Where was Paul's pre-call/conversion persecution of the early Christians centred, Jerusalem or Damascus? Acts, of course, provides the basis for the traditional answer: Paul's activities were centred in Jerusalem, but not exclusively so (cf. Acts 26.11, and, of course, the whole Damascus road episode). However, this conviction has been challenged by John Knox, among others. He formulated this well-known principle to support his case:
"[A] fact only suggested in the letters has a status which even the most unequivocal statement of Acts, if not otherwise supported, cannot confer. We may, with proper caution, use Acts to supplement the autobiographical data of the letters, but never to correct them." Chapters in a Life of Paul, rev. ed., p. 19.
Knox regarded the traditional view of the locale of Paul's persecution as one of the most egregious examples of harmonizing Paul with Luke (Chapters, 21-25). He suggests that Damascus was the centre for Paul's activity and that he persecuted Christians in his own synagogue there. He draws primarily on the statements in Gal. 1.17, 22-23, where after recounting the revelation of God's Son to/in him, Paul says, "nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. ... I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; they only heard it said, 'The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.'"*
That Paul "returned to Damascus" and was unknown "by face" to the Judaean churches suggests that Damascus was home to him and that it was the location of the hostile activities spoken of in 1.13-14. If the Judaean churches did not know Paul "by face" (his appearance?), then he could not have persecuted them. Moreover, in the first two chapters of Galatians, Jerusalem is merely a place that Paul "visits." Add to this the well-known problems with Luke's account and it becomes clear that Luke is in error.
This essentially is the case for Damascus.
Many scholars find it convincing. Do you?
I will post later on the Pauline case for Jerusalem and, then, offer some thoughts toward an evaluation.
*I've not yet figured out how to post Greek fonts; when I do, the Greek text will be included.
2 comments:
So then Paul was in Jerusalem to get letters from the high priest in support of his persecution of the Christians (yes, I said Christians) in Damascus? Perhaps that helps explain why in Acts 8 he seems to have been little more than an observer at Stephen's murder, rather than a participant. That always struck me as enigmatic: if Paul was actively persecuting Christians in Jerusalem, why does he take such a passive role in that passage. I like it.
Good point about Paul's passivity. The episode has also struck others as being unsual. A couple of other explainations for Paul's role are that 1) Paul really had nothing to do with Stephen's persecution, or 2) he had more to do with it than Luke suggests. Knox, by the way, would opt for the former alternative. He thinks, in fact, that the tradition of Paul obtaining letters from the high priest is an attempt to account "for a strange fact [in Luke's narrative]--the conversion of a Jerusalemite Jew in Damasus [sic]" (Chapters, 24). Knox is skeptical of any tradition in Acts placing Paul in Jerusalem before his conversion.
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