Ethnarch of King Aretas? the legendary Damascus basket case

[spin]

So now the author of 2 Corinthians 11:32 used the wrong term for the commander in charge of a Nabatean city? And how exactly do you know this? Yes, under Aretas a city military commander would likely have been termed a στρατηγος (strategos).

Martin Hengel, Paul Between Damascus and Antioch: The Unknown Years, 130,

• Had the city been handed over to Aretas IV, the ethnarch would have been the royal governor in the city. However, in that case one would have expected the titles strategos or epitropos and not ethnarches. We find Nabataean strategoi in various significant cities in the kingdom, including Hegra.

The term στρατηγος is well attested in the Greek translations of old testament books (1 Sam; 1 & 2 Chr; 1 Esdras; Neh; Est; Jdt; Job; Jer; Eze; Dan; Luk (2x); and Acts (8x)), and 1-4 Macc; yet the author of 2 Cor 11:32 was too stupid to recognize this and ignorantly used the term for a kind of semi-autonomous ethnic ruling figure attested by Josephus, Philo, Strabo and Lucian [Lucian (Macrobioi, xvii.) speaks of an ethnarch Asandros made king of the Bosphorus by Augustus]?

Christ this stuff is juvenile. Either you argue that the ethnarch was a position that related to an ethnos or you don't. Nobody's got a bum big enough to ride two horses at the same time. If you want to talk about a governor, rather than a leader of an ethnos, fine, but you were arguing contrarily previously.

Then again, maybe the author of 2 Cor 11:32 simply meant what he said, and not what he did not.

You could be right. But this whole post seems to me to be another irrelevance, given your stated position earlier.

Obviously, Aretas wasn't in Damascus. But then, the word for governor in such a case is strategos (στρατηγος).

One generalizes when one knows it is appropriate to do so.

[spin]

You've been asked several times to explain the following assertions:

Damascus was in the tetrarchy of Philip which Caligula gave to Agrippa I.

spin Sat Oct 26, 2013 3:29 pm wrote:
Umm, it [Damascus] was, as part of Philip's territory, a direct Roman possession after the death of Philip and before Caligula gave it to Agrippa I.

And here you'll see that I discovered I didn't have the evidence for the view and stopped asserting it.

As I know for a fact that you cannot produce an original source stating that Damascus was ever a possession of either Zenodorus or Philip, are you seriously going to justify this by a general appeal to geography?

As I've already dealt with Philip, ie I no longer subscribe to the opinion, and I never asserted that Zenodorus had possession of Damascus, are you really telling me that yet again you're making another unfounded opinion call? You can read my Wiki article on Zenodorus, if you still want to put words into my mouth on Zenodorus.

Hitti, among others, outlines the ancient trade route and that was fairly through Philip's territory, ie to get from Bostra to Damascus you simply had to go through Philip's territory, unless you wanted to go way out of your way, out into the Arabian desert.

The territory of Zenodorus in Trachonitis went to Herod and then to Philip. You connect the dots: Petra, Bostra, Trachonitis, Damascus.

Or take it from Philip K. Hitti (History of Syria Including Lebanon and Palestine, Gorgias Press, 2002, 289)

A great longitudinal road crossed it, the Via Maris of the Romans, the King's Highway of the Bible. This road ran from Damascus through Hawran to Gilead, Moab and on southward to join the Arabian caravan route. Going back to the late second millennium B.C. this principal road of Transjordan was paved by Trajan....And of course Hawran is Philip's Auranitis.

[Solo]

If the passages in Acts and 2 Corinthians show literary dependence (one is paraphrasing the other) then there are several reasons for thinking that Acts is paraphrasing 2 Corinthians rather than vice versa.

1/ SARGANH in 2 Corinthians is a rare word SPURIS in Acts a common word. It is more likely that a rare word would be replaced by a common one than the other way round.
2/ In 2 Corinthians Paul narrowly escapes arrest. In Acts Paul narrowly escapes death. It is more likely that a retelling would increase Paul's danger than that it would reduce it.
3/ The author of Acts shows no interest in Paul''s relations with Arabia but emphasizes Paul's conflicts with his fellow Jews. It is plausible that Acts would replace a threat from the ethnatch of Aretas (a threat whose context was probably unclear to the author of Acts) with a threat from the Jews. It is unlikely that an interpolator in 2 Corinthians would invent a puzzling reference to a Nabatean ethnarch.

Andrew Criddle

Hi Andrew,
I beg to differ: In the choice of word for 'basket', one could argue that the interpolator being aware that Paul was a learned man, he chose a 'rare' word rather than a common one. The unexplained interest of Aretas' etnarch in Paul might have been preferable to the interpolator to repeating the Jews' seeking to harm Paul, which was covered in verse 24 (possibly 25 also). There is however another important point to be made here. It is worth to remind ourselves that Paul's letters do not - except in this instance - propagate the idea, common in the later Pastorals and the Acts that the person of Paul generated interest among high officials and rulers. I would offer that the idea that Paul was proselytizing to a wide audience (not just to small groups of the spiritually mature, those who would be saints, etc.) itself points to a legendary portrait of the apostle which is of a later patristic provenance.

Best,
Jiri

[TedM]

If there is no reason to assume it is a 'special case', then I have no problem with generalizing. I would say it is as acceptable to do so as it is to not do so. While my response was somewhat sarcastic, to the extent that you really do have this mindset, it is sincere. It has to be very difficult not being able to make any reasonable assumptions without absolute proof. Difficult in the sense of 'frustrating'.

As all our substantive information about ethnarchs seems to relate to the Jews and the descriptions, if you read them, seem to make the situation of Jews out to be a special case, generalization from the Jewish information, as I implied, inappropriate.

Spin, are any of the sources non-Jewish? If not, shouldn't that be considered? Should we really expect Josephus or Philo to be very interested in non-Jewish groups with ethnarchs? Do these Jewish authors explain why their Jews are so special as to have received ethnarchs while the non-Jewish neighbors did not? It seems to me that in the absence of any non-Jewish commentary on the subject and in the absence of commentary by Jews to clarify the situation it makes MORE sense to assume that whatever the Romans did for the Jews they were likely to have done for other 'nations'. If not, I'm open to at least one good reason.

[TedM]

Give me a break. This passage is obviously an interruption of the original train of thought - i.e. that Paul was greater than Peter and the rest of the apostles.

I disagree. I won't get into a long discussion on this but I read 2 Cor Ch 10-12 carefully tonight, and 1 Cor 9, and I find this passage you mention to be completely in context. The only thing slightly out of place is the Aretas verse, as though he remembered to mention his very first humbling suffering for Christ as an afterthought. All else flows nicely. Your comment that the false apostles he was comparing himself to included Peter is not corroborated in this passage. While it is a possibility it is not in keeping with what he wrote in 1 Cor about Cephas. It may be that the passages you have read from Iraenaeus etc, shed further light I am unaware of her, but to me what you see as 'obvious' is IMO the opposite. The passage bears many signs of authenticity and would have required a strange interpolator to mix in the information the way it was done--some agreeing with Acts, some not, and specific details with such passion.

You think this piss is champagne? Give me a break.

I think you are pissing on the champagne.

[spin]

If there is no reason to assume it is a 'special case', then I have no problem with generalizing. I would say it is as acceptable to do so as it is to not do so. While my response was somewhat sarcastic, to the extent that you really do have this mindset, it is sincere. It has to be very difficult not being able to make any reasonable assumptions without absolute proof. Difficult in the sense of 'frustrating'.

As all our substantive information about ethnarchs seems to relate to the Jews and the descriptions, if you read them, seem to make the situation of Jews out to be a special case, generalization from the Jewish information, as I implied, inappropriate.

Spin, are any of the sources non-Jewish? If not, shouldn't that be considered? Should we really expect Josephus or Philo to be very interested in non-Jewish groups with ethnarchs? Do these Jewish authors explain why their Jews are so special as to have received ethnarchs while the non-Jewish neighbors did not? It seems to me that in the absence of any non-Jewish commentary on the subject and in the absence of commentary by Jews to clarify the situation it makes MORE sense to assume that whatever the Romans did for the Jews they were likely to have done for other 'nations'. If not, I'm open to at least one good reason.

Could I ask, instead you of interrogating me to get information, that you actually do some research in order to answer your own questions? A lot of the primary sources regarding ethnarchs have already been cited earlier in this thread. Once you're up to speed, you can interact with the evidence and criticize others' use of it.

[TedM]

Could I ask, instead you of interrogating me to get information, that you actually do some research in order to answer your own questions? A lot of the primary sources regarding ethnarchs have already been cited earlier in this thread. Once you're up to speed, you can interact with the evidence.

NO. What I saw was 2 Jewish sources and no non-Jewish ones. That's why I asked. I won't read it again. Good night.

[spin]

Could I ask, instead you of interrogating me to get information, that you actually do some research in order to answer your own questions? A lot of the primary sources regarding ethnarchs have already been cited earlier in this thread. Once you're up to speed, you can interact with the evidence.

NO. What I saw was 2 Jewish sources and no non-Jewish ones. That's why I asked. I won't read it again. Good night.

Hmm, see any problems with generalizing from the data yet?

[stephan happy huller]

It is an incredibly interesting discussion. I kept telling the other thread keep certain people out and there's more room for the conversation to grow. Thanks Pete. Even if you did cut my Meatballs reference

[maryhelena]

It is an incredibly interesting discussion. I kept telling the other thread keep certain people out and there's more room for the conversation to grow. Thanks Pete. Even if you did cut my Meatballs reference

Yep, an interesting topic - but the major participants don't seem to have moved further from their positions of 4 years ago. Pity the FRDB thread is not available to link to: "Aretas and Damascus split from Paul absolutely aware of Gospels." This thread, however, seems to be running longer. Old thread went to 16 pages and 156 posts - at least that's what I've got. As of now, this thread stands at 20 pages and 198 posts....