Paul was wealthy

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steve43
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Re: Paul was wealthy

Post by steve43 »

People were in good shape in those days.

They could really hoof it if they had to.

But this thread is getting silly.
PhilosopherJay
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Re: Paul was wealthy

Post by PhilosopherJay »

Hi Steve43,

The children were not in such good shape. Approximately 1/2 died before age 10. If you made it to 10, your life expectancy was another 35 or so years.

from http://www.innominatesociety.com/Articl ... 20Rome.htm
Death and Disease in Ancient Rome


Linda Gigante
Associate Professor of History
University of Louisville

When we think of ancient Rome, we imagine an imperial capital with impressive marble structures and luxurious dwellings. Indeed, at the height of the empire (around 150 CE) Rome was the largest city in the Mediterranean, with a population estimated at one million. Its metropolitan center was filled with awe-inspiring buildings, which proclaimed the power and glory of the Empire: her Coliseum, the Roman Forum, public bathes, and the monumental markets built by the emperor Trajan. Rome’s wealthiest residents lived in richly appointed homes located in the finest neighborhoods and commanding impressive views of the Tiber located in the finest neighborhoods an commanding impressive views of the Timber River. What we tend not to consider is the fact that this privileged life-style was enjoyed by only about 5% of rome's population, with the remaining 95% living at or below the poverty level.

Roman society was rigidly stratified, with slaves and freed slaves at the bottom of the social hierarchy. It is impossible to determine the number of slaves and urban poor living in Rome at any given time, but it must have been enormous. For these residents, live was anything but luxurious. Their neighborhoods were cramped, squalid, and dangerous. Instead of single-family dwellings (domus), the urban poor lived in high-rise (3-5 story) apartment buildings (insulae), which were, at best, equipped with communal latrines and water-fountains. It is estimated that in the early Empire apartment buildings in Rome outnumbered single-family dwellings by a ratio of 26:1. Because of overcrowding, poor sanitation, and generally poor nutrition, diseases were rampant among Rome’s urban masses whose life span was, consequently, very short.
Why do you think the thread is silly? I think it brings out a very problematic set of questions. Knowing the conditions of travel and who traveled in Roman society allows us to see Early Christians not as beggars, the poor or downtrodden, but as the wealthy elite of Roman society. That is why their literature deals so flippantly with real questions of survival that people faced everyday and instead deals with obscure academic questions of no interest to anybody, but the elite of Roman society.
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DCHindley
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Re: Paul was wealthy

Post by DCHindley »

Jay,

It is tricky to think in modern economic terms when dealing with ancient economies. Modern economies are much larger than those of city states, even when they were interconnected by trade. The word inflation is one of those modern terms. This is where Karl Marx (Capital, vol 1, 1867, vol 2, 1893, vol 3, 1894 ) erred in his analysis of the development of economics over time, but even he was reliant upon "classical" economists like Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, 1776) and John Stewart Mill (Principles of Political Economy, 1848).

For about a century now there has been a fierce debate over ancient economies. M I Rostovtzeff (The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, 2 vols, 1926), simply assumed that ancient Romans and Greeks were scientific industrialists engaged in market commerce to a degree that can be subject to macro-economic analysis. M I Finley (The Ancient Economy, 1973), didn't think the ancient city-states had anything resembling a modern market driven economy at all. W Scheidel & S von Reden (The Ancient Economy, 2002), thinks that the best one can hope to identify are relatively small local market economies possibly subject to micro-economic market analysis.

IIUC, most city level activity that we would today classify as economic was based on exchange value ("in kind," e.g., a portion of crops paid to the owner of the land the farmer leased, the artisan receiving rations in exchange for his production of newer, and better, artifacts, for his patrons). Even the introduction of coins made of silver, gold and electrum was done because they themselves could be melted and made into fancy artifacts for the delight of the rich. This coinage was primarily used to facilitate trade with other lands for luxury goods (spices, perfumes, exotic stuff) for the consumption of the elite class.

Coins could be melted down and the gold and silver used to make things that the elites wanted. Persian merchants who sold cargos of luxury goods in Sparta would buy goods to make the return trip with. Back home, the surplus in Spartan coins would be handed over to the Persian authorities, who melted them and struck Persian money, withholding a percentage as a fee for the conversion. Because elites have always taken delight in ornaments of silver and gold, the coins had utility value. So, the dilution of the silver content of the Roman denarius reduced the utility value of the coin proportionately.

Inflation is the result of a supply of money that exceeds the demand for it. That is not quite the same thing as reduction of utility value. By the time of Claudius II in 268 CE, a denarius was 5% silver, so could essentially buy about 1/20th of what a denarius of 64-68 CE (about 95-97% silver) could, based on utility value. So I'd take the number of denarii indicated in Orbis and multiply by 5% (or divide by 20) to determine the 1st century CE utility value.

DCH
PhilosopherJay wrote:Please keep in mind that the edicts were for the most that you could charge or pay for something. If you charged or paid any more, you would be put to death. This would indicate that the wage maximum was set at a point that Diocletian felt would trigger inflation. This does not mean that these were the average wages for the time.

The actual wages in Roman empire may have been only a fraction of the cap set by Diocletian's edict.
Bernard Muller
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Re: Paul was wealthy

Post by Bernard Muller »

Hi Jay,
You wrote:
Hi Bernard Muller,
In talking about wheat prices, Scheidel and Friesen note:
"The only thing we can be sure of is that actual prices varied quite significantly by region, being lowest in grain-exporting Egypt and highest in the capital."
Of course, you have to add up the cost of transportation, and the profits taken by ship owners and middle men.
What does that have to do with the cost of traveling by ship or afoot relative to the salaries of semi-skilled workers? Which shows that Paul did not have to get a lot of money from his converts in order to go on a trip (for him or his helpers).

Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
Bernard Muller
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Re: Paul was wealthy

Post by Bernard Muller »

Inflation is the result of a supply of money that exceeds the demand for it. That is not quite the same thing as reduction of utility value. By the time of Claudius II in 268 CE, a denarius was 5% silver, so could essentially buy about 1/20th of what a denarius of 64-68 CE (about 95-97% silver) could, based on utility value. So I'd take the number of denarii indicated in Orbis and multiply by 5% (or divide by 20) to determine the 1st century CE utility value.
However in 301 AD (the date of Orbis prices), the denarius had lost more of its value (and its silver) and from available data, its purchasing power was about 50 times less than in 64-68 CE.
For example, the argenteus replaced the denarius coins in 301 AD (argenteus = 50 denarii).
The denarius had 3.9 grams of silver in 64-68 and the argenteus came with 3.4 grams of silver.

Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
Bernard Muller
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Re: Paul was wealthy

Post by Bernard Muller »

Hi Jay,
You wrote,
Knowing the conditions of travel and who traveled in Roman society allows us to see Early Christians not as beggars, the poor or downtrodden, but as the wealthy elite of Roman society.
Who said all early christians were "beggars, the poor or downtrodden"?
Can you show there was no semi-skilled workers and well-to-do converts in the earliest Christian communities, like bakers, painters, sewer cleaners, carpenters, tent makers, scribes, etc? Those could easily finance trips by Paul or his helpers.
And who said the average Christians were travellers? Most likely not. But that does not mean that collectively they would not supply enough money to Paul and helpers for travelling.

Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
Bernard Muller
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Re: Paul was wealthy

Post by Bernard Muller »

The children were not in such good shape. Approximately 1/2 died before age 10. If you made it to 10, your life expectancy was another 35 or so years.
Jay, you are digressing again. Paul & helpers & other messengers (doing the walking) were not children, more so dead children.

Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
PhilosopherJay
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Re: Paul was wealthy

Post by PhilosopherJay »

Hi Bernard,

This is a second question that comes up closely related to the question of what economic class got to travel. Many other people who survived childhood would be rather sickly from childhood disease. We should not compare them to people raised under the conditions of modern medicine and healthcare. Even today, few people would be in any shape to hike mountainous terrain for ten or twenty days, 20 or 30 miles a day. I doubt if 75% of the adult population in industrialized countries could do it today. Probably 95% of the people of ancient Rome could not do it. The army could perhaps, but they were a trained elite.

We may suppose that in the First and Second centuries few people had the money, time and physical ability to take long trips. People who did would be greatly admired, like Odysseus and Alexander-the-Great. This is most likely the reason Paul's letters talk of long trips rather than it reflecting actual long trips.

Also, the actual trips are nowhere described in the letters. We may surmise that the writer/s of the epistles did not take long trips so he/they were unable to describe them, but simply attributed them to Paul.

We need to find the cost of a single long trip in the First century, before we can start comparing them to the costs of trips in Diocletian's time.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin
Bernard Muller wrote:
The children were not in such good shape. Approximately 1/2 died before age 10. If you made it to 10, your life expectancy was another 35 or so years.
Jay, you are digressing again. Paul & helpers & other messengers (doing the walking) were not children, more so dead children.

Cordially, Bernard
Bernard Muller
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Re: Paul was wealthy

Post by Bernard Muller »

Hi Jay,
Even today, few people would be in any shape to hike mountainous terrain for ten or twenty days, 20 or 30 miles a day. I doubt if 75% of the adult population in industrialized countries could do it today. Probably 95% of the people of ancient Rome could not do it.
How do you know? I saw short & skinny Nepalese porters hauling uphill 100 kg of steel (pegs for pedestrian suspended bridges) on their back for at least 5 to 10 days. And there were many other locals on the rough trails when I was there, some bringing their baby or a sick person for days to the nearest hospital. People in certain third world countries (like Ethiopia and Nepal) are more apt and used to walk long distance than in developed countries. And if you can walk 30 km for one day, with proper food and water, you can keep going like that for many more days. Walking does not required much energy, unlike running, and physical aptitude.
As far as mountainous terrain is concerned, it does not seem, according to Paul's epistles and Acts, that Paul or helpers had to through them often and for a long stretch. Most of the time, it was flat terrain. Furthermore, many, probably most, of Paul or helpers travels were by sea, not by land (because cities like Antioch, Ephesus, Troas, Philippi, Thessaloniki, Corinth & Rome were on or close to the sea and Paul did say he traveled by sea, surviving shipwrecks).
We may suppose that in the First and Second centuries few people had the money, time and physical ability to take long trips.
What make you believe Paul and helpers did not have the money (as raised from converts), time and physical abilities to take trips by boat or afoot? Are you still thinking someone needed to have a fortune to do trips?
We may surmise that the writer/s of the epistles did not take long trips so he/they were unable to describe them, but simply attributed them to Paul.
Why would Paul describe his trips in his letters? They were not meant to be travelogues.

Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
PhilosopherJay
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Re: Paul was wealthy

Post by PhilosopherJay »

Hi Bernard,

The life expectancy in Nepal is 68.73 years. The life expectancy in ancient Rome was around 20-30 years. One cannot assume the physical fitness of ancients was anywhere close to the the physical fitness of third world contemporary people.
In the 1896 Summer Olympics, Greek runners Kharilaos Vasilakos (3:18:00) and Ioannis Lavrentis (3:11:27) won the Marathon. In 2013, Wilson Kipsang, won the Berlin Marathon in 2:03.28. In 117 years the record was lowered by over an hour knocking off a full 1/3 of the time. Just as the physical abilities of athletes have improved drastically in the past hundred years, we must imagine that the physical abilities of average people have improved drastically over the last 2000 years.

We are still stuck with trying to find the actual cost of a long trip in the first century.

In rereading 1. Corinthians, I realized that I only included a single one way trip by Paul and a roundtrip by Timothy in the cost estimates. In fact, the writer describes a multitude of other trips which should be included in any cost estimate or analysis of the believability of such trips in the First century.

1.
1 Corinthian 1.11For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.
Chloe's people, at least two, must have made the between Corinth and Ephesus where Paul is writing from.
- The trip is 1472 kilometers by road and 455 kilometers by sea.
1. Chloe's people travel 2944 kilomers by road or 910 kilometers by sea to reach Paul

2.
1.4 thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius.

Paul says that he has already been to Corinth, allegedly planting the seed of the gospel. It is hard to know where Paul started from, but that would entail at least a trip afterwards from Corinth to Ephesus.
2. Paul's first trip is at least another 1472 kilometers by road or 455 kilometers by Sea.

3.
1 Corinthians 14.16I urge you, then, be imitators of me. 17That is why I sentc you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ,d as I teach them everywhere in every church. 18Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. 19But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. 20For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power. 21What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?
3, Timothy's roundtrip would be 2944 kilometers by road and 910 miles by sea.

Also the writer repeats the two trips - The trips are mentioned again later in chapter 16
16.1Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. 2On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. 3And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. 4If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me.
5I will visit you after passing through Macedonia, for I intend to pass through Macedonia, 6and perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter, so that you may help me on my journey, wherever I go. 7For I do not want to see you now just in passing. I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits. 8But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, 9for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.
10When Timothy comes, see that you put him at ease among you, for he is doing the work of the Lord, as I am. 11So let no one despise him. Help him on his way in peace, that he may return to me, for I am expecting him with the brothers.
4. It now turns out that Paul is expecting Timothy with "the brothers." Let us assume just two brothers are making the round trip between Ephesus and Corinth.
The two Brothers accompanying Timothy would each travel 2944 kilometers by road or 910 miles by sea = 5888 killometers by road and 1820 miles by sea.
Paul's future trip will include a major detour to Thessaloniki first, but let's forget about that. More importantly, Paul will be traveling to Jerusalem on the way back.
5. Paul's trip from Ephesus to Corinth would be 1472 kilometers by road or 455 kilometers by Sea.
6. Paul's return trip will be to Jerusalem. His return trip to Jerusalem would be 2826 kilometers by road or 1563 kilometers by sea
7. Paul will be accompanied by at least two representatives from the Church of Corinth to Jerusalem who will be making roundtrips. This gives a total of 4 (2 reps making 2 trips) times 2826 kilometers by road and 1563 by sea for a total of 11304 kilometers by road and 5132 kilometers by sea.

4.
12Now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to visit you with the other brothers, but it was not at all his will to come now. He will come when he has opportunity.
Paul also speaks of Apollos and others making the trip. We may assume that he is traveling also from Ephesus and he has two brothers making the roundtrip with him. This means 6 (Apollos and two brothers) times 1472 kilometers by road or 455 kilometers by Sea
8 Apollos and 2 brothers will travel 8832 kilometers by road or 2730 kilometers by sea.

This adds up to 34,738 kilometers by road or 13975 kilometers by sea.
The circumference of the Earth is 40,000 kilometers. If traveling by foot, Paul has people walking enough to go 6/7th of circumference of the Earth, or sailing 1/3rd around the circumference of the Earth by sea. Please remember that this assumes the minimum number of people (for three trips, he speaks of brothers making the trip, we are assuming only in case, but he could mean three or more). We also assume the minimum travel distance given by Orbis, assuming no detours along the way for anyone. This would involve the miracle of ships just happening to be going the shortest distance possible. Also keep in mind that these are trips mentioned or planned from just from one letter of Paul to the Corinthian Church.
The fantastic amount of trips trips up the letter writer as not only not being the character Paul, but also of writing pure fantasy.The trips of Paul are as real as the trips of Odysseus.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin


Bernard Muller wrote:Hi Jay,
Even today, few people would be in any shape to hike mountainous terrain for ten or twenty days, 20 or 30 miles a day. I doubt if 75% of the adult population in industrialized countries could do it today. Probably 95% of the people of ancient Rome could not do it.
How do you know? I saw short & skinny Nepalese porters hauling uphill 100 kg of steel (pegs for pedestrian suspended bridges) on their back for at least 5 to 10 days. And there were many other locals on the rough trails when I was there, some bringing their baby or a sick person for days to the nearest hospital. People in certain third world countries (like Ethiopia and Nepal) are more apt and used to walk long distance than in developed countries. And if you can walk 30 km for one day, with proper food and water, you can keep going like that for many more days. Walking does not required much energy, unlike running, and physical aptitude.
As far as mountainous terrain is concerned, it does not seem, according to Paul's epistles and Acts, that Paul or helpers had to through them often and for a long stretch. Most of the time, it was flat terrain. Furthermore, many, probably most, of Paul or helpers travels were by sea, not by land (because cities like Antioch, Ephesus, Troas, Philippi, Thessaloniki, Corinth & Rome were on or close to the sea and Paul did say he traveled by sea, surviving shipwrecks).
We may suppose that in the First and Second centuries few people had the money, time and physical ability to take long trips.
What make you believe Paul and helpers did not have the money (as raised from converts), time and physical abilities to take trips by boat or afoot? Are you still thinking someone needed to have a fortune to do trips?
We may surmise that the writer/s of the epistles did not take long trips so he/they were unable to describe them, but simply attributed them to Paul.
Why would Paul describe his trips in his letters? They were not meant to be travelogues.

Cordially, Bernard
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