Paul, Friend of the Romans 4
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Monday, November 30, 1998
Abstract
Before the Sanhedrin
Why does the tribune behave (Acts 22:30) as if he were the Procurator, forcing the Sanhedrin to convene and releasing Paul from his bonds to appear before them in his defence. Why would he risk another riot allowing Paul to appear unguarded before the Sanhedrin? Another riot breaks out.
Paul’s speech before the Sanhedrin is almost classic Greek, betraying no signs of Aramaic. It is a free composition. Christian commentators, doubtless obsessed that the New Testament is God’s word, find it inadmissable that Luke made anything up, anything, that is, that was knowingly false. This is religious gullibility. Even if Luke was the original author and was above reproach, his editors were not, and certainly his subject, Paul, was not.
At this point we find that parts must have been written after the Jewish War. Thus, Paul says that Ananias would be smitten by God (Acts 23:3) showing that the author knew that he had been killed by the zealots.
Considering that Paul is being held for causing disturbances of the peace in causing two riots and has lately been almost whipped and mistaken for a bandit, it is remarkable that he has free access to his friends and is able to command a centurion, in Acts 23:17, as if he were a servant:
Paul called one of the centurions unto him, and said, Bring this young man unto the chief captain, for he hath a certain thing to tell him.
To be able to command a centurion thus suggests he is in a favoured position. His authority could only have rested on the authority of the tribune, so the centurion must have considered him at least of the same rank. A centurion was, so to speak, the sergeant-major of the Roman army but he was more a major than a sergeant. Perhaps it is no coincidence that one of Paul’s family, a nephew, is acting as a spy against the Jews. The Acts of Paul suggest throughout that he was a high ranking double agent.
Paul is given a huge escort, equal to a full cohort of men, 400 infantry and 70 cavalry. Christian commentators pretend that this is not unusual in the situation of insurrection and riots, but that is manifestly silly. Paul was not, on the face of it, a VIP, and in such unstable circumstances it could equally be argued that it was unlikely that the governor had forces to spare to escort an unknown Romanized Jew to safety. The explanation is that Paul must have been a VIP!
The tribune’s letter (Acts 23:26-30) has a ring of truth in that it tries to get kudos for the author as the saviour of an important spy, though the transcription given in Acts and probably the original letter for that matter could hardly be explicit about the reason why Paul was so valuable. It finds Paul innocent of any charges as usual. The letter was for the procurator Felix, and one might wonder how Luke knew what was in it. Presumably Paul, who turned out to be great friends with the Roman governor, had read it and told Luke. It seems Paul was the only channel for Luke to discover the contents of the letter and it proves that he was hand-in-glove with the top-most colonial officials of that part of the Empire.
Before the Romans
Paul, in Acts 24:23, is granted favourable status by Felix and is held for two years, supposedly in captivity, but probably in protective custody. Acts tries to explain the favourable treatment of Paul by showing Felix’s wife, a Jew, as being influential, but also that the governor hoped for a bribe. This might seem surprising since Romans are usually shown in a good light, but bribes were part of Roman life, just as they are today in the east, and indeed, just as they increasingly are here, and would not have been a surprise.
Luke will have mentioned the bribe because puzzled critics had suggested bribery was the reason for Paul’s good fortune. Luke implies that Paul’s two years of captivity preclude the possibility. Felix must have had reason to think that Paul had money if he really hoped for a bribe yet the only money Paul could have had was the money collected for the Ebionim. To relieve the sense of collusion, Paul is delivered by Felix into the hands of Festus in chains. It would have been unlikely even if Paul had been a real prisoner.
There is an interesting proof of the favour with which Paul was treated. In the speech by the rhetor, the Roman advocate for the Jews, in Acts 24:6-7, some authorities add, after “we seized him:”
…and we would have judged him according to our law but the chief captain, Lysias, came and, with great violence, took him out of our hands, commanding his accusers to come before you.
Though this does not appear in manuscripts considered to be the best, it is unlikely to be an invention. Romans are shown using seemingly unwarranted violence against Jews going about their own business. It is not favourable to the Romans, as Luke usually is, but is just what is to be expected of the Roman colonial administration, and it too strongly suggests that the Romans had a vested interest in Paul’s welfare, even to the point of risking a flashpoint incident in an unstable period. In seven more years, the Jewish war broke out in earnest, though it had effectively already started.
Christian commentators reject the passage, at best including it as a footnote. They argue that the advocate would not have criticised the captain in front of the procurator. Felix was, like most of the Procurators, a hard man, the flattery at the start of the rhetor’s speech being simply a formality. He kept the cap on the uprising for several years with severe measures, but such tactics simply aggravate the source of the dissent and build up steam.
Nevertheless, there is no reason to think that in that climate the rhetor’s remarks would have been construed as critical. Brutal suppression was the norm. The rhetor could freely raise the matter precisely because it was what Felix had ordered—suppress dissent. The Jews had asked the rhetor to make their point which was that there was no dissent in this instance. They were merely doing what they were allowed to do by the Romans—protect their own customs. In Acts, Paul was accused of polluting the temple by taking gentiles into the proscribed courts, a religious crime punishable by death, as the Romans had recognized—even if the perpetrator was a Roman citizen! The violent attack was therefore unjust in this case and the explanation of it was that Paul’s friends had alerted the tribune.
The advocate for the Jews describes Paul as a “ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes, who moreover…” implying that being a Nazarene should have been sufficient of a crime for the Procurator. If Jesus was falsely betrayed by the Jews and falsely murdered by the Romans, why are his followers thirty years later still considered criminals? The crime was serious, which Christians cannot admit and it was a crime which was still relevant in the atmosphere of unrest which still persisted. Jesus was a rebel.
Paul’s defence is that of an Essene. He explains the meaning of the Nazarene sect, the followers of “the Way”, but naturally says nothing about their revolutionary intentions. Followers of “the Way” serve God believing in the law and the prophets, and the resurrection of the just and the unjust. Felix says he has accurate knowledge about “the Way” but defers judgement until Lysias arrives. Apparently he never does, so Paul is still under arrest in the palace two years later. What Felix means when he says he has accurate knowledge about “the Way” is uncertain but it probably means the knowledge which the Roman master spy, Paul, has already given him.
Jews Plot to Kill Paul and he appears before Agrippa
It defies all credibility to believe that the Jewish Sanhedrin should have been plotting (Acts 25:3) to murder a Roman, even, or especially, in a period of national turmoil. Many of the Sanhedrin were Roman collaborators, and even those who were not were not so stupid that they thought the Romans, who as the suppressed sentence discussed above in Acts shows were brutal, would not savage the land. Soon the war was to break out in earnest, but the first victims were the collaborators themselves. We are expected to believe that the Jewish leaders would precipitate the war by assassinating a man who was not only a Roman but was favoured by the Roman elite, and must by now have been known to all to have been a provocateur.
If anyone plotted to kill Paul, it could not have been the members of the Jewish Parliament but the members of the Jerusalem church, not only pious Jews but jealous for the law, as Acts has told us. No doubt the Sanhedrin had been incensed that the Roman governor had effectively flouted the law by saving Paul from trial when he had been accused of polluting the temple, but to imagine they would take the law into their own hands is asking too much.
Now, Paul is depicted as appearing before Agrippa, an unlikely scenario except as a charade because Paul had already appealed to Caesar and Festus had agreed to it (Acts 25:11-12). The only point of it is to fulfil prophecy—that Christians would have to appear before rulers and kings. In fact, Caesar was a king and it is strange perhaps that the trial before Caesar is not the end of the story.
Christians believe that Paul was martyred by Nero because it became de rigeur for the apostles to be martyred. But if the martyrdom was the result of the trial then Paul, who was never found guilty of any crime by any Roman, would have had his record spoiled and Roman administrators who always are shown as kind, contrary to the facts, would have been shown as the monsters they often were. That might be so, but Nero was quickly recognized as a monster and the Christian martyrdom of the apostle to the gentiles under a man who came to be seen as the anti-Christ would have ended the story nicely.
The more likely explanation is that Paul never came to trial because the appeal to Caesar was a ploy to get Paul back to Rome without antagonising the Jews even more. An appeal to Caesar was the privilege of a Roman citizen, but involved high costs and expenses. Only a rich man could afford it, so the appeal of Paul implies either that he was rich or the appeal was an administrative cover. If the appeal was genuine then Paul was a rich man, otherwise he was under state protection. As Acts says, Festus or Felix could have acquitted Paul, but the Jews would have been in a real revolt that the colonial administration had flouted its own law relating to respect for the temple. By claiming Paul had referred the case to Caesar he could be shipped off with everyone believing he still had to be tried. In fact, he was pensioned off to Spain, according to Christian tradition, at the opposite end of the world from his main exploits.
So, the appearance before Agrippa was quite specious. Paul defends himself before a king and Luke has the chance to give the third version of the conversion of his hero. In Acts 26:2 and 6, we are given the impression of a court hearing but, if it ever happened at all, it was merely an evening’s entertainment for the potentate with Paul acting as Munchausen again.
Paul is economical with the truth immediately, saying he had always lived in Judaea and Jerusalem when Luke himself tells us three times that he was born in Tarsus. Apparently he came to Palestine as a young man, or so the Ebionites say, probably about the time of the activity of Jesus. He says he was always a Pharisee. It might seem churlish to question this but much in his life is better explained if he had been trained as an Essene. He uses characteristically Essene words, spent a mysterious three years in Arabia which can best be accounted for if he had been an Essene novice in that time and he ends up a Christian having many similar views.
Thus, in this speech he uses the characteristic word “saints” meaning those who were perfectly holy. In Acts 26:18, we get vivid Essene phraseology, “open their eyes”, “darkness to light”, to receive a remission of sins and an inheritance, meaning originally the kingdom of God—the land of Israel. In Acts 26:20, the message is that of John the Baptist—to repent—and that of James—to do works worthy of repentance. In Acts 26:23, he states that Jesus is the first of the resurrection of the dead, the first to be resurrected in the general resurrection that will introduce the dead righteous into the kingdom of God. Christians claim this is a Pauline teaching because it appears in Colossians 1:18 but since it is surely the reason why the disappearance of the body of Jesus impressed his original followers, it precedes Paul.
The Nazarenes could have been a loose sect under the wing of the Essenes of those who were zealous for the law and had undergone baptism in readiness for the kingdom to come. Possibly they were allowed to follow their individual sectarian preferences while united under the sacraments of baptism and repentance.
In Acts 26:10, Paul pretends, or Luke does, that Paul sat on the Great Sanhedrin, “I cast my vote against him”. It seems quite incredible that a junior Pharisee should have had a seat on the Great Council of 70 of the Jewish great and good. Paul is both boasting and trying to impress with the magnitude of his own conversion. Nevertheless, it is possible that Paul had a vote on the Sanhedrin as a Sadducee. The evidence suggests he had a role as a secret policeman and might have been head of the Temple Guard, conceivably giving him a vote even as quite a young man in those turbulent times. In Acts 26:20, Paul braggs that he has preached all over Judaea, but there is no other evidence that he did, and it seems unlikely that the appointed apostles would have allowed it. They sent him abroad to be shot of him.
The apparent accusation of madness by Festus (Acts 26:24) is obviously the playful banter of people who knew each other well. Paul suggests that Agrippa is aware of hidden things (Acts 26:26), a crucial expression of the Essenes and one which translates into “Nazarene”. Then he adds (Acts 26:27-28): “I know thou believest”, apparently referring to the law and the prophets but an expression always used of Christians, those who believe in Jesus. Paul seems to think Agrippa is a Christian and allows Agrippa subtly to admit it, which he might do, saying literally: “you take a very short time to make me a Christian”. Elsewhere Herodians did adopt Christianity and in Acts 24:24 is a clear suggestion that Drusilla did. She was a member of the Herodian family being the daughter of Herod Agrippa I and the sister of Agrippa and Bernice.
Paul at Rome
On his journey to Rome, ostensibly to be tried by Caesar, Paul’s ship meets a raging storm at sea. Christians always say the storm is so vividly described it must be a real experience. There seems little doubt of this. Whoever wrote of the experience had surely had the experience, but was it this one? It does not really matter, but the reason why it is put here might not be because it actually happened at this time but because survival of a shipwreck in Roman superstition was considered a sign from the gods of innocence. So, a shipwreck there might have been, but Luke puts it precisely here as a way of asserting Paul’s innocence. The implication is now lost but it would have been clear when the book was written.
In the account, we get a revealing detail. Paul was to be escorted (Acts 27:1) by a centurion of the “Augustan Band”. Now in the first century, a Roman military unit called the Cohors Augusta I was in Syria. This might have been the centurion’s unit, but the “Augustan Band” could also mean the “Frumentarii”, the special troops of the emperor, a sort of SIS, all of whom had the rank of centurion. Of the functions they served, one was as secret police and another was spying!
The soldier seems to be of inferior rank to Paul, taking orders from him in the storm, and otherwise seems to be acting more as a minder than as a warder. This does not prove that Paul was a Roman spy but it tops the strange set of circumstances that point in that direction. Paul has a charmed life, he causes troubles among Jews everywhere and is always saved by Romans, he has a secret Roman citizenship, he is always treated respectfully by senior Roman officials as if he is a VIP, he is allowed to opt for a trial before Caesar in Rome instead of being tried as he should have been by the Sanhedrin for a religious crime, he is escorted by a centurion of the Roman MI6, probably his own unit!
On the journey back, Paul is effectively a free man, able to visit his friends (Acts 27:3). Later he has enough authority to argue with the captain of the vessel (Acts 27:9-10). Paul seems to take command in the midst of the storm and advises the centurion (Acts 27:31), and the centurion takes pains to save Paul’s life (Acts 27:43).
In Acts 28:14, Paul is free to do as he likes. In Acts 28:16, he is not jailed but is “guarded ”by a soldier. Again, the guard is not a warder but a protector. The Western Text adds that the prisoners were handed to the Stratopedarch, the Princeps Peregrinorum, head of the Frumentarii. It seems Paul has to be de-briefed by the equivalent of M.
Paul finishes up in Rome teaching as a free man.
The Jews of Rome (Acts 28:22) recognize the sect of Christians as unpopular everywhere yet wanted to know from Paul all about it. This has to be baloney because they could have learnt all they wanted from the Roman Christians many of whom had, apparently, walked forty miles to meet Paul. The meaning is either that the sect of Christians, the Nazarenes, was unpopular everywhere among the Romans, because it was still known as a revolutionary group, or that the faithful Jewish Christians of the Jerusalem Church in Rome considered the Hellenized branch favoured by Paul as unpopular.
The Jerusalem Church seems to have sent people after Paul constantly to keep an eye on him and to keep his activities within bounds. They failed. But one theory of Christian scholars to explain how Peter came to be in Rome as well as Paul, and some anomalies in the records of the first bishops of Rome, was that there were two autonomous churches in Rome. A Jewish Christian Church recognized the seniority of the Jerusalem Church and Paul’s Church of Hellenized Jews and gentiles that denied the authority of Jerusalem.
On this hypothesis, Peter followed Paul to Rome to preach that Christianity remained Jewish, in contradiction to Paul. If Paul was an agent provocateur, in Rome he was under the protection of the Praetorian Guard. The outbreak of the Jewish War was a failure of Paul’s strategy of syncretism to weaken Jewish expectations, but he must by then have been pensioned off. A mystery man called Saul was brought in to help negotiate with the Jews, and this man conceivably was Paul, brought out of retirement because of his great knowledge of Jewish matters, but it is a moot point. If, as Christians maintain, he was beheaded, it must have been because he was mistrusted as a failure, and was treated by the Romans as a double agent.
Acts ends interestingly with the very quotation from Isaiah 6:9-10 that justified the use of code by the Essenes and Nazarenes. It is taken to refer to those who will not hear, the infidels and the unbelieving Jews of God’s chosen people but, to those who know a little about the Essenes, it almost taunts the reader, saying:
You don’t understand, either.
Paul and Seneca
Roman policy was to unite the peoples of the empire under a common culture, and S Paul was active in this policy:
There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.Romans 10:12
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.Galatians 3:28
Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all, and in all.Colossians 3:11
Paul, while calling himself a Jew by birth and a Christian by faith, did not hesitate to call himself a Roman whenever he had dealings with the authorities.
Each nation had its own favoured gods and different people favoured different sects and cults, yet to be a Roman was to transcend all of this. Roman syncretism wanted to get rid of these divisions and the worst culprits were the Jews whose faith in the One True God was exclusively theirs and they were identified by their distinguishing mark of circumcision.
In Rome, Stoicism was the philosophy of the ruling classes, whose tradition values of doing the right thing it suited. The Christians of the second century had a high opinion of the Stoics. Justin spoke of Musonius Rufus as being unwittingly a Christian martyr, and Tertullian considered Seneca as “often ours”. Justin pointed out in his Apologia that Stoicism and Christianity agree closely on moral questions. Romans 13 emphasises the similarity between the Stoic and the Christian attitude to the state and all it stood for.
There is a fourth century tradition that Paul and Seneca were friends and correspondents. Seneca and Paul both used the unusual Hebraic word “caro” meaning “flesh”. Paul appeared before Seneca’s brother Gallio, Proconsul of Achaia in 51 AD, in Corinth and Gallio dismissed the case against him. Seneca was also a friend of Burrus, the Praetorian Prefect during Paul’s imprisonment who also treated Paul leniently. Paul was allowed to preach the gospel while still in prison. Now Seneca and Burrus were not just common citizens of Rome, that Paul might have met casually. They were or became the rulers of Rome when Nero was a boy. Nero’s mother Agrippina, employed Seneca as Nero’s tutor and for several years he effectively ruled the empire alongside Burrus. If Paul was pardoned, as seems probable, Burrus arranged it. Seneca could have met Paul through either of these two common agents. Indeed, the friendship could have preceded the known history of Paul.
It is hard to see Paul as anything other than a well connected Roman agent provocateur—what in Persian times would have been called a prophet—a propagandist for the imperialists.
From Stephen Ballard
It has been a long time since I sent you anything, but I thought you might be interested in this. It was a chain of emails to some friends. It was a one sided conversation on my part explaining my rationalistic interpretation of scripture based on the historical approach advocated by S G F Brandon, Maccoby, Eisenman, Goulder, G A Wells, and others (including you :). You are welcome to use if you choose. All are my own ideas, if in fact one could ever really make such a claim given the above list of scholars among others. I only note that Ms Organ—that I am aware of—has mentioned the scenario of Paul being modeled on Jesus, but I only ran across that link recently sometime after I had come to the reverse conclusion.
It is a long story, one brought on by noticing that Paul is rejected by the “Jews” in the Temple court with exactly the same words that Jesus is rejected before Pilate. There are several coincidences in the New Testament that lead one to think that Saint Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem has overlaid the original story of the trial of Jesus in the Gentile Gospels. Indeed, when one looks at the coincidences, and the number of these, it seems almost certain that, not knowing about the details of Jesus’ own trial, the Gentile Church substituted the outline of Paul’s own trial and imprisonment.
Of course, one might claim that St Paul is simply following in Jesus’ footsteps. But one might also postulate that Paul’s own Gnostic vision of a pacifist Christ Jesus has overlaid the original Jewish Jesus in the Gentile Gospels.
It was Paul’s Gnostic Christ, whose kingdom was not of this world, that the Jews rejected, just like they rejected St Paul. The Jews clamored for the release of the real Jesus bar Abbas whose kingdom is of this world, but rejected Paul’s otherworldly Christ Jesus. Hyam Maccoby makes a similar point concerning Paul and the Egyptian assassin (Acts 21:38). Maccoby notes it is strange the Roman officer would have thought that Paul was the Egyptian insurrectionist who led the 4000 assassins into the wilderness, since the multitude would probably have been calling for his release. Instead the multitude was shouting to the Roman officer “Away with him!”, just like they did for the Gentile Pauline version of Jesus.
1. Like Jesus, Saint Paul is to go to Jerusalem one last time, knowing it may be his last, because of the “plotting” of the “Jews”.
And when he had spent three months there, and a plot was laid against him by the Jews .....sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more.Act 20:3
2. The exact same words are used by the multitude to the Roman authorities concerning both Jesus and Paul:
But they cried out, Away with him! Away with him! Crucify himJohn 19:15
For the multitude of the people followed after, crying, Away with him!Act 21:36
And they gave him audience unto this word [Gentiles], and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live.Act 22:22
3. With both Paul and Jesus there is some confusion on the part of the Roman authorities between the “righteous” Christian and a notorious insurrectionist.
And they had then a notable prisoner, called Jesus Barabbas. Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?Mat 27:16
Then are you not that Egyptian who before these days caused a riot, and led four thousand men of the assassins out into the desert?Act 21:38
For we have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the NazarenesAct 24:5
4. The idea that Jesus was delivered “for envy” does not make sense. It is more likely Jesus was delivered for being a danger to the state and claiming to be Messiah. However, St. Paul was delivered for “envy” because his religious doctrine concerning the Gentiles was contrary to that of the “Jews”.
For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy.Mar 15:10
5. St Paul is brought to trial before the Sanhedrin and struck on the mouth like Jesus. And like Jesus, Paul is rebuked for his contempt of the High Priest.
And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high priest so?Joh 18:22
And the high priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite him [Paul] on the mouth. Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall.... And they that stood by said, Revilest thou God’s high priest?Act 23:2
6. Paul is brought to trial before both the Roman Procurator and king Herod Agrippa like Jesus, but has not been judged “worthy of death”
No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done by him.Luk 23:15
And Festus said, King Agrippa, and all men which are here present with us, ye see this man, about whom all the multitude of the Jews have dealt with me, both at Jerusalem, and also here, crying that he ought not to live any longer. But I found that he had committed nothing worthy of deathAct 25:24
7. Pilate’s wringing his hands over Jesus which in fact is really Felix’s hand wringing over Paul.
The real Jesus, Jesus bar Abbas, would certainly have been quickly found guilty. There would have been no hesitation or hand-wringing on the part of Pilate. We know from Josephus that Pilate was a brutal but efficient Roman governor, and would not be concerned about executing a Jewish political prisoner as a warning to other would be trouble makers. But the procurator Felix would indeed have hesitated and was much concerned when faced with Jews clamoring that he execute a fellow Roman citizen Paul. In fact this is something that he couldn’t do. In addition, all the evidence seemed to indicate that Paul was innocent, at least of any political offense, and therefore not worthy of any crime deserving death, unlike Jesus bar Abbas who had claimed to be the Messiah, the king of the Jews. This shows the Roman tolerance, or at least indifference, to Paul’s so called religious offenses.
This man [Paul] was taken of the Jews, and should have been killed of them: then came I with an army, and rescued him, having understood that he was a Roman. And when I would have known the cause wherefore they accused him, I brought him forth into their council: Whom I then perceived to be accused of questions of their law [Religious Law or Torah], but to have nothing laid to his charge worthy of death or of bonds [according to Roman law].Act 23:27
8. The procurator Festus offers to return Paul to the Jewish authorities to be judged according to their own religious law, forcing Paul to appeal to Caesar as a Roman citizen. This is very similar to the what Pilate is reported to have said concerning the Pauline Christ:
Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to deathJoh 18:31
It is unlikely that Pilate would have released a political prisoner Jesus bar Abbas to the Jewish authorities, because as they themselves said, they did not have the power to put a prisoner to death. But Festus could bring Paul before the Jewish authorities concerning matters of their own religion.
Against whom when the accusers stood up, they brought none accusation of such things as I supposed: But had certain questions against him of their own superstition, and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive. And because I doubted of such manner of questions, I asked him whether he would go to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these matters. But when Paul had appealed to be reserved unto the hearing of Augustus, I commanded him to be kept till I might send him to Caesar.Act 25:18
Paul had every reason to believe that he would be killed before being brought before the Sanhedrin to stand trial. This is one reason he appealed to Caesar as a Roman citizen.
And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy. And they came to the chief priests and elders, and said, We have bound ourselves under a great curse, that we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul.Act 23:12
These 40 sound like the Zealots, since paid officers of the High Priest certainly would not go to this extreme. Notice the word “certain” Jews. As scholars [Robert Eisenman] point out, when this word “certain” is used, it usually means certain Jewish Christians. Here the Zealots, in these late times, are shown to have significant influence in Jerusalem, even so far as working with the high priest himself against their common nuisance Paul.
Paul did in fact go to Rome. It appears that Paul may have been acquitted or at least confined to house arrest. At any rate, some say he was executed during Nero’s persecution of Christians after the great fire in 64AD.
Luke models Paul on Jesus,especially in his arrest and trial. Like Jesus, Paul has to suffer, experience hostility from his own people who seek to kill him, is arrested and brought to trial before the Jewish and Roman authorities.
Apparently I am not the only one to have noticed this. However, this lady has it just the reverse of what I think. The Gnostic Christ Jesus (whose kingdom is not of this world) was modeled on Saint Paul (within whom Christ dwelt) by the Gentile Church and Luke, and not vice versa. The reason Ms Organ has it reversed is notice how Paul points out in Galatians that “he is the apostle to the Gentiles”, and that Peter was the apostle to the “circumcision”, the Jews.
Paul and his arrest and trial would have been well known to John Mark and the Gentiles at Rome, since Paul would not have tired of telling it during his house arrest at Rome. However, if the Letters of the New Testament are any witness, then about all that was known of Jesus among the Gentiles prior to John Mark and the Gospel of Mark was that Jesus was crucified, and that he had risen from the dead and would come again. The Letters of the New Testament do not even know (or at least mention) that Jesus came from Galilee, or that he was crucified by Pilate (if one discounts the very late and almost certainly non-Pauline letter of Timothy).
The Gospels (written later than the Letters) seem to know somewhat more about the historical Jesus, for example that he came from Galilee, but the Gospels seem to know little about the arrest and trial of Jesus, and instead substitute the trial of St. Paul. In addition, the Gospels seem to be intent on “harmonizing” the Gnostic pacifist Gentile Gospel of Saint Paul with the Zealot Gospel of Jesus and Qumran. There would be numerous points of agreement between Saint Paul’s Gospel and the Nazarene Zealot Qumran Gospel, since Paul was also a Zealot. But there would have been significant differences as well since Paul was the “apostle [or Zealot] to the Gentiles” who believed that the Gentiles were equal in to the Jews in the eyes of God because of faith in Jesus. Notice these words are put in the mouth of Peter by Luke to harmonize Paul’s teaching with the “pillars” of the Jewish Church, but they are Paul’s teaching and NOT Peter’s.
I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, even as ye all are this dayAct 22:3
Paul is specific in
....but contrariwise, when they saw that I had been intrusted with the gospel of the uncircumcision, even as Peter with the gospel of the circumcision...Gal 2:7
But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.Gal 2:11
But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees [probably meaning extremist Pharisees or Zealots] which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses. And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter. And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.Act 15:5
In Acts 15:5, it seems Luke is intent on harmonizing the teaching of the Jerusalem Church with Paul’s teaching of “faith” by putting Paul’s words into Peter’s mouth. And it seems that Peter may initially been prepared to accept some Gentile accomodations, but “those from James” quickly put an end to that.
Another point of contact.
Here it is sufficient to point out that the mechanics of the treachery (Judas kiss) are far from clear. Why did Jesus need to be identified by Judas? Surely Jesus was well known after preaching in the Temple before enthusiastic crowds. What exactly did Judas’ treachery consist of? Was it his identification of Jesus, or that he led the arresting crowd to Jesus’ hiding place? .... it may be remarked that the confusion and clumsiness of the story adds to the impression of an ad hoc improvisation.Hyam Maccoby, Judas Iscariot and the Myth of Jewish Evil, 1992, pg. 37
Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia [Asia Minor]; And was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in ChristGal 1:21
Act 21:27 And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia [Minor], when they saw him in the temple, stirred up the crowd, and laid hands on him, Crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place.
To the Jews of Judea, Paul was “unknown by face”. But the Jews [Judas] of Asia, who did know his face, betrayed him, and Paul was arrested by the Romans even as the Sicariots laid hands on him. Paul was not in any body’s good graces in Jerusalem. To the Zealots and the Sicariots, he was an apostate, and to the Temple police and Romans he was a nuisance and a ringleader (financier) of that same zealot sect of the Nazarenes.
And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many tens of thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealots of the Torah: And they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs. What is it therefore? the multitude [or crowd] must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come.Act 21:20
Here the “pillars of the Church”, James and Peter and John are portrayed by Luke (who is always eager to show Paul on reasonably good terms with the Jerusalem church leaders so as legitimatize Paul’s mission to the Gentiles) as being solicitous for Paul’s safety. If so, they certainly didn’t come to this rescue did they?
Barne’s Commentary on Act 21:22
What is it therefore? - What is to be done? What is it proper to do to avoid the effects of the evil report which has been circulated? What they deemed it proper to do is suggested in the following verses.
The multitude - The multitude of Jews.
Must needs come together - There will be inevitably a tumultuous assemblage. It will be impossible to prevent that. The reasons were, because the minds of the Jews were exceedingly agitated that one of their own countrymen had, as they understood, been advising apostasy from the religion of their fathers; because this had been extensively done in many parts of the world, and with great success; and because Paul, having, as they believed, himself apostatized from the national religion, had become very conspicuous, and his very presence in Jerusalem, as in other places, would be likely to excite a tumult.
To the Zealots and the Sicariots, he was an apostate, and to the Temple police and Romans he was a nuisance and a ringleader (financier) of that same zealot sect of the Nazarenes.
The Temple Police and Jewish authorities may have been aware that Paul was a financier and ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. However, at this time, the Roman authorities would have been uncertain, since Paul was a Roman citizen and this complaint by the “Jews” seemed simply a matter of religious differences.
However, after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, perhaps a more detailed inquiry was made into this “Christian” sect and into Paul’s background by the civil authorities under Nero, at Rome, where Paul was still under house arrest. Of course, after the fire, there were numerous crucifixions of “Christians”, guilty or not, since at that point Nero would have become aware that these so-called Jewish Christians were in fact the Jewish Zealots who had started the fire.
3. (63) Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure...Josephus, Antiquities, Book 18, Chapter 3
5. (81) There was a man who was a Jew, but had been driven away from his own country by an accusation laid against him for transgressing their laws, and by the fear he was under of punishment for the same; but in all respects a wicked man. He, then living at Rome, professed to instruct men in the wisdom of the laws of Moses. (82) He procured also three other men, entirely of the same character with himself, to be his partners. These men persuaded Fulvia, a woman of great dignity, and one that had embraced the Jewish religion, to send purple and gold to the temple at Jerusalem; and when they had gotten them, they employed them for their own uses, and spent the money themselves, on which account it was that they at first required it of her. (83) Whereupon Tiberius, who had been informed of the thing by Saturninus, the husband of Fulvia, who desired inquiry might be made about it, ordered all the Jews to be banished out of Rome; (84) at which time the consuls listed four thousand men out of them, and sent them to the island Sardinia; but punished a greater number of them, who were unwilling to become soldiers, on account of keeping the laws of their forefathers. Thus were these Jews banished out of the city by the wickedness of four men.
(66) There was at Rome a woman whose name was Paulina; one who, on account of the dignity of her ancestors, and by the regular conduct of a virtuous life, had a great reputation; she was also very rich; and although she was of a beautiful countenance, and in that flower of her age wherein women are the most gay, yet did she lead a life of great modesty. She was married to Saturninus,
http://www.theistic-evolution.com/josephus.html
So, an inter-textual reading of the Gospels, the Epistles, and Josephus does result in some clarification. But not exactly what Atwill (Caesar’s Messiah) had in mind.
He [Paul(ina) apparently], then living at Rome, professed to instruct men in the wisdom of the laws of Moses.
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man.....a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.....
That these passages should appear side by side in Josephus, especially that they should appear (on the surface) so unrelated to the disturbances in Judea lead one to think that the author had something else in mind.........
With all these coincidences there can be little doubt that Mark saw his friend Paul betrayed by the Jews into the hands of the Romans, most probably Nero, who then crucified him.
Does this mean there was no Jesus at all? Not necessarily. But the story of the arrest and trial of Jesus in the Gospels is so heavily overlaid with Paul’s own fate that one must wonder. But Mark is quite clear that the Jews rejected and betrayed Paul’s Gnostic Jesus into the hands of the Romans in favor or their own Jesus bar Abbas.
Moses and Exodus
