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According to Acts 13, after Barnabas and Paul confront the Jewish magician Bar-Jesus on Cyprus and successfully win the allegiance of Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus, the fellow travelers visit Pisidian Antioch. On the Sabbath in Pisidian Antioch, Paul gives his first and only speech to Jews in Acts (13:16b-41). William M. Ramsay, subscribing to the “province” or “Southern Galatian” hypothesis, understands the addressees of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians to be those converted in response to this speech. Ramsay goes so far as to draw connections between the speech and Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. In contrast, H.D. Betz argues that Galatians was written to Gentiles in Northern Galatia. Betz sees no proof of the historicity of the Acts account and finds no compelling reason, therefore, to associate it with Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. A prolegomenon for both Ramsay and Betz is the purpose of Acts. Kirsopp Lake once asked whether it was “an accident that he [“Luke”] describes Paul’s first dealings with the Romans, the Corinthians, the Ephesians, and the Thessalonians,” noting that “Galatia was the remaining church which Paul founded and wrote to.” This essay argues that both Ramsay and Betz are in a sense correct. Paul’s visit to Pisidian Antioch in Acts 13 provides grounds for Paul’s foundation of the Galatic churches, irrespective of the historicity of its presentation in Acts. Further, it argues that such a stopover has a distinct narrative advantage; namely, it affords an attractively Romanesque stopover early in Paul’s travels for this Roman-born, Roman-named, Rome-bound missionary.
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1)
Christopher Pelling, “Epilogue,” in The Limits of Historiography: Genre and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts (ed. Christina S. Kraus; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 351.
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6)
Kirsopp Lake, “XVIII: Paul’s Route to Asia Minor,” 5.224-246 in Beginnings of Christianity; here 5:239.
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18)
K. Lake, “XVIII: Paul’s Route to Asia Minor,” 5.224-246 in: Beginnings of Christianity, here 5.226-239.
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22)
Mitchell, Pisidian Antioch, 4. About the via Sebaste, he writes, “This was a major highway, suitable for carriages and wheeled traffic as well as pack animals, whose course may still be traced on the ground today. The accessibility of Antioch, through this long-distance network of communications, was one of the vital factors which enabled the city to become the impressive centre revealed by its buildings” (Mitchell, Pisidian Antioch, 4).
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25)
See Mitchell, Anatolia: Land, Men and Gods in Asia Minor, 2:35-36. Pervo, Acts, 331 n. 3: “There is no definite evidence for the presence of Jews in first-century Pisidian Antioch,” although Josephus, Philo, Strabo, Pliny and First Peter suggest they did inhabit, and certainly many Jews dwelled in, Asia Minor. See Josephus, Ant. 12.147-153. Evidence for the presence of the Jewish community is provided by an inscription in Apollonia; see Conzelmann, “Excursus: Antioch” in Acts of the Apostles, 103. Archaeological excavations for Pisidian Antioch currently grant no proof. “There is not reason to doubt the evidence of this passage in Acts that there was a substantial Jewish population” (Barrett, Acts, 1:627-628).
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42)
E.g., Pervo, Acts, 323-324; Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles, 100.
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44)
Often cited: G.A. Harrer, “Saul who also is called Paul,” HTR 33 (1940) 19-34. Haenchen, however, disagrees: “The indeclinable Σαούλ, then, was the signum and ‘Paul’ the cognomen” (Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary, 399 n. 1).
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49)
Levick, Roman Colonies, 137; 84 n. 7 (citing Dig. L. 15.8.10).
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50)
Levick, Roman Colonies, 137; Mitchell, Pisidian Antioch, 10-11.
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62)
Most recently, see Allen Black, “‘Your Sons and Your Daughters Will Prophesy . . .’: Pairings of Men and Women In Luke-Acts,” in Scripture and Traditions: Essays on Early Judaism and Christianity in Honor of Carl R. Holladay (ed. Patrick Gray, Gail R. O’Day; NovTSupp 129; Leiden: Brill, 2008) 193-206.
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65)
Polybius 1.4.7-8, 38.5.1, 7-8; Lucian, Hist. conscr. 50. Also, Charles Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome (Berkeley: University of California, 1983) 1-46. Cf. Mircea Eliade’s description of repetition in myth and history: “. . . an object or act becomes real only insofar as it imitates or repeats an archetype. Thus, reality is acquired solely through repetition or participation; everything which lacks an exemplary model is ‘meaningless,’ i.e., it lacks reality. Men would thus have a tendency to become archetypal and paradigmatic. This tendency may well appear paradoxical, in the sense that the man of a traditional culture sees himself as real only to the extent that he ceases to be himself (for a modern observer) and is satisfied with imitating and repeating the gestures of another. In other words, he sees himself as real, i.e., as ‘truly himself,’ only, and precisely, insofar as he ceases to be so” (The Myth of the Eternal Return or, Cosmos and History [trans. Willard R. Trask; Princeton University, repr. 1991] 34; orig. publ. as Le Mythe de l’éternel retour: Archétypes et répétition [Paris: Librairie Gallimard, 1949]). Also, “The anhistorical character of popular memory, the inability of collective memory to retain historical events and individuals except insofar as it annuls all their historical and personal peculiarities—poses a series of new problems” (46). Also cited in Rothschild, Luke-Acts and the Rhetoric of History, 100 n. 5.
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66)
Robert Brawley, Luke-Acts and the Jews: Conflict, Apology, and Conciliation (SBLMS 33; Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars, 1987) 49, emphasis added.
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Search for other papers by Clare K. Rothschild in
Current site
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Abstract
According to Acts 13, after Barnabas and Paul confront the Jewish magician Bar-Jesus on Cyprus and successfully win the allegiance of Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus, the fellow travelers visit Pisidian Antioch. On the Sabbath in Pisidian Antioch, Paul gives his first and only speech to Jews in Acts (13:16b-41). William M. Ramsay, subscribing to the “province” or “Southern Galatian” hypothesis, understands the addressees of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians to be those converted in response to this speech. Ramsay goes so far as to draw connections between the speech and Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. In contrast, H.D. Betz argues that Galatians was written to Gentiles in Northern Galatia. Betz sees no proof of the historicity of the Acts account and finds no compelling reason, therefore, to associate it with Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. A prolegomenon for both Ramsay and Betz is the purpose of Acts. Kirsopp Lake once asked whether it was “an accident that he [“Luke”] describes Paul’s first dealings with the Romans, the Corinthians, the Ephesians, and the Thessalonians,” noting that “Galatia was the remaining church which Paul founded and wrote to.” This essay argues that both Ramsay and Betz are in a sense correct. Paul’s visit to Pisidian Antioch in Acts 13 provides grounds for Paul’s foundation of the Galatic churches, irrespective of the historicity of its presentation in Acts. Further, it argues that such a stopover has a distinct narrative advantage; namely, it affords an attractively Romanesque stopover early in Paul’s travels for this Roman-born, Roman-named, Rome-bound missionary.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 205 | 47 | 3 |
| Full Text Views | 135 | 6 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 168 | 13 | 0 |