Paul was wealthy

[Bernard Muller]

Hi Jay,

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.

The low life expectancy in ancient Rome was due to infant mortality and illness/disease caused by living in a congested area.
The lifetime of people who reached 10 years old was about 45-47 in the Roman empire (see top of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expec ... ite_ref-14 and note 14 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expec ... te_note-14).
And many were reaching adult age because then the Roman empire population was increasing (1st century AD).
You forgot to mention that people in ancient civilizations were able, with primitive technology, to carve out and transport and place many huge stones to build pyramides, temples and other huge structures. That involved many people which were not weaklings.

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.

According to your thinking about marathons, a good athlete running it in 50 AD would take about 17 hours (about 2.5 km/h)!!!
It is well known the improvements of performance of athletes along the ages (more so last 300 years) is due to more, better and longer training (and drugs!!!).
Plus the fact that generally, in modern times, due to better nutrition, the size of the human body increased.

BTW, walking 30 km a day is not a marathon, but just a very moderate effort. Traveling by boat does not require any physical aptitude.

So again, your points about mortality and athletes performance are just digressions not relevant about Paul & helpers traveling in the 1st century AD.

The trip is 1472 kilometers by road and 455 kilometers by sea.
1. Chloe's people travel 2944 kilomers by road or 910 kiometers by sea.

We went through that before: between Corinth and Ephesus, in May, a bit more than 2 days of salary of a painter or carpenter, per person (according to Orbis, Diocletian's edict and inflation affecting the cost of traveling the same way than wine, wheat and silver content of the denarius).
These people could be well-to-do with their own money or unemployed ones, financed by the Christian community for the trip.
No big deal. Not a huge expenditure. Multiply by 2 for the return trip (carrying the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians).

According to my research, based on the Pauline epistles (reconstructed for the Corinthians) & Acts http://historical-jesus.info/appp.html and Orbis and Diocletian's edict:

Paul's "first journey" (with Barnabas in southern Galatia, Cilicia And Cyprus): most likely financed by the church of Antioch (fairly important then according to Acts).

Paul's "second journey" (with Silas, then Timothy): From Antioch, up to Corinth, through Macedonia, again most likely financed by the church of Antioch, plus the converts made along the way.
From Corinth to Jerusalem (likely by sea): likely financed by the Corinthian converts. Cost: about 10 days of salary of a semi-skilled worker.

Paul's "third journey":
- From Jerusalem to Antioch: 9 days by boat. 6 days of daily salary of semi-skilled worker (likely financed by church of Antioch).
- From Antioch to Ephesus through northern Galatia (by land): likely with Paul own money. However he made converts in northern Galatia, who probably helped.
- More than 2 years later, from Ephesus to Corinth through Macedonia (and return likely direct): 8-9 days of daily salary of semi-skilled worker. Probably from Paul's own resources but he made converts in Ephesus and was getting money from the Philippians. Approximation if return trip done mostly by sea: 22 days of daily salary of semi-skilled worker.
- One year later, from Ephesus to Macedonia and return: Approximation by sea: 10 days of daily salary of semi-skilled worker.
Finally, 2 years later, the last trip: From Ephesus to Macedonia to Corinth to Jerusalem: Approximation by sea: 20 days of daily salary of semi-skilled worker.

The trips of Paul (not financed by the Church of Antioch) during the second & third journey (as related by Acts & epistles) by sea amount to about 71 days of daily salary of semi-skilled workers.
The cost of the overland trip through northern Galatia (with a stay there by a sick Paul) depends essentially on the cost of inns if done afoot (approximation: duration 46 days (in two parts)). BTW, according to Orbis, traveling by mule or carriage is not much faster than afoot.

Overall we have to add the food cost during these trips, or rather the added costs as compared to the ones when eating at home.

Anyway, that does not seem extravagant when those traveling costs were spread over 6 years.

Later I'll try to estimate the cost for traveling of Paul's helpers (Timothy and Titus and Chloe) for the "second & third journey". I'll leave out visitors to Paul (who might carry a Paul's letter on the way back) because not called (& financed) by Paul through his converts. Also I'll leave out companions of Paul during his last trip (Troas to Jerusalem) because Paul was very likely not financing them (their community or themselves did).

Cordially, Bernard

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi Bernard,
You cannot use the maximum pay set by Diocletian in 301 to determine the cost of a trip in 50 or 60 CE.. Orbit was designed to compare trips between places. Thus if a trip from Ephesus to Corinth is listed as 400 dinari and a trip from Jerusalem to Corinth is listed as 800 dinari, you can tell that the trip would cost twice as much. The costs are not the costs of actual trips. I also made this mistake when calculating costs. The creator of site Dr. Scheidel set me straight on that.

Note this from http://ancientcoinsforeducation.org/con ... ew/79/98/:

The Edict of Maximum Prices was an attempt to control runaway inflation and poverty in the Empire. The penalty for exceeding the prices of the Edict was severe: death. Not satisfied to execute just the seller, Diocletian decreed that the buyer was to be executed as well. As a final measure, if a seller refused to sell his goods at the stated price, the penalty was death.

Dr. Scheidel notes the difficulties of understanding costs in the Roman empire:
from http://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/sc ... 090904.pdf

Despite the relatively large overall number of surviving price data, different commodities are very unequally represented in the papyrological record. Thus, while a recent survey gathered no fewer than 150 price points for wine alone, the prices of many other products are only rarely or never attested in ways that would permit us to utilize them for this kind of investigation. For example, records of the sale of (fire)wood and cloth consistently fail to specify the amount of these materials that was exchanged for a stated price. Even the price of a very basic commodity such as bread can be surprisinglydifficult to ascertain: most extant records refer to unmilled grain."

I have been unable so far to find actual data for any trips in the First century.

Also note this from the site on ancient coins referenced above:

it is helpful to understand that professions were valued differently in ancient times than they are today. Likewise, the value of items was different then than now. For instance, in today's world, one might spend 20% of their total income on food, but in ancient times the cost may have been 50% or more of one's total income. In fact, during parts of the history of Rome, food costs were so high that without free wheat subsidies from the government, the common people would not have been able to survive! These subsidies were known as ‘doles' and according to AEJ Morris'sHistory of Urban Form[1970 George Godwin LTD], up to 1/3 of the citizens of the capital city received this public assistance.

Grain formed the foundation of the common Roman's diet. It was not uncommon for grain to be the only thing a poor Roman ever ate. The cost of baking bread was very high to a poor Roman, so if no access to a communal, public oven could be had, the grain would be crushed and made into a porridge known as ‘puls' that was likely similar in taste and texture to modern polenta. While we take it for granted today, meat was an extravagant luxury that most Romans could not afford to indulge in.

Clothing was another expensive proposition. One‘libra'(Roman pound, just under of a modern pound, 326 grams), of fine silk cost more than a dozen human beings. It seems absurd to us today, but such was the case, because ancient Romans lacked the production machines of today that make cheap fabric possible. For the commoners, fashion was not a consideration. Clothing was utilitarian, had to be durable, and was patched until finally the garment became the thing from which patches were taken for its replacement.

Historically, the cost of living has expanded to consume all of the income that is available to the majority of the people in the society. As technology has enabled faster production, technology has also introduced new things to consume the income the increased productivity creates. The ancient Romans did not have many things to pay for in comparison to life today, yet it was every bit as much a struggle for them to survive as it is today, and probably, it was even more of a struggle.

As noted the average Roman worker would have starved without government grain subsidies. Under these condition, it makes sense that the only people who could afford to take long trips were the wealthiest Romans.
Note that in 1 Corinthians, Paul says that the house Stehpanus was the first house in Achaia to be converted. Stephanus and two other people from that house have traveled to Ephesus to see Paul. We can assume that the first converts in Achaia were wealthy. The church in Corinth is also wealthy enough to take up a collection each week and send brothers all the way to Jerusalem from Corinth. Paul also demands that they kick out of the church anybody of a disreputable character:

9I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. 12For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the churchb whom you are to judge? 13God judgesc those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

Anybody who is sexually immoral (has sex outside of marriage) greedy (poor people who want more money) idolaters (anybody who is not Jewish), revilers (people who party), drunkards or swindlers are to be kicked out. Slaves and poor people were ordinarily assumed to be drunkards and swindlers. This suggests that the writer wanted to keep anybody who was not rich (in the 1% of the elite or Rome) out of the Christian Church.

Oh wait, Paul says that he wrote this in a letter to the Corinthians. This is different from the letter he is writing. Remember there was no private mail service in Rome times. We must add another trip of 1472 kilometers by road and 455 kilometers by sea between Ephesus and Corinth for this previous letter that Paul wrote. This brings to 15 the number of long distance trips that Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians taken by early Christians.

Of course, all these trips are imaginary, so they really do not cost a single drachma. We can say that it suggests that the real writer/s was/were wealthy who could afford trips and private deliveries of letters.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

[Bernard Muller]

Hi Jay,
I counted as a minimum,
- 2 trips of Timothy from Ephesus to Corinth and back: Total: By sea, 9 days of daily salary of semi-skilled worker.
- 1 trip of Timothy from Ephesus to Philippi and back: By sea, about 5.5 days of daily salary of semi-skilled worker.
- 1 trip of Timothy & Erastus from Ephesus to Macedonia (Philippi & Thessaloniki) and back: Total: By sea, about 19 days of daily salary of semi-skilled worker.
- 2 trips of Titus from Corinth to Macedonia (Philippi) and back: Total: Total: By sea and land (afoot), about 20 days of daily salary of semi-skilled worker.
- 1 trip of Titus from Corinth to Jerusalem and back: By sea about 17 days of daily salary of semi-skilled worker.
- 1 trip of Chloe from Corinth to Rome & back (assuming that Chloe's trip was not for personal reasons, with carrying Paul's letter as incidental): By sea about 12 days of daily salary of semi-skilled worker.

The grand total is 82 days of daily salary of semi-skilled worker.

However we do not know how all letters of Paul were transmitted but it looks most of them were by visitors to Paul who would carry the letter on the way back. Anyway I would multiply for various reasons the 82 days + 71 days (Paul's trips) by 2 = about 300 days of daily salary of semi-skilled worker (or 300 days of a 1/10th of daily salary of 10 semi-skilled workers, or 30 days of a 1/10th of daily salary of 100 semi-skilled workers) over a six years period, which is not extravagant at all.

I also want to say the Orbis site is full of inconsistencies and rather amateurish & disorganized & confusing in his presentation. For example, many times the fastest trip is cheaper than the cheapest one and there are huge differences sometimes for the same trip, same month, between the existing site and the new beta version. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.

I am finish working with it. Waiting for the beta version to be completed.

Cordially, Bernard

[Bernard Muller]

Hi Jay,

You cannot use the maximum pay set by Diocletian in 301 to determine the cost of a trip in 50 or 60 CE.

But the maximum pay is a good indicator on how much different people were paid. And I do not determine the cost of a trip in 50-60 from that. What I do is determine the cost of a trip in 301 relative to salaries in 301 (Diocletian's edict).
We all know that inflation affect almost equally all costs and there is no reason to think than the price of trips in 50-60 were not about 50 times less, as were the price of wheat, wine (evidenced from Herculaeum and Pompeii). The 50 times is also evidenced by the content in silver in the denarius coin between Nero's times and Diocletian's reign.

The penalty for exceeding the prices of the Edict was severe: death. Not satisfied to execute just the seller, Diocletian decreed that the buyer was to be executed as well. As a final measure, if a seller refused to sell his goods at the stated price, the penalty was death.

That's tell me that the prices in the times of Diocletian were close to, if not already above the cost of the edict. Actually, despite all the threats, the edict of Diocletian did not hold the prices for long and they increased regardless above the edict prices.

As noted the average Roman worker would have starved without government grain subsidies. Under these condition, it makes sense that the only people who could afford to take long trips were the wealthiest Romans.

OR preachers of a hot sect who could collect from their converts enough money to travel.

Note that in 1 Corinthians, Paul says that the house Stehpanus was the first house in Achaia to be converted. Stephanus and two other people from that house have traveled to Ephesus to see Paul. We can assume that the first converts in Achaia were wealthy. The church in Corinth is also wealthy enough to take up a collection each week and send brothers all the way to Jerusalem from Corinth.

Yes, I said all along some members of the early church were wealthy which would facilitate money collection. However it is wrong to assume all early Christians were wealthy, nor all were dirt poor. Far from that.
You seem you argue against your case. If the church of Corinth was wealthy, then it would be easy to have lot of money collected here. Right!

Anybody who is sexually immoral (has sex outside of marriage) greedy (poor people who want more money) idolaters (anybody who is not Jewish), revilers (people who party), drunkards or swindlers are to be kicked out. Slaves and poor people were ordinarily assumed to be drunkards and swindlers.

That's a strange assumption: I do not see why sexually immoral, greedy, idolaters, revilers, drunkards and swindlers could not be wealthy. Furthermore, those sinners were admitted in the church (even eligible to enter the kingdom of God according to Paul) as long as they stop behaving badly once they converted:
1 Cor 6:9-11 "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."

This suggests that the writer wanted to keep anybody who was not rich (in the 1% of the elite or Rome) out of the Christian Church.

Obviously, Paul did not succeed (and even poor Christians were able to give relatively generously):
2 Cor 8:1-5a "And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches.
In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.
For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own,
they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people.
And they exceeded our expectations"

Cordially, Bernard

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi Bernard,

People in Diocletian's time could not afford things that they could afford in the past. Therefore, it would make no sense for Diocletian to lower wages and prices equally. He would want wages to remain the same and want to cut prices in order for people to be able to buy what they once did. Thus if the maximum wage was 600 dinari a year for occupation x and the cost of a year's worth of bread was 800 dinari, the thing to do would be to keep wages at 600 and lower prices to 400. We can expect that travel costs too would be cut more than wages. This scenario would double the cost of travel from your scenario.
Prices were not equal across the empire. Peter Temin in the Roman Market Economy notes this:

How much lower than wages in Rome were average wages in the empire. We do not know. Wages in Egypt were only one-third as large, but we do not know if wages elsewhere were closer to those in Egypt or those in Rome. Appealing to the principle of insufficient reason, I suggested that average wages were one half the Roman level.

If Termin is correct, we would again have to consider that Greek wages were half Diocletian's Edict. We would again have to double the costs you cited for travel. We are now at quadruple the costs you cited.
The costs on Orbis are just transportation costs and do not include food and shelter costs. We may again assume that this would double the costs. We are now up to 8 times the cost for the trips. Thus the trip from Corinth to Jerusalem would not be 17 days of the daily salary of a semi-skilled worker, but 136 days. If we take a semi-skilled worker today making $30,000, that would represent about $10,000 in travel expenses. We should note that Paul will be traveling with at least two others from Corinth. That makes the cost over $30,000.

We also have to take into account that travel costs must have decreased from the 1st to the 4th centuries with better roads, better ships and much better knowledge of how to travel more safely and quickly. Around 1700, indentured servants worked typically four or five years to pay off their transportation costs from Europe to the United States. Today a worker works about one to two weeks to pay for a cheap plane ticket from the United States to Europe about $1,000. One can say that the cost of long distance transportation is now only 1% what it was 300 years ago. I am not suggesting that transportation costs came down so drastically in Rome. Again a reasonable estimate would be perhaps 50%. Thus the $30,000 would have been the equivalent of $60,000 today.

We are talking about a single trip to bring funds to the poor Saints in Jerusalem for the Church at Corinth costing $60,000.

regarding the psychology of the Romans - bad vices were associated with workers, the poor and slaves. When Paul says neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God, he means the workers, the poor and slaves won't be permitted in the Christian community.

The description of the generosity of the Macedonian Churches in 2 Cor 8:1-5a is obviously a psychological tactic to get more contributions from the Corinthians. It is equivalent to saying, "Listen you cheap Corinthian bastards, even the scum of society that makes up the Macedonian Church gave a lot of money without me even asking, so don't be pleading poverty when I come to collect the money." Every extortionist collector thug for the Mafia speaks exactly this way when demanding his payments.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

[Andrew]

So Paul taught contrary to the teachings about Jesus found in the gospels? Which idea do you think came first: the rich will not enter the kingdom or the poor will not enter the kingdom? Also, would this not mean that the other apostles, who were fishermen and probably not wealthy, would not inherit the kingdom according to Paul? I'm just clarifying your position, not arguing it. I've never come across this idea before, and I want to make sure I understand it.

[arnoldo]

1 Corinthians 9:14 is one of the few verse where Paul quotes Jesus and it's concerning $$$.

In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.
1 Corinthians 9:7-14

In reference to Paul's travels, Jermome Murphy O'Conner IMHO has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that it was possible without an extravagant amount of $$$.


http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Critical-Lif ... in_title_0

[Bernard Muller]

Hi Jay,
Again your comments are based on unevidenced suppositions:

it would make no sense for Diocletian to lower wages and prices equally. He would want wages to remain the same and want to cut prices in order for people to be able to buy what they once did.

That does not make any sense economically and financially. That's rather naive: by a click of a button (the edict) suddenly increase the buying power of the average Joe. So easy!!! You have to wonder why it is not done often. You should copyright that brilliant idea.
Imagine a land owner having workers cultivating wheat. Keep the wages the same and lower the price of wheat by half: the result would be the landowner either seeing his profits dwindle or even not able to pay his workers: economic disaster and Diocletian is out of his job and likely assassinated.
What makes some sense is setting maximum for wages, products and services. According to the preamble of the edict, these maximums were grossly exceeded in periods of shortage (which Diocletian said were often man made).

Termin wrote:

How much lower than wages in Rome were average wages in the empire. We do not know. Wages in Egypt were only one-third as large, but we do not know if wages elsewhere were closer to those in Egypt or those in Rome. Appealing to the principle of insufficient reason, I suggested that average wages were one half the Roman level.

Egypt was a very peculiar country in the Roman world. All kinds of food could be grown more densely & abundantly than anywhere else, probably resulting in cheaper prices and lower wages for the lower class (since their main cost of living (food) was low).
However, in the rest of the Roman empire, that was not the same. So I think the costs in places around the Aegean sea, especially in big city like Corinth & Ephesus, were very close to the ones in Rome.

The costs on Orbis are just transportation costs and do not include food and shelter costs.

The main mode of transportation by Paul & helpers was by boat, with no additional shelter cost. We do not know the price of staying in a inn, but it looks they were rather cheap. And if you travel overland afoot, you obviously do not pay for ship transportation, so the money saved here could easily cover the inn costs.
If Paul & helpers would have stay home they would still need food. However the price of food available for a traveler (in a boat, it has to keep, overland cooked food by others would cost more). This is one reason why I multiplied the Orbis travel costs by 2.

We also have to take into account that travel costs must have decreased from the 1st to the 4th centuries with better roads, better ships and much better knowledge of how to travel more safely and quickly.

Better roads would not affect traveling afoot, ship technology did not change much, and knowledge of traveling would have been learned under the republican era. I am not sure that traveling in the 4th century was safer than in the first.

About indentured servant:
The trip from Europe to the US was about 8000 km by sail boat, taking in account a long detour south to benefit from current and wind.
This servant (normally a young inexperienced lad) would get food, clothes, shelter and training for free. If he stayed at home, that would be a challenge for him to afford those: homeless and starving were a strong possibility.
So I am not surprised he would give up some 4 years of freedom (but with relative good living condition) in order to get in a land of many opportunities.
That has nothing to do about the cost of transportation then, except it was out of reach for a poor European family or individual. Anyway, if one would come then as a free young & inexperienced immigrant, if lucky enough to find a job, chances are, for a few years, he would have little cash left after paying for the essentials.
I know that by personal experience.

When Paul says neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God, he means the workers, the poor and slaves won't be permitted in the Christian community.

No Paul did not mean that. I explained that already. You are making it up, just like Chloe being a young sexually attractive slave girl prone to be raped by those Christians to whom she is suppose to deliver Paul's epistle. By the way, you are contradicting yourself: according to you, Chloe, as a slave, should not be part of a Christian church.

The description of the generosity of the Macedonian Churches in 2 Cor 8:1-5a is obviously a psychological tactic to get more contributions from the Corinthians.

I agree: if the poor Macedonians can do it, you can also, even if you think you are poor.
The rest of your comment again comes from your imagination.

Cordially, Bernard

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi Andrew,

Good questions.

The Pauline texts of the letters seem pretty unaware of the NT gospel material.
In 1 Corinthians 2, he says

1And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.a 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,

Paul says that the first time he came to Corinth he was wimpy and crying and just talked about Christ being crucified. he didn't talk with any wisdom or eloquence, but really made a fool of himself. The writer probably wants to explain why nobody knows about Paul ever going to Corinth and everyone believes that Apollos introduced the ideas of Christianity to Corinth.

In 1 Corinthians 15. the writer finally gets around to explaining what Paul preached:

1Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas,b and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

The sighting of Christ by Cephas (High Priest Caiphas?), the twelve (High Council of Judea?), 500? and James (Jacob) forms no part of the NT gospels and tends to show that this came before them. Otherwise why not follow the order of sightings in one of the four gospels. This is the bare-bones story that Paul allegedly told the Corinthians - Christ died according to the Hebrew Scriptures. He rose on the third day, and a lot of people saw him and then I saw him. it would be surprising if anyone was converted by this. The writer has Paul reference this idea in the next paragraph:

9For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

Paul shows false modesty by placing himself last on the hierarchical list of of who got visited by the Jesus Spirit. He claims that he did more work than all the others. Paul then dismisses the idea that it is important that nobody listened to him or was converted by him, "Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed."

So the writer is saying to his audience, "You may have never heard of Paul ever being in Corinth and that's because he was so traumatized by having seen Jesus that he trembled and didn't really speak well and didn't convince anybody.

The writer has the character admit this previously, when he has Paul write in chapter 3:

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. 9For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.

Paul just planted the seed. He only said the bare bones of the gospel story that Christ died as predicted, rose and was seen by a lot of people. Why should anybody remember that. Of course other people came along and watered this idea and it grew into a whole tree of ideas about Christ.

We have to assume that the writer shares Paul's hatred of the poor. That is why after describing how rich people come to Christian meetings and eat food and drink wine to torture the poor starving members of the congregation, Paul does not tell the rich Christians to share their meal with the poor Christians. He tells them to eat at home before coming. This should quell the dissension that has broken out in the Christian meetings. he forbids any eating or drinking at the meetings.

In the Christian services, Paul says that individual people recite hymns, speak in tongues (babbling) and some translate the babbling and some predict the future (probably after Christ comes). He says nothing about anybody reading any written gospels, or telling any stories about Jesus. This also indicates that we have a very primitive church or series of meetings by people who had never probably heard of Jesus Christ or any of the gospel stories about him.

It is possible that the poor inheriting the kingdom speech of Jesus in the gospels was a response to the anti-poor attitude of certain elitist Christians like the writer of these Pauline letters.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

So Paul taught contrary to the teachings about Jesus found in the gospels? Which idea do you think came first: the rich will not enter the kingdom or the poor will not enter the kingdom? Also, would this not mean that the other apostles, who were fishermen and probably not wealthy, would not inherit the kingdom according to Paul? I'm just clarifying your position, not arguing it. I've never come across this idea before, and I want to make sure I understand it.

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi Bernard,

Just a few counterarguments here.

Hi Jay,
Again your comments are based on unevidenced suppositions:

it would make no sense for Diocletian to lower wages and prices equally. He would want wages to remain the same and want to cut prices in order for people to be able to buy what they once did.

That does not make any sense economically and financially. That's rather naive: by a click of a button (the edict) suddenly increase the buying power of the average Joe. So easy!!! You have to wonder why it is not done often. You should copyright that brilliant idea.
Imagine a land owner having workers cultivating wheat. Keep the wages the same and lower the price of wheat by half: the result would be the landowner either seeing his profits dwindle or even not able to pay his workers: economic disaster and Diocletian is out of his job and likely assassinated.
What makes some sense is setting maximum for wages, products and services. According to the preamble of the edict, these maximums were grossly exceeded in periods of shortage (which Diocletian said were often man made).

Diocletian was elected by the army, not the large landowners. He had to worry about the troops not being able to afford basic necessities of life. He would not care about the profits of large landowners. It was most important for him to control prices, so the soldiers could afford to eat and travel. Lowering the cost of food and travel would have been his priority.

Termin wrote:

How much lower than wages in Rome were average wages in the empire. We do not know. Wages in Egypt were only one-third as large, but we do not know if wages elsewhere were closer to those in Egypt or those in Rome. Appealing to the principle of insufficient reason, I suggested that average wages were one half the Roman level.

Egypt was a very peculiar country in the Roman world. All kinds of food could be grown more densely & abundantly than anywhere else, probably resulting in cheaper prices and lower wages for the lower class (since their main cost of living (food) was low).
However, in the rest of the Roman empire, that was not the same. So I think the costs in places around the Aegean sea, especially in big city like Corinth & Ephesus, were very close to the ones in Rome.

Rome had a population close to a million people. In the 1990 work, "Roman Corinth: an Alternative Model for the Classical City" Donald Engels estimates that Corinth had a population of 80,000 (http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1990/01.01.11.html and Wikipedia says Ephesus a population of 33,000-56,000 (Wikipedia: "If realistic population densities of 150 or 250 people per hectare are applied, this gives a range of 33,600 to 56,000 people"). (As an aside, Pausanias in the Second century, described 26 religious temples in Corinth, none of them Jewish or Christian. The Pauline epistles and "Acts" are the only evidence of Jews or Christians having existed at all in Corinth. Strangely, the Christian community could afford to send money and emmisaries to Jerusalem, but not to build a church or temple. That the Christian community in Corinth is a literary fiction would be the simplest explanation for this seemingly odd choice.)

Larger cities tend to be richer and pay higher wages. Corinth being less than 1/10th the size of Rome and Ephesus being 1/20 the size of Rome, it is hard to believe they would have the same wages.

The costs on Orbis are just transportation costs and do not include food and shelter costs.

The main mode of transportation by Paul & helpers was by boat, with no additional shelter cost. We do not know the price of staying in a inn, but it looks they were rather cheap. And if you travel overland afoot, you obviously do not pay for ship transportation, so the money saved here could easily cover the inn costs.
If Paul & helpers would have stay home they would still need food. However the price of food available for a traveler (in a boat, it has to keep, overland cooked food by others would cost more). This is one reason why I multiplied the Orbis travel costs by 2.

Boats did not generally travel at night. Boats did not generally provide seats, it was standing room only. Think about standing for 16 hours and then sleeping standing up. We should include the cost of shelter at night for boat trips.

We also have to take into account that travel costs must have decreased from the 1st to the 4th centuries with better roads, better ships and much better knowledge of how to travel more safely and quickly.

Better roads would not affect traveling afoot, ship technology did not change much, and knowledge of traveling would have been learned under the republican era. I am not sure that traveling in the 4th century was safer than in the first.

All of this is debatable

About indentured servant:
The trip from Europe to the US was about 8000 km by sail boat, taking in account a long detour south to benefit from current and wind.
This servant (normally a young inexperienced lad) would get food, clothes, shelter and training for free. If he stayed at home, that would be a challenge for him to afford those: homeless and starving were a strong possibility.
So I am not surprised he would give up some 4 years of freedom (but with relative good living condition) in order to get in a land of many opportunities.
That has nothing to do about the cost of transportation then, except it was out of reach for a poor European family or individual. Anyway, if one would come then as a free young & inexperienced immigrant, if lucky enough to find a job, chances are, for a few years, he would have little cash left after paying for the essentials.
I know that by personal experience.

Being an indentured servant may have been a terrific job training opportunity and career move, but nevertheless it was work. If one works for four years to pay off a long trip, the cost of the trip is much greater than if one works for two weeks.

When Paul says neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God, he means the workers, the poor and slaves won't be permitted in the Christian community.

No Paul did not mean that. I explained that already. You are making it up, just like Chloe being a young sexually attractive slave girl prone to be raped by those Christians to whom she is suppose to deliver Paul's epistle. By the way, you are contradicting yourself: according to you, Chloe, as a slave, should not be part of a Christian church.

Slaves would be useful to any institution in those days to do the drudge work. Just as they were an underclass without rights and part of Roman society, they may have been an underclass without rights in the early Christian community. Paul telling slaves that they should not seek their freedom would have been a slap in the face of every slave who was a Christian, as freedom was the desire and life's goal of almost all slaves.

The description of the generosity of the Macedonian Churches in 2 Cor 8:1-5a is obviously a psychological tactic to get more contributions from the Corinthians.

I agree: if the poor Macedonians can do it, you can also, even if you think you are poor.
The rest of your comment again comes from your imagination.

One has to use imagination to reconstruct history. As long as the imagination is strictly tied to facts and logical and reasonable deductions from facts, it is useful.

Cordially, Bernard

Warmly,

Jay Raskin