What We Assume About Early Christianity
Here is an excerpt:
. . . . Acts might well be called “From Jerusalem to Rome: The Story of Paul’s Triumph.” Luke is anxious of course to show great harmony between Peter and Paul, and even a kind of tacit agreement of James, the brother of Jesus, whom Luke has to relunctantly (sic) admit was the leader of the Jesus movement at that time. In fact the “kerygma” or “preaching” of the apostles according to Luke, as reflected in Peter’s speeches in Acts 2:22-38 and 3:11-26, is pure “Paulinism” in terms of its basic parameters–that Christ was sent from God as Messiah, that he died for the sins of mankind, that he was raised from the dead, and that he has ascended to heaven, soon to return as apocalyptic Judge.I would like to comment on a few things here. I agree about the way that Luke brings James on to the scene to offer "a kind of tacit agreement". Luke's portrait of James is quite odd, like that of a major historical character playing a minor role in the drama. It's like Hamlet in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead but more so. Indeed, it is worth noting that Luke never even identifies James as the brother of Jesus. We know that he is not James the son of Zebedee, who dies in Acts 12, but otherwise the reader unacquainted with other early Christian sources like Galatians 1-2 would have no idea who this character was.
I have a couple of qualms, though, about the characterization of the preaching of the apostles in Acts 2 and 3 as pure "Paulinism", and from two different angles. First, and following Käsemann, Conzelmann et al, I can't help thinking that there is something very odd going on with the theologia crucis (theology of the cross) in Luke-Acts. The thing conspicuously absent from those early Acts sermons is any declaration that "Christ died for our sins". This is a really striking fact, all the more striking given the absence of Mark 10.45 (the "ransom for many" saying) in Luke.
My second qualm relates to the idea that things like "Christ died for our sins" are pure Paulinism. If there is one thing we do know from those "dark ages" of 30-50CE, it is that the earliest Christian preaching, which Paul gave to the Corinthians as of first importance, and which had been handed on to him, placed at its heart Jesus the Messiah's death for his people's sins according to the Scriptures, his burial, and his resurrection according to the Scriptures. Paul is pretty clear in 1 Corinthians 15.1-3 that this key material was traditional. On this, one of my favourite articles is Jeff Peterson, "The Extent of Christian Theological Diversity: Pauline Evidence", Restoration Quarterly 47 (2005): 1-12 [PDF], which I have mentioned on a previous occasion.
Peter's speeches in Acts 2 and 3 are actually about as un-Pauline as one can get and still be in the first century. Paul's one mention of Jesus' davidic association looks like a foreign body, but that association is central to what Peter says in Acts 2, and the Mosaic or Elijianic dimensions of the speech in Acts 3 have no counterpart in Paul. And it is certainly meaningless to refer to the kerygma as "Pauline" when one considers just how universal it apparently was in the first-century church.
ReplyDeleteJack Poirier
Thank you for your response and your question, James.
ReplyDeleteAs for the historicity of Acts 1-14, I can only say that I fall somewhere within the broad range between a Martin Hengel, who thinks we can fill a lot of the details "between Jesus and Paul", and a Burton Mack, who even thinks that the idea of the church beginning in Jerusalem is a Lukan invention. I know that isn't helpful, so let me just say that while I have my doubts about narrative details and chronology from the first half of Acts, and while I accept that Lukan theology leaves its stamp (particularly in Acts 2), I am convinced that the bulk of the so-called missionary speeches is not only pre-Lukan but pre-Pauline as well. That is not to say that these speeches began their form-critical existence *as* missionary speeches, or even that Luke found them in that form, but simply that they embody some very early theological formulations. (John A. T. Robinson found Acts 3 to contain "the earliest christology of all".)
Jack Poirier
I suppose a basic bare bones outline of history in Acts 1-14 is possible thanks to Paul. Paul was 'converted' and there were major figures in Jerusalem would be a couple of obvious ones. Maybe we can guess that Stephen was martyred, even if the speech was more of less invented. Ultimately, I don't know how all the Acts stuff, especially the speeches, can come close to being verified because we lack anything seriously independent in most cases. In terms of a narrative history, perhaps it is tempting to go for general themes that we can roughly work out (which seems what all three of you are doing in these comments)?
ReplyDeleteAlso there is the problem that Luke doesn't know when some of the stuff he writes was supposed to have actually happened. The chronology is very vague at times in the first half of Acts. This can be a problem for something like Peter's vision. I can see this possibly going back to a historical core or at least a pre-Lukan tradition - esp. as the vision itself doesn't refer to gentiles (contrast Acts 10.27-28). Even though Luke may well have substantially re-written this tradition, let's assume for the moment that there is a historical core. When would we locate it?
This is important for James' overall argument on his blog because even if there is history we don't know with any certainty when it happened and this by itself undermines (for modern historical reconstruction) the narrative history we have received from Luke as clearly theology takes pride of place in Luke's theological chronology. Yet the fact remains that Luke probably does not know when it happened or does not let us know when it happened....
So even the bare bones history is a problem. This one reason why I would favour a more generalising, broad brush explanatory approach to this period.
MARK
ReplyDeleteIf there is one thing we do know from those "dark ages" of 30-50CE, it is that the earliest Christian preaching, which Paul gave to the Corinthians as of first importance, and which had been handed on to him, placed at its heart Jesus the Messiah's death for his people's sins according to the Scriptures, his burial, and his resurrection according to the Scriptures. Paul is pretty clear in 1 Corinthians 15.1-3 that this key material was traditional.
CARR
One other thing we do is that many early converts to Jesus-worship in Corinth scoffed at the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse from the grave.
Paul still regarded them as Christians.
The Thessalonians also probably believed that the dead were lost.
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James Tabor says that Luke references Isaiah 53.
True , but he avoids quoting any verse which suggests any sort of ransom.
Surely there is a danger of being too subtle here.
ReplyDeleteAs a persecutor of Christians, Paul will have had at least some knowledge of Christ and Christians - bordering perhaps on obsession (hence his zeal). Around the time of Stephen's death the new sect may have been just about the hottest topic for any zealous scribe or purist Pharisee.
Add to this Paul's meetings with Peter ane James and 1 Cor 11, Gal 1 could easily belong in the same category as 1 Cor 15. It is an odd idea that Paul 'received from the Lord' accounts of historical events. But when eyewitnesses to those events are still alive, it's doubly odd. I don't think such a view of 1 Cor 11 can be defended, though AN Wilson and his ilk had a good try.
For me , Paul is a fictitious character created to promote the agenda that he does. I see his activities in Acts as substituted with changes for those of the leader of the original Christians (anointed ones?), namely James, the real traveller. I believe that the epistles in Paul's name are edited versions of what once were prophetic type documents of the Spirit written by James. Conveniently Paul disappears in Rome at the same time as James is killed in Jerusalem.
ReplyDeletegeoff.hudson@ntlworld.com
As for James being the head of the Jerusalem church, I doubt that. The 'church' of Acts 1,2 was more than likely in Rome where there were indeed large brick-built tenement houses (similar to those preserved in old Ostia) with up to five stories which could have accommodated Jews from every nation under heaven (Acts 2.5) in something like a ghetto. They 'went upstairs' (Acts 1.13) in the house in which they were staying - these folk were away from their usual homes. They were refugees fleeing persecution. The house could hold a group numbering about 120 (Acts 1.15). 'The whole house' of Acts 2.2 suggests a large house.
ReplyDeleteI further suggest that in Rome, James was chosen to replace Judas who had been executed in Judea. Judas had 'served as' their leader (Acts 1.16), not 'as guide for those who had arrested Jesus'.
Didn't one Judas have two sons by the names of James and Simon, apparently both executed, but I don't swallow that either. Were these two always together, but transmogrified into Paul and Peter?
Isn't it Didymus Judas Thomas? And aren't Didymus and Thomas essentially adjectives meaning twin. Thus we have Judas the twin. Who would then have been Judas's twin? My bet is Matthias the father of Josephus. If you recall, Matthias and Judas were involved together in the interpolated asynchronous account of the pulling down of the so-called 'eagle' from over the gate of the 'temple'.