9)
- Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:2-3)
- Mnason of Cyprus (Acts 21:16)
- Philemon (Philemon 1)
and those of Caesar’s household.
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I totally agree with you that Christianity ended up subverting the Roman empire from the grassroots but that wasn’t the question posed at the start of this thread. The question was the likelihood of Paul lying in the creed of 54 A.D. (about his claim that he got his info about Jesus from the apostles and that over 500 others had witness the events of Jesus’s resurrection) and that his audience–the first generation of Christians-- quickly converted to Christianity on the basis of such a lie.
All that is being claimed is that:
- In the climate of persecution at the time (whether it be direct violence or threat thereof or loss of social respectability), prospective Christian converts had nothing to gain but (potentially) much to lose by converting, so it is improbable people would have just believed fanciful words from Paul for no good reason.
- Skeptics in his audience would have had the ability to fact-check Paul by travelling to Judea to interview the eyewitnesses themselves
- Would Paul, knowing that he could be fact-checked, have deliberately recorded a lie in his “creed” and then traveled under danger and threat of his own persecution to try to get others to believe a lie he concocted?
You seem to think that travel between Mediterranean cities was impossible in the first century and so there was no possibility of fact-checking?? On the contrary, I think history shows that trade routes and the “Roman Road” and Pax Romana greatly fostered movements of people between cities in the Roman Empire…? After all, if Paul travelled between Jerusalem and Corinth there’s no reason to think that people in his audience in Corinth couldn’t have made the reverse trip if they had wished…?
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Paul didn’t lie, whether Jesus was God incarnate or not.
The number one most basic foundation of a supposition that someone lied is motivation. So what is Paul’s motivation? Oh I know… as he watched the people he martyred and persecuted, it looked like SO much fun, he decided he wanted to be persecuted too.
Of all the accusations I have heard, like the one where Jesus is just a made up fiction, this has got to be the most far fetched. It is easier to believe that Jesus never existed.
What creed is Farfalleus talking about anyway?
As for people claiming to have seen Jesus, it is a fairly frequent occurrence even in the 20th century.
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looking this up, it appears that the catechism of the catholic church gets such a statement of creed from 1 Cor 15,
this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 1 God our Savior desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 2 There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved 3 than the name of JESUS. (Wikipedia)
But actually finding this in 1 Cor 15??? It is not there. I don’t get it.
Oh I see… the reference is wrong. It is from John 17:3 …which means it has nothing to do with Paul, and thinking Paul made that up is wrong.
It seems that Matthias witnessed the resurrection though. It was part of what was required in order to have been one of the ones chosen with the ability to lay on of hands. So when Paul refers to him appearing to the 12, he did indeed appear to many including Matthias who became the 12th.
- Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament by A.N. Sherwin-White. Oxford At The Clarendon Press, 1963.
- [Pages 188-189] The objection will be raised to this line of argument that the Roman historical writers and the Gospels belong to different kinds of literature. Whatever the defects of our sources, their authors were trying to write history, but the authors of the Gospels had a different aim. Yet however one accepts form-criticism, its principles do not inevitably contradict
the notion of the basic historicity of the particular stories of which the Gospel narratives are composed, even if these were not shored up and confirmed by the external guarantee of their fabric and setting. That the degree of confirmation in Graeco-Roman terms is less for the Gospels than for Acts is due, as these lectures have tried to show, to the differences in their regional setting. As soon as Christ enters the Roman orbit at Jerusalem, the confirmation begins. For Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. Yet Acts is, in simple terms and judged externally, no less of a propaganda narrative than the Gospels, liable to similar distortions. But any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted.
- [Pages 188-189] The objection will be raised to this line of argument that the Roman historical writers and the Gospels belong to different kinds of literature. Whatever the defects of our sources, their authors were trying to write history, but the authors of the Gospels had a different aim. Yet however one accepts form-criticism, its principles do not inevitably contradict
I bolded a few things above for emphasis but you should quote the preface:
No doubt I in turn will be quickly found to suffer from just that same lack of focus in dealing with Judaic and Christian material which is outside my sphere. Scholars attempting to deal with two worlds of this magnitude need two lives. We must appear as amateurs in each other’s field. A Roman public law and administration man such as myself cannot be fully acquainted with New Testament scholarship and bibliography over so great an area as I must venture to trespass on. But one may learn what are the questions requiring answers, and one may show how the various historical and legal and social problems raised by the Gospels and Acts now look to a Roman historian. That, and only that, is the intention of these lectures.
You are quoting a 60 year old passage from a classical historian who claims to not be an expert on NT studies. And “basic historicity” is a very questionable term because is he talking about the entirety of Acts or about where it touches on Roman policy, which is the central thrust of his work? That is a huge distinction and the context implies the latter to me. SO is he saying anything more than that the author of Luke-Acts understands Roman policy and generally gets it right? Are you quoting him out of context? Maybe what he also writes elsewhere in the work will shed some light on this:
So, it is astonishing that while Graeco-Roman historians have been growing in confidence, the twentieth-century study of the Gospel narratives, starting from no less promising material, has taken so gloomy a turn in the development of form-criticism that the more advanced exponents of it apparently maintain—so far as an amateur can understand the matter—that the historical Christ is unknowable and the history of his mission cannot be written. This seems very curious when one compares the case for the best-known con temporary of Christ, who like Christ is a well-documented figure—Tiberius Caesar. The story of his reign is known from four sources, the Annals of Tacitus and the biography of Suetonius, written some eighty or ninety years later, the brief contemporary record of Velleius Paterculus, and the third-century history of Cassius Dio. These disagree amongst themselves in the wildest possible fashion, both in major matters of political action or motive and in specific details of minor events. Everyone would admit that Tacitus is the best of all the sources, and yet no serious modern his torian would accept at face value the majority of the state- merits of Tacitus about the motives of Tiberius.1 But this does not prevent the belief that the material of Tacitus can be used to write a history of Tiberius. The divergences between the synoptic gospels, or between them and the Fourth Gospel, are no worse than the contradictions in the Tiberius material.
He is clearly responding to very liberal form critics. Form criticism in general has fallen on hard times recently but do you agree with him about about the contradictions between the gospels? He says they are “no worse” than sources that “disagree amongst themselves in the wildest possible fashion.” That is not apologetically flattering. Another example:
The internal synoptic divergences, such as arise in the narratives of the trial of Christ, are very similar to those that Roman historians meet in the study of the tribunate of Gaius Gracchus. We have two or even three contradictory versions, for instance, of the content of the most important of the legislative proposals—a central point in the story—and there are three divergent versions of the way in which the riot began in which Gaius lost his life. The four accounts of the trial of Christ are not more troublesome. The two cases are rather similar in terms of analysis. The three versions of the death of Gaius aim at attributing the blame for the great riot to different persons or groups.1 So, too, the mildly divergent versions of the scene before Pilate and the Sanhedrin may aim, as has often been suggested, at transferring the blame for the condemnation of Christ, in varying degrees, from the Romans to the Jews.
Do you agree with that as well? Do you agree that Luke and Matthew contradict in the infancy narratives as he also said earlier in the work or that the gospels and Acts are propaganda? He said that as well. How can a single anonymous work, written 60-80 years after Jesus’s death, that acts as a sole witness to many of its events, just be assumed to be historically accurate on most of its details? Have you read the work or is this just a common quote apologists pull out of context?’
Many major commentators do accept the historicity of the Matthias tradition but there really isn’t solid evidence either way.
Vinnie
Luke does get a lot demonstrably correct lest you misinterpret my stance. Fitzmyer:
There are a number of incidents that Luke has recounted that find con- firmation elsewhere. For instance, Paul’s escape from Damascus (9:24b-25) is confirmed by what Paul himself relates in 2 Cor l 1:32, even though a minor detail differs; Paul’s plan to go to Rome after a journey to Jerusalem (l9:2l) is confirmed by what Paul himself says in Rom l 5:22-25; Luke depicts Paul earn- ing his own livelihood (l8:3; 20:34), which is confirmed in l Thess 2:9; l Cor 9: l 5; 2 Cor l l :7-8. The story of the sudden death of Herod Agrippa (l2:2l-23) is confirmed by Josephus, Ant. l 9.8.2 §§343-46, who dates it to the third regnal year of emperor Claudius, A.D. 44. Gallio as proconsul of Achaia (18:12) is con- firmed by an inscription found at Delphi (see COMMENT on 18:12-l7). The procuratorships of Felix and Festus in Judea (23:24; 24:27) are confirmed by Jose- phus, Ant. 20.7.l-2 §§137-44; 20.8.9-ll §§189-94; 20.9.l §§197, 200; f.W. 2.12.8 §247; 2.14.l §§271-72; Suetonius, Claudii vita 28; Tacitus, Annales 12.54; Historiae 2.2. Drusilla as the wife of Felix (24:24) is confirmed by Jose- phus, Ant. l9.9.l §§354-55; 20.7.l-2 §§138-44; /.W. 2.ll.6 §220; Suetonius, Claudii vita 28. Bernice as the wife of King Agrippa II (25: l 3) is confirmed by Josephus, Ant. 20.7.3 §145; /.W. 2.ll.5 §217; Suetonius, Titi vita 7.l; Juvenal, Satires 6. l 5fr-60; Tacitus, Historiae 2.2. The contemporary high priest Ananias (son of Nedebaeus), who was in office from A.D. 47 to 59, is confirmed by Josephus, Ant. 20.5.2 §103; 20.6.2 §Bl; 20.9.2-4 §§205-B.
Modern interpreters have often called attention to the accuracy of minordetails in the Lucan narratives. Among these I might mention the appellation of Philippi as kolonia, “colony” (16:12); the city magistrates ofThessalonica as politarchai (l7:6), a title nowhere attested in Greek literature but well known from Macedonian inscriptions; the correctness of titles such as anthypatos, “pro- consul,” for Sergius Paulus (l3:7) and Gallio (l8:l2) or agoraioi for provincial assizes (19:38); of sebomenoi, “worshipers,” for Gentile sympathizers of Judaism (17:4,17) or proselytoi, “proselytes” for Gentile converts to Judaism (13:43).
The issue of the historical character of the Lucan account in Acts has been well studied, and it is clear today that a middle ground has to be sought between the skeptical approach and a conservative reaction to it. One has to admit that at times Luke’s information is faulty and that he has confused some things in his narrative, but by and large he does present us with a reliable account of much of what he recounts.
Luke also has theological hobby-horses which filter what he writes at times.
Your argument with me is an objection to my quoting Sherwin-White Want to impress me? Cite a 21st century classical historian who dismisses Sherwin-White with more than an “I object.” If you can’t, then find another audience.
Any contradiction between Matthew and Luke’s “infancy narratives” is, IMO, unimportant. Why? Because neither Mark nor Paul mention them and, beyond Mary, Joseph, and some angels, no one witnessed Jesus’ Infancy or wrote anything about it; unless, of course, you want to cite Allah’s Qur’an.
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My argument was you misquoted him.
No I didn’t; you just don’t think the quote was relevant to your claim that
And the current, apparently irreconcilable difference between you and me is that I do think the quote was relevant, but I’m not interested in persuading you otherwise.
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