False memory is a real phenomenon and plagues child abuse prosecution in too many cases. We all do it of course. Acts has a literary flare that permiates the entire work. It seems unwaranted to suggest that in this one instance it's author was concerned about accurately depicting pauline tradition. Especially when he seems to not be familair with Gal version or not worried about contradicting Paul's 'recollection.'
source of Paul's conversion story
by peacefulpete 17 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Narkissos
Very good points. I think there is no such thing as a "pure" or "unformalised" experience: every "personal experience" of ours is preceded by an endless succession of narratives and we transform it into narration while we live it and thereafter, each time we (or others) tell it.
When I began drifting from the WT master narrative I first fit my experience into the WT "anointed" pattern; when I later associated with other churches I partly made it fit with the "born again" pattern; when I was in contact with other texts I could also make it fit into a wider "mystic" or "psychological" pattern. Have I been cheating, and when have I? Always and never, no more and no less than anyone else I guess.
Back to the Pauline issue, I also think that the narrative patterns in 2 Maccabees or Joseph and Aseneth are essential to the general story of Acts (which by the way is related thrice in slightly different terms, with no effort for consistency). And I suspect that most of the clearest references to it in the epistles (Philippians, Galatians, Ephesians, or the Pastorals) might not be by Paul himself either (perhaps 2 Corinthians 12, which involves some reluctance to tell, is an exception). But what does that change? Any story belongs to those who tell and hear it, transforming it along the way, and whatever "truth" is in it, at least just as behind it.
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LittleToe
Pete:Though there is also the possibility that he had an experience of his own, yes? Surely our minds aren't closed to the possibility?
Leo:
Are you suggesting that by means of interacting on this forum we may all have reinterpretted our experiences with the WTS in a negative light, and that the reality is not as bad as we all imagine?Didier:As you know, my course has been similar to your own, though I don't know how much experimental mysticism you dabbled with.
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AK - Jeff
All of this is high-sounding and philosophical. And I respect the hard work and thinking that has shaped individual's thinking, but couldn't Paul's conversion story be just Paul's conversion story? Why does it have to have roots in something else at all?
Certainly throughout history, millions of persons have had life experience that is similar or even perhaps nearly identical to others. Sometimes the person may be aware of that similarity, other times perhaps not. Does this make the later persons' experience just a reconstructed recounting of another's experience?
Just wondering - no judgement of anyone's opinion
Jeff
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Leolaia
AK_Jeff...No, sensory experiences are real experiences, and whatever Paul went through may have been similar to what certain others have gone through. But we have no objective means of evaluating what he experienced. All we have is a third-hand report which conforms to a broader narrative form for such experiences. It is possible that such a report reflects an earlier first-hand report, but just because it conforms to a certain literary form doesn't mean there wasn't a real experience that occasioned the story. What I mean is that recalling an experience, telling it to others as a story, is a narrative act, and one which casts unfiltered raw experience into a particular narrative form that is legible to others, and may include other motifs and standard cliches for the sake of authenticity, because they are what are expected, and so forth -- and this is not necessarily a deceptive strategy, it occurs unconsciously and we do it all the time.... and it doesn't even have to only occur later on, but even during the experience itself, we tend to interpret what's going on on the basis of already-existing narratives, comparing it with what has happened before to others. But as PP points out, the more likely possibility in the case of Acts, is that the author invented a story on the basis of earlier narratives in the same genre. This is because the author shows heavy reliance on pre-existing written material, such as Josephus and Homer's Oddysey, to compose other stories about the secular officials or Paul's shipwreck....
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LittleToe
Leo:
But as PP points out, the more likely possibility in the case of Acts, is that the author invented a story on the basis of earlier narratives in the same genre. This is because the author shows heavy reliance on pre-existing written material, such as Josephus and Homer's Oddysey, to compose other stories about the secular officials or Paul's shipwreck....
Why is it more likely?
Further, have I missed the Oddysey link???
(just trying to understand the viewpoint)
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Leolaia
Because it would fit into a larger pattern of literary inventiveness (like the speeches) and because the story can only be clearly provenanced to the author of Acts?
I think a good parallel would be the case of the shipwreck story. We had some threads last year that explored how it was dependent on the Iliad and the Odyssey, and this includes not just the events related but to the very literary form -- such as the use of pronouns and diction. We know that Paul did experience shipwrecks from his apologia in 2 Corinthians, but the present literary form of the story in Acts owes a lot to pre-existing literary forms -- just how much is hard to say, yet one wonders how much of the actual historical event would the author have known if he depended so much on fictional literary forms (the same goes for the narratives in the Gospels)....
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peacefulpete
backing up we also seek an expalnation for the impossibilities and contradictions in the reported conversion of Paul. A year or so we discussed the likelyhood of a "Pharisee" taught by Gamaliel (the Greatest Pharisee teacher) being sent on a mission to arrest Christians by a Saducean High Priest that hated Pharisees. Paul in one place claiming to be a Pharisee from birth and from a family of Pharisees yet claiming also to have been a Roman citizen by birth, which required sacrifices to Caesar. His claiming to have been from Jerusalem and from Tarsus. His calling himself a Hebrew in one verse but a Jew in another. (might be minor but odd inconsistancy if by the same hand) His seeming misinformation about Pharisee doctrine and tolerance. The problems with where and when his conversion took place, and the role of Ananias (denied in Gal). It is true what Narkisssos said, it may be that little of what Gal said is his own as well. Philipians calling himself a Hebrew of Hebrews and insolent persecutor sounds more like later harmonization with Acts or gloss from Jewish Christian taking paul down a notch.