source of Paul's conversion story

by peacefulpete 17 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  peacefulpete

  Recalling the Acts 19 version of Saul/Paul's conversion we might be surprised of a striking parallel in 2 Maccabees 3, which tells of a man named Heliodorus, sent by a foreign king to plunder the Jerusalem temple. :

  " 24 When he arrived at the treasury with his bodyguard, then and there the Sovereign of spirits and of all authority caused so great a manifestation that all who had been so bold as to accompany him were astounded by the power of God, and became faint with terror. 25 For there appeared to them a magnificently caparisoned horse, with a rider of frightening mien; it rushed furiously at Heliodorus and struck at him with its front hoofs. Its rider was seen to have armor and weapons of gold. 26 Two young men also appeared to him, remarkably strong, gloriously beautiful and splendidly dressed, who stood on either side of him and flogged him continuously, inflicting many blows on him. 27 When he suddenly fell to the ground and deep darkness came over him, his men took him up, put him on a stretcher.
  

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  The man who a moment before had entered that treasury with a great retinue and his whole bodyguard was carried away helpless, having clearly experienced the sovereign power of God.

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  While he lay speechless and deprived of all hope of aid, due to an act of God's power,

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  the Jews praised the Lord who had marvelously glorified his holy Place; and the temple, charged so shortly before with fear and commotion, was filled with joy and gladness, now that the almighty Lord had manifested himself.

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  Soon some of the companions of Heliodorus begged Onias to invoke the Most High, praying that the life of the man who was about to expire might be spared.

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  Fearing that the king might think that Heliodorus had suffered some foul play at the hands of the Jews, the high priest offered a sacrifice for the man's recovery.

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  While the high priest was offering the sacrifice of atonement, the same young men in the same clothing again appeared and stood before Heliodorus. "Be very grateful to the high priest Onias," they told him. "It is for his sake that the Lord has spared your life.

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  Since you have been scourged by Heaven, proclaim to all men the majesty of God's power." When they had said this, they disappeared.

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  After Heliodorus had offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made most solemn vows to him who had spared his life, he bade Onias farewell, and returned with his soldiers to the king.

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  Before all men he gave witness to the deeds of the most high God that he had seen with his own eyes.

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  When the king asked Heliodorus who would be a suitable man to be sent to Jerusalem next, he answered:

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  "If you have an enemy or a plotter against the government, send him there, and you will receive him back well-flogged, if indeed he survives at all; for there is certainly some special divine power about the Place.

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  He who has his dwelling in heaven watches over that Place and protects it, and he strikes down and destroys those who come to harm it."

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  This was how the matter concerning Heliodorus and the preservation of the treasury turned out.

  Notice that in both cases a divine agent was sent ot protect his worship by blocking the passage of an enemy. And note also the mention of traveling companions who are also overcome and the main character's falling to the ground apparently weak and blind. Also in both stories the would be persecuter was assited by a pious worshiper and converted and commisioned to be a preacher to all men for this new god.

  Another detail in the Acts story is the warning not to try to fight the divine calling it "kicking against the goads". In another thread It was demonstrated that Luke was apparently utilizing a motif from Greek literature, wherein the gods warn an opposer not to work against them using this very expression. Other literary links have been made specifically to Euripides' Bacchae.
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  Leolaia

  I would say that there is no direct literary dependence in terms of verbal similarities but the story of Heliodorus' punishment and conversion in 2 Maccabees may well lie in the mind of the author of Luke-Acts as providing a number of narrative motifs in the story of Saul's Christophany, or the author may have in mind other similar Hellenistic stories that circulated at the time. Joseph and Asenath, for instance, also bears some thematic and verbal similarities to the story of Paul's conversion: a "great and unutterable light appeared" to Asenath (14:2), a "man from heaven" descended and addressed her as "Asenath, Asenath" (compare Jesus saying "Saul, Saul" in Acts 19:4), Asenath asks "Who is he that calls me?" in v. 5 (compare Saul asking, "Who are you, Lord?"), the angel identifies himself as "I am the chief of the house of the Lord" (cf. "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting) in v. 7 and then gives her instructions to "get up and stand on your feet" (cf. "Get up" in Acts 19:11), and then gives her instructions to go to a certain place ("Proceed unhindered into your second chamber" in Joseph and Asenath 14:12, "Get up and go to the street called Straight and to the house of Judas" in Acts 19:11).
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  peacefulpete

  This all seems de ja vu. I mean that we've discussed this before. Anyway the question then begs why does mainstream scholarship try to accomodate this story as if historical? Even secular minded scholars have attempted to interpret the legend as some seizure or natural phenom understood as a vision by Paul. Thanks for this valuable comment, I get anxious for replies.
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  Leolaia

  I think the seizure theory is based more on Paul's own writings than on Acts, and I agree that the story of the vision should not be pushed too far as historical, tho 2 Corinthians 12 suggests that Paul was prone to such visions, and it is possible that Luke took the bare tradition that Paul's conversion involved a Christophany (cf. the report of a Christophany in 1 Corinthians 15:8, and Galatians 1:13-17 which refers to an abrupt conversion, cf. eutheós "immediately" in v. 17, and a direct calling by God involving an apokalupsai "revealing" of the Son) and composed a haggadaic story describing the event in detail by drawing on traditional conversion stories involving angelophanies and theophanies....
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  peacefulpete

  The History channel (wink wink) had a big program on Paul some months ago. What disturbs me most is the presentation as "scholarly" and "scientific" when in reality all it is is supposition and secularization. How ironic that those who claim to reprewsent the voice of reason and sobriety are often just as gullible as those they mock.
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  Leolaia

  I think a litmus test on such a program about Paul would be whether it probes at all into what "the other side" has to say about him, such as in the Pseudo-Clementines (e.g. in the Ascents of James or the Epistula Petri), or the Jewish-Christian view of Paul's antinomianism as reflected in James or Matthew.
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  peacefulpete

  I'm going to post some stuff on Paul and his presentation of himself a manifestation of the Christ this morning. Please read and weigh in.
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  LittleToe

  Why must there just be one archetype?

  Isn't there any latitude for a variety of people to have similar experiences?
  (and you'll note here that I'm not specifically commenting on any particular "theory", be it seizure or otherwise).
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  peacefulpete

  LT as Leolaia pointed out there is a larger body of material from which the basic storyline emerged. Likely the author of Acts filled in the simple claim of vision and commission in Gal with his imagination, an imagination primed with familiar images of divine intervention. So yes there was likely not just one archetype.
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  Leolaia

  Another possibility is that Paul experienced his vision or subsequently recalled his own vision according to the popular narrative plot of visionary epiphanies. There's been a lot of recent work in psychology and in poststructuralist studies of identity formation that describes how we construct our own past and memories of our past through narrative structure -- and indeed even during experiences we may impose an already existing narrative frame in order to make sense of them. One good example is that of alien abductions, which as a narrative trope did not exist before the mid-1960s but subsequently developed in the popular culture a whole complex plot and motifs that become integrated into the stories people tell of their own personal experiences. The same process occurs among more mundane matters as well. If a person starts believing that he/she has a particular psychological condition that he/she previous did not know existed, he/she will start remembering the past in light of this condition and memories of former events may be instilled with new symbolic significance and the person may then construct a new life-story that reflects this newly-discovered condition with distinctive narrative elements. Or even the stories we tell our loved ones at the dinner table of our day's events are organized most often in narrative form and incorporate features that derive not from the actual experience but from the narrative form itself. The story of Paul's conversion could have been invented by the author of Luke-Acts on the basis of existing narrative forms, or it could have circulated previously built on similar motifs -- and even Paul could have remembered his own experience in a form that reflects existing narratives of epiphanies.