Slides: Acts 15-16
Slide 1
Views:
Gal 2:1-10= Acts 11:30/12:25 (W.M. Ramsay, W.L. Knox)
Gal 2:1-10= Acts 15 (J.B. Lightfoot and others)
Gal 2:1-10 = both Acts 11 and 15 (2 sources recounting it differently)
Some reject Acts altogether (Gal 2:1-10 not either)
Gal 2:1-10 = Acts 15 + added elements
Slide 2
Favoring Acts 11:30
1. Paul would not have omitted the famine visit (Acts 11:30; 12:25) in Galatians
- No reason to mention in Galatians
- Emphasizing independence from apostles
. They may have been in hiding (12:2-3, 17)
. If delivered to elders, no reason to mention
Slide 3
2. Why not mention the decree?
- Not just in Galatians (regardless of date)
- Also true in 1 Corinthians and Romans, which surely postdate the Council
- Acts specifies the range of the decree to Syria- Cilicia
- Further from Jerusalem, appeal to first principles more valuable than to centralized authority
Slide 4
3. Too many discrepancies
Worse with 11:30/12:25!
- So brief that one can make comparisons only from silence
Nothing in common with 11:30/12:25 except that both Barnabas and Saul present- as also in Acts 15
Why ask them to remember poor (Gal 2:10) during a famine visit?!!
Slide 5
4. “Revelation” of Gal 2:2
Fits Acts 11:28-30
But “revelation” in Gal 1:12, 16 refer to Paul’s own encounter with Christ
Is it not his gospel that he is defending in Gal 2:1-10?
Slide 6
5. Allows for earlier date of Galatians
- Sounds more like it is from the period in Paul’s life as Romans (albeit somewhat earlier)- not 1-2 Thessalonians
In Acts 15, conflict had just reached Antioch (Acts 14:26-15:1)- but not yet Galatia
Thus decrees addressed only to Syria-Cilicia
Slide 7
6. Maybe Acts 15 revisits earlier subject
- Ockham’s Razor: simpler solution is that Gal 2 and Acts 14, which address the same topic, are the same visit
Slide 8
7. Gal 2:1-10 = Acts 15
1. Tutus (Gal 2:1-3)
- Paul mentions him as known to Galatians
- Probably Titus was Galatian
- Acts 11/12 was before Paul’s missionary journeys (Acts 13-14)
- Titus therefore probably not yet converted in Acts 11/12
Slide 9
8. Granted, some omissions
- But cannot argue from silence
- Luke knows Paul’s collection (24:17), but almost completely omits it as not relevant to his story
Fitzmyer:
- None of the differences is “significant enough to undermine the substantial agreement of the two reports”
- Multiple attestation
Slide 10
Returning to the Mission Field (15:35-41)
- God uses real- fallible- people
- Israelite literature reported failings of heroes even during epic period
- By now, standard for Greco- Roman biographers to admit heroes’ weaknesses
- God’s blessing
. on the new Paul- Silas team (15:40, cf. 16:37)
. not on dispute- so unlike the council in 15:22
Slide 11
16:1:
- Judeans: intermarriage invited God’s wrath
- Some Diaspora Jews less strict
16:3:
- Uncircumcised: Timothy’s Gentile probably forbade
- Jewish people view him as Gentile
16:4:
- Much of Phrygia in S. Roman province of Galatia
- N. Galatia less populated
- Doesn’t appear in Acts- or Galatians
Slide 12
16:6-7: forbidden
Asia (16:6)
- Major road W. to Roman Asia
Over against Mysia (16:7)
- Could turn right to Bithynia (in N), or left to Mysia, Asia (W)
Through Mysia (16:8)
- Proceeded NW through Mysia
- Troas was in NW Mysia
Slide 13
Troas:
- Alexandria Troas: maybe 100,000
- Roman colony
- Near old Troy
- Trojan War, Alexander: Greece invades “Asia”
- Now Asian faith spreading into Europe
Confusing guidance
- HS forbade: dream and interpretation
- Later could go to Asia
- Guidance mattered when beaten in Philippi
Slide 14
Philippi
16:11-40
16:11
mountainous Samothrace:
- Visible
- 1st port
- about ½ way
Neapolis:
- 1 or 2 best ports of south Macedonia (other was Thessalonica)
- directly serving Philippi
- 2- day voyage indicated favorable winds (contrast 20:6), probably from NE
- Except during winter, sea travel quicker and less expensive
- Moving perhaps 100 miles a day
Slide 15
Neapolis, Philippi’s port city (16:12)
- Philippi: c. 10 miles to NW across Mount Symbolum
- E. end of the Egnatian Way (W. was Adriatic port Dyrrhachium, from which one could sail to Italy)
- Philippi:
. proud Roman colony since 42 BC
. honorary citizens of Rome (Phil 3:20)
- More an agricultural than commercial center, unlike many urban areas Paul visited
- Thessalonica was Macedonia’s capital, but:
- Philippi a “first” city of the province—one of the most eminent there (alongside Thessalonica)
Slide 16
Place of prayer (16:13)
- In Diaspora, could = synagogue
- But no building here
- Maybe no quorum of 10 Jewish men
- At least pure place near water (excavations show importance)
- Ritual handwashing before prayer
Slide 17
River (16:13)
“River”
- Nearest: Gangites (a tributary of the Strymon): about 1¼ miles (over 2km) from Philippi
- Thus more than a “Sabbath day’s journey” by Pharisaic standards
- Some others think creek Krenides
“outside the city gate”: probably colonial archway, through which the Via Egnatia went out to Gangites
Slide 18
16:14
Women more open to Asian faiths
- Conservative Romans complained: women pursued E. religions
- Josephus: far more women than men followed Judaism
Religion and women:
- The one sphere where Greeks gave women any public responsibility
- Diana cult in Philippi
Macedonian women freer than Greek
Paul’s teaching women: Judeans would deem suspicious
Slide 19
Lydia from Thyatira (16:14)
“Lydia”
- Common name
- But esp. fits Thyatira in ancient Lydia
Thyatira: dyers-guilds and textiles
- Inscriptions: other Thyatiran business agents also sold purple dye in Macedonia
- Becoming prosperous (although most Macedonians were poor)
- Name and trade: maybe a freedwoman
- Many traders in purple dye: freedwomen working as agents of their former master’s businesses
Slide 20
16:15
By this period, women were sometimes engaged in business
Even slave women could become managers, just like slave men
Prob. wee-to-do as a seller of purple
- Luxury good for over 1000 years
- Murex shellfish, but maybe different in Macedonia
Well-to-do women:
- Sometimes patrons of religious associations
- Sometimes synagogue donors
Hospitality
- Paul maybe staying at inn till then
- Lydia’s hospitality patron (cf. 2 Kings 4:8-11; 1 Kings 17:13-24)
Apparently head of the household- perhaps mainly servants
Slide 21
Exorcisms and Economics
16:16-22
Slave girl
Cf. Peter’s critic (luke 22:56)
Contrast Rhoda (Acts 12:13)
Also cf. women proclaimers at tomb (Luke 24)
Cf. Lydia and her household
Paul initially does nothing
- Then he spiritually liberates her
- Worthiness to her masters afterward, so perhaps Lydia and others would physically liberate her
Slide 22
Spirit of a pythoness (16:16)
Delphic oracle of Apollo
Delphic priestess: pythoness
- Mantic: prophesied
- Famous (even Croesus)
- Virgin (young)
. contrast virgins of Acts 21
- Tripod; vapors?
- Priests interpreted- arranged wording
- After the “Pythian Apollo,” slayer of Python
- Cf. Lucan’s depiction of his possession
No minor demon here!
Slide 23
Most High God (16:17)
- “most High God”: common in Jewish texts
- but also pagan sources: Zeus or Jewish God
- Magic: supreme God (often = Jewish God) as most powerful
“Way of salvation”: later the jailor asks how to be “saved”
Slide 24
16:18
Exorcists often tried to use names of higher spirits to evict lower spirits (see 19:13)
But Paul uses Jesus’ name, as his agent (shaliach)
Slide 25
Spirits and spirit- possession
Slide 26
74% of societies
Have spirit possession beliefs- Bourguigon
88% in Pacific
77% around Mediterranean
Forms vary from one culture to another, but consistent psychophysiological substrate when trance states occur
Slide 27
Anthropologists typically define as:
“any altered state of consciousness indigenously interpreted in terms of the influence of an alien spirit”- Crapanzaro
Slide 28
Violent Behavior
Banging head, jumping into fire
Cutting themselves
Fire-walking or immunity to pain
Sometimes violent toward others
Slide 29
Occult phenomena
Many supposed cases may be merely personality disorders
But some more extreme:
- Objects moving without being touched, or flying through room
- Crucifix on wall fell, hot to the touch
Slide 30
Exorcism in anthropological literature
In some cultures, only cure for possession illness
Those who do not believe in spirits debate whether to accommodate local beliefs
Slide 31
Among Christians
E.g., 74% of Christians in Ethiopia claim to have witnessed exorcisms
My student Paul Mokake (Baptist from Cameroon):
- Woman writhed like serpent as “sea spirits” cast out
- Another case: blindness healed
Slide 32
Nepali pastor Mina KC
Three sisters mute for three years
Healed during exorcism
Slide 33
Robin Snelgar
Head of the department of Industrial Psychology at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth
Recounts his own former experience of an alien personality controlling him
Nothing effective until spontaneously exorcised through a Christian
Slide 34
Eusbarina Acosta Estevez
Invoking spirits: too sick to walk
Pastors prayed for her, 1988
Fell back, chairs around her thrown back
Severe heart and kidney malfunctions ended instantly
Slide 35
Reality of spirits?
Edith Turner
- Widow of Victor Turner
- Lecture in anthropology at the University of Virginia
- Editor of the journal Anthropology and Humanism
Witnessed “spirit substance” ejecting during Zambian ritual
Teachers her students to experience spirits
Slide 36
Anthropologist Solon Kimball
During fieldwork in Ireland, apparition began moving toward him
His hand went through it
Discovered later that many others had seen the same figure in the area at times independently
Slide 37
Globally
Most Majority World Christians accept the reality of spirits
Have convinced increasing number of Westerners
Our proper Enlightenment reaction to superstition threw out spirits altogether
A more critical approach is to look at evidence for each case
Slide 38
Psychiatrist Scott Peck
Most supposed “demons” are psychological problems
But he encountered two cases that could be explained only as demons
So William P. Wilson
- Professor emeritus of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center
And many others
Slide 39
David Van Gelder, professor of counseling
16-year-old, acting like animal
Crucifix fell from fall, nails melted
“You fools, he can’t say that!”
Cast out
But professionals present: not epilepsy, psychosis, etc
All agreed this was a real spirit