Paul�s basket escape from Damascus (Robert Eisenman)

[RBerman]

He was indeed sent. But when he got there, he did the exact opposite of what he was supposed to do. Instead of arresting Christians, he publicly defended them in debate "by proving that Jesus was the Christ," which was the proposition he was supposed to be stamping out, not promulgating. This would have earned him the ire of his former Jewish associates, who would then have used all the means at their disposal to shut him up: legal means, like complaining to the governor that Paul was inciting unrest. And illegal means, like "watching the gates day and night in order to kill him."

[whag]

Handling vipers would indeed be an example of flouting the commonsense secondary means by which God normatively protects us from harm. On what basis does one determine whether an act is a "simple demonstration of fearlessness" as opposed to "an arrogant challenge to God"?
What is your rubric? Do you have some special insight into the ins and outs of the situation described tersely in Scripture concerning Damascus?

My rubric seems to be yours. Handling vipers and drinking poison you acknowledge as flouting. The bible doesn't identify it as flouting. Biblically, it's a proof of something, not a "testing" of God. Paul didn't hide in a basket because he was afraid of tempting God. He was mainly driven by primitive instinct. Why wasn't he afraid to tempt God in the case bringing the nodder offer back to life? Perhaps because it was a proof of something surely God could get behind.

I just don't see how God wouldn't have been equally supportive of Paul's walking out of the town openly and courageously. That sounds a lot more dignified than handling an asp like an idiot.

[NormATive]

http://www.youtube.com/user/EisenmanLecture

I am not familiar with Eisenman, but I am conscious of the subtle anti-semitism of the Christian Testament. For example, the story of Judas (a clever play on the aramaic word for "Jew") was added to build up the story line that Jewish leaders conspired to "frame" Jesus and get rid of an inconvenient truth - namely that Jesus was a failed messiah.

It is very subtle, as you can tell by the commentary within this thread. Most Christians are starkly unaware of its existence. Of course, they believe that their religion is an "enhancement" to Judaism, so why are we surprised?

In most synagogues and Jewish communities, no one really dwells on the anti-semitism of the Christian Testament - except when some fool makes a movie highlighting the really bad parts!!

NORM

[RBerman]

My rubric seems to be yours. Handling vipers and drinking poison you acknowledge as flouting. The bible doesn't identify it as flouting. Biblically, it's a proof of something, not a "testing" of God. Paul didn't hide in a basket because he was afraid of tempting God. He was mainly driven by primitive instinct. Why wasn't he afraid to tempt God in the case bringing the nodder offer back to life? Perhaps because it was a proof of something surely God could get behind.

I just don't see how God wouldn't have been equally supportive of Paul's walking out of the town openly and courageously. That sounds a lot more dignified than handling an asp like an idiot.

The Bible never encourages people to handle asps. (No, not even at the end of Mark, though it's sometimes taken that way wrongly.) Paul was bitten by an asp and suffered no ill effect, but he wasn't trying to handle an asp. You have no basis to say what Paul was thinking when he hid in a basket; all the text says is that he did.

[RBerman]

I am not familiar with Eisenman, but I am conscious of the subtle anti-semitism of the Christian Testament. For example, the story of Judas (a clever play on the aramaic word for "Jew") was added to build up the story line that Jewish leaders conspired to "frame" Jesus and get rid of an inconvenient truth - namely that Jesus was a failed messiah.

Judas was a common first century name. The New Testament gives eight different people with that name, one of whom is Jesus' brother and an author of a book of the New Testament! Not exactly the thing to do if you were fabricating a lie to make Jews look bad.

[whag]

The Bible never encourages people to handle asps. (No, not even at the end of Mark, though it's sometimes taken that way wrongly.)

I didn't say the bible encouraged believers to do that. But the lord said it, so i realize I gave a bad example. Obviously if he tells them to do it, then they're not testing him. My bad.

Paul was bitten by an asp and suffered no ill effect, but he wasn't trying to handle an asp. You have no basis to say what Paul was thinking when he hid in a basket; all the text says is that he did.

True. You also have no basis to say he hid in a basket so as not to test God by leaving openly. Like Sean said, it's more likely that Paul acted in obeisance to his primal instinct to live.

Paul had nothing to fear whether he was hiding in baskets or walking toward his attackers. He was appointed to complete a task.

[firstfloor]

He was indeed sent. But when he got there, he did the exact opposite of what he was supposed to do. Instead of arresting Christians, he publicly defended them in debate "by proving that Jesus was the Christ," which was the proposition he was supposed to be stamping out, not promulgating. This would have earned him the ire of his former Jewish associates, who would then have used all the means at their disposal to shut him up: legal means, like complaining to the governor that Paul was inciting unrest. And illegal means, like "watching the gates day and night in order to kill him."

[RBerman]

It's not a matter of "being quiet" as if avoiding talking about something. Paul's words on the matter in 2 Corinthians are part of a laundry list of difficult situations he's endured. He doesn't give details about any of them because telling a complete story about any of those situations is not his point.

Luke has a different purpose; he gives more detail about several of the things that Paul mentions only briefly, including the Damascus basket episode. Luke was a traveling companion of Paul and had plenty of time to learn the details that he relates in Acts not only about the basket, but about all the other things that happened to Paul before the two met. Luke had explained his process and purpose at the beginning of his gospel narrative:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4)

Who says that the Church was unmolested in Jerusalem from the 40s to the 60s? Not the Bible. It shows the Church as popular with the Jewish commoners but molested by the Jewish leaders from the get-go, which would make perfect sense if they were the followers of an executed man.

As you can see, the persecutions had been going on before Saul/Paul even became a believer in Jesus and was so bad that the rank and file of the Jerusalem Church were "all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria." Recording these details is not "anti-Semitic" any more than a description of the Napoleonic Wars is "anti-French." What happened, happened.

Nor was Josephus a disinterested third party, but a polemicist eager to portray the Jews as a cooperative people who would fit well into the mainstream of Roman society. Just out of curiosity, are you prepared to accept everything Josephus says unquestioningly? At any rate, Josephus is clear that Aretas' behavior with respect to Herod's party was driven both by personal and political issues rather than some abstract sense of justice to protect John the Baptist as a prophet:

About this time Aretas, the king of Petra, and Herod the Tetrarch had a quarrel on account of the following. Herod the tetrarch had married the daughter of Aretas and had lived with her a great while; but once when he was on his way to Rome he lodged with his half-brother, also named Herod but who had a different mother, the high priest Simon's daughter. There he fell in love with Herodias, this latter Herod's wife, who was the daughter of their brother Aristobulus and the sister of Agrippa the Great.

This man ventured to talk to her about a marriage between them; she accepted, and an agreement was made for her to come to him as soon as he should return from Rome, one condition of this marriage being that he should divorce Aretas's daughter. So when he had made this agreement, he sailed to Rome; but when he had finished there and returned again, his wife, having discovered the agreement he had made with Herodias, and before he knew that she knew of the plan, asked him to send her to Machaerus, a place on the border between the territories of Aretas and Herod, without informing him of any of her intentions.

Accordingly Herod sent her there, thinking his wife had not perceived anything. But she had sent messages a good while before to Machaerus, which had been under the control of her father, and so all things necessary for her escape were made ready for her by the general of Aretas's army. By that means she soon came into Arabia, under the conduct of the several generals, who carried her from one to another successively; and soon she came to her father and told him of Herod's intentions.

Aretas made this the start of his enmity toward Herod. He also had a quarrel with him about their boundaries in the area of Gabalis. So they raised armies on both sides and prepared for war, sending their generals to fight instead of themselves. And when they had joined battle, all Herod's army was destroyed by the treachery of some fugitives who, though they were of the tetrarchy of Philip and joined the army, betrayed him. So Herod wrote about these affairs to Emperor Tiberius, who was very angry at the attempt made by Aretas and wrote to Vitellius to make war upon him and either to take him alive, and bring him in chains, or to kill him, and send him his head. This was the command that Tiberius gave to the governor of Syria. (Josephus, Antiquities 18.5.1 109-115)

[firstfloor]

Luke has a different purpose;

I agree that Luke has a different purpose. That is why he has come up with a different version of the story. The different reasons for the basket escape are not additive in the way you suggest. If you ask what Paul was escaping from you get two different complete answers. The possibility of there being other factors at play is not mentioned by either author. If you do add the two versions together you end up with a third version with is not in either account.

[RBerman]

I agree that Luke has a different purpose. That is why he has come up with a different version of the story. The different reasons for the basket escape are not additive in the way you suggest. If you ask what Paul was escaping from you get two different complete answers. The possibility of there being other factors at play is not mentioned by either author. If you do add the two versions together you end up with a third version with is not in either account.

I see no reason to suppose that he "has come up with a different version of the story," as if his work were a fabrication rather than the careful historical work it purports to be. Indeed, it would be remarkable for two accounts of the same event, written for different purposes, to emphasize all the same points.

You skipped most of my post, though. What do you think about Josephus' account in light of my quotation of him? What do you think about the Acts record of persecution prior to 60AD? What do you think about the issue of anti-Semitism?

[RBerman]

True. You also have no basis to say he hid in a basket so as not to test God by leaving openly. Like Sean said, it's more likely that Paul acted in obeisance to his primal instinct to live. Paul had nothing to fear whether he was hiding in baskets or walking toward his attackers. He was appointed to complete a task.

Nor would it be wrong to follow common sense and eschew the more dangerous path unless necessary. The point is that it would not have been a lack of faith for Paul to take the safer path, all other things being equal.

[Paprika]

[robrecht]

http://www.youtube.com/user/EisenmanLecture

I won't have time to read this thread for a while, but did want to let you know that a friend of mine did his doctoral work under Eisenman. I have read a little bit of his stuff, and know a little more indirectly through my friend. He seems like a brilliant guy, in the sense of coming up with some very creative interpretations, and even if only a fraction of them were right, that would be quite an accomplishment, but he is in no way in the mainstream of critical scholarship with respect to his theory of the relationship of the first Christians with Qumran or about James as the Beloved Disciple in the fourth gospel. I started to watch the first video you posted in the other thread and noted that he was making some careless errors, I think mainly because he is primarily interested in his own theory. Personally, I like the idea of James being ultimately behind the idea of the Beloved Disciple, but it is only one hypothesis among several others, none of which can be proven. I also agree with him about how Qumran texts can be more useful toward understanding the earliest Christians than is oftentimes acknowledged by other critical scholars, but his identifications are way too specific in my opinion. His brilliance can be enlightening even when he is wrong.

[firstfloor]

You skipped most of my post, though. What do you think about Josephus' account in light of my quotation of him? What do you think about the Acts record of persecution prior to 60AD? What do you think about the issue of anti-Semitism?

Still reading and researching. I will come back to it.

[whag]

In that "average man" case, you are correct.


Paul being the apostle to the gentles nullifies any danger. Even if his pursuers found him in the basket, Paul wasn't in danger.


His life was never in peril in any case, though he perceived it was. That's interesting.