Paul and Jesus

3. Most recently, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon (New York: HarperOne, 2009). A more conservative, but nonetheless critical treatment relying more on the letters of Paul than the book of Acts is that of Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).

4. An English copy of the New Testament, Revised Standard Version, with text only and no notes or references, runs 284 pages total. The thirteen letters attributed to Paul, plus the book of Acts, add up to 109 pages of the total—just over one-third.

5. See Bart Ehrman’s summary analysis “In the Wake of the Apostle: The Deutero-Pauline and Pastoral Epistles,” in The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 272–394.

6. “Chester Beatty Papyri,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1992), pp. 901–3.

7. Not only was the composition of such speeches common in Greek literary histories: it was in fact expected. Thucydides, in his History of the Peloponnesian war, says that he composed speeches according to “what was called for in each situation” (1.22.2). Josephus, a contemporary of the author of Acts, is a prime example; see Henry Cadbury, The Making of Luke-Acts (New York: Macmillan, 1927), and Arthur J. Droge and James D. Tabor, A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom Among Christians and Jews in Antiquity (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), pp. 53–112.

8. The letters of James and Jude might be exceptions, though many scholars question whether these two brothers of Jesus were part of the Twelve and others question the authenticity of the letters themselves. Few scholars consider the letters of 1 and 2 Peter as written by Peter. 1 Peter, in particular, is surprisingly “Pauline” in tone and content and fits nothing we know of Peter based on more reliable sources—including Paul’s genuine letters. The letters of John are not from John the fisherman, one of the Twelve, but from a later John, sometimes referred to as “John the Elder,” who lived in Asia Minor (see Eusebius, Church History 3.39.4–7).

9. Pirke Avot 2.3.

10. Jerome, De Virus Illustribus (PL 23, 646).

11. See Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life, pp. 1–5. The translation “ambassador,” found in the Revised Standard Version, is conjectural, with no manuscript support. It assumes the misspelling of the Greek word “ambassador” (presbeutes) as “elder” (presbytes), but “elder” is the reading in all our manuscripts. The New Revised Standard Version and New Jerusalem Bible correctly have “elder.”

12. Josephus, Jewish War 7.263–65. Josephus mentions John of Gischala often in his history of the revolt.

13. See Digest 48.6–7, a compendium of Roman law in The Digest of Justinian, edited by T. Mommsen, translated by A. Watson (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1985).

14. A comparison of Mark 13, sometimes called the “Synoptic Apocalypse,” or the “Little Apocalypse,” with Luke 21, which is the author’s rewriting of Mark, shows how the “end of the age” is indefinitely extended and no longer tied to the Jewish-Roman war of A.D. 66–70.

15. Translation by Wilhelm Schneemelcher, in Edgar Hennecke’s New Testament Apocrypha, edited by William Schneemelcher, translated by R. McL. Wilson, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965), p. 353.

16. Ignatius, Philippians 3:2.

17. See Eusebius, Church History 2.14.5–6 and 3.1.2. Eusebius says he is relying on Origen, an early-third-century Christian theologian.

18. An expanded legendary account is found in the apocryphal Acts of Peter 37–38.

* Quotations from the Bible throughout this book are taken from the Revised Standard Version (Old Testament, 1962; New Testament, 1971, editions) with some modifications by the author based on the original Hebrew or Greek.

INDEX

Page numbers beginning on 241 refer to endnotes.

Abba, 117–18, 143, 144

Abel, 192

Abraham, 109

Acts:

   1:3–4, 87

   1:9–10, 90

   1:13–14, 32

   1:21–26, 217

   1:22, 136

   2:38, 137

   4:36, 215

   5:33–39, 234

   5:36, 243

   7:54–8:1, 232

   9:1–19, 232

   9:11, 232

   9:20, 254

   9:26–28, 92

   9:27, 215

   9:30, 232

   10:1–2, 261

   11:22, 215

   11:25–26, 215

   11:25, 232

   11:26, 145

   12:1–2, 245

   13:15, 254

   13:16, 261

   13:26, 261

   13:43, 261

   13:45, 234

   13:50, 261

   15, 210

   15:13–21, 33

   15:19–20, 151, 262

   15:19–21, 261

   15:21, 254

   15:39, 216

   16:13–15, 257

   16:14, 261

   16:37, 232

   17:4, 261

   17:17, 261

   17:32, 61

   18:1–3, 263

   18:3, 232

   18:7, 261

   18:12, 234

   18:24–25, 137

   19:1–7, 138

   19:6, 258