When we last left Sid Green, he was promulgating "hidden history" in the book of Acts as a way of explaining away history he didn't like. Now we have a haunting reminisce to Robert Price's magnum dopus of trying to explain away inconvenient texts as interpolations, even without so much as a textual-critical hint that this is the case. Green's victim however is not 1 Cor. 15, as Price, but 2 Cor. 11:31-33: The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised for ever, knows that I am not lying. In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands. You can see why Price would find 1 Cor. 15 offensive, but what's the deal here? Let's see how Green manages to mangle the scholarly consensus with this one. As before we'll just insert comments in bold. We will see much that is the same as what was found in Green's first article we looked at, so some of this will be repetitive.

In his recently published work, "Interpolations in the Pauline Letters" William O. Walker, Professor of Religion at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, shows that the existence of interpolations in the genuine Paulines is to be expected simply on a priori grounds. [01] So he did. And Walker also made it clear that there is still a substantial burden to be met before declaring any passage an interpolation. Let's note the same thing we did with Price's abuse of this. First, Walker's arguments are not really that solid. The assumptions he makes are more or less that there must have been interpolations in the Pauline texts, simply because - well, there must have been! It is simply assumed based on later evidence that there must have been interpolations earlier; or, it is assumed that the early church must have altered the texts, simply because it is determined that there were possible motives for them to make alterations. (Also, it is worthy to note that this alleged conspiracy on the early church is not even practically possible; the ability to reach all over the world and snuff out deviant manuscripts simply did NOT exist! The existence of vast amounts of "heretical" and non-canonical material is proof alone of that reality. And it seems also to fly in the face of the textual data as well: if they had such assumed control over the Pauline material, why couldn't they do the same with the Gospel materials?) But this is a side issue; more important for our purposes is that Green like Price, is not really using Walker's material correctly. Walker is simply dealing with the issue of the mere existence of interpolations in individual letters or the Pauline corpus itself - as a WHOLE. In regards to individual interpolations such as Green suggests, Walker actually agrees with the consensus: "The burden of proof clearly lies with any argument that a particular passage is an interpolation. Indeed, I would insist, at this point, upon a rigorous application of such criteria as appear applicable (e.g., the passage must be demonstrably non-Pauline in language, style, ideas, and/or implied historical milieu; and the case for interpolation is greatly strengthened if textual and/or contextual evidence can be adduced). Individual passages in otherwise authentically Pauline letters are themselves to be regarded as authentically Pauline unless convincing arguments to the contrary are advanced." Green comes nowhere near meeting these criteria, as much of his case is based on wacky ideas about a connection between Christianity and the Essenes that Walker and Biblical scholarship as a whole would drop dead from laughter over. However, the accusation that the Church tampered with Paul's letters is hardly new; in the second century a war of words raged between the Marcionite Gnostics and the proto-orthodox strand of Christianity. Marcionites alleged massive interpolations into the Pauline letters, while their opponents countered with the charge that the Marcionites had excised quantities of genuine Pauline text. Walker points out that our own religious or other convictions are no basis for deciding in favour of one or the other. [02] Interestingly, Valentinian Gnosticism, equally keen to show Paul as their Gnostic founder, disposed of the supposed interpolations by exegesis. This is merely a cheap attempt at guilt by association, lacking entirely in specifics and corroboration. The Marcionites were no more adept at producing solid evidence for interpolation than Green will be.

Paul's letters were certainly collected for Christian use by someone, and were probably assembled into volumes. They were probably collected by Paul -- see appendix here. More than one letter has been used to make up 2 Corinthians for example, and many regard 1 Corinthians and some others as being similarly constructed. Almost none, actually. And as Randolph has shown in The Secretary in the Letters of Paul, what critics have seen as evidence of "more than one letter" actually reflects a normal practice in which a secretary would compose a letter, and then the credited author would approve it and add his own "appendix" of material which in form would look to us like a different letter. As usual Green is way behind on relevant contextual scholarship. We might therefore expect the survival of an occasional manuscript copy of a letter prior to its being included in a volume, but none are known. Walker finds this suspicions, and the remarkable degree of agreement between all the known manuscripts of the letters - much closer than we find in the surviving manuscripts of any other NT material, gives him further cause to be doubtful. [03] Walker is far from as "suspicious" as Green makes him out to be, but even so, this is a patently absurd methodology in which no evidence can point in any way but the way Green wants it to: Differences point to interpolations, if no other way than by guilt by association; similarity on the other hand points to conspiracy to cover up interpolations. This is an unfalsifiable thesis, and it is therefore worthless.

Walker implies that the collector of the various epistles was the most important editor, And if that was Paul, as contextual practice indicates, then Green's thesis is deep in the tank at this point. and he deals with a variety of suspect passages, but omits any investigation of the passage quoted above. That this is so should have put the skids on Green's conspiracy-theorizing, but nothing stops a Skeptic who is convinced the world is out to fool him into converting. This text has long perplexed me, and I shall seek here to cast some light on it, noting emphatically that I am not attributing my own views to Walker except as stated. Green is the only person confused by this passage, and the likely reason is that he views it through the lens of his ridiculous Essene theories. Let's have a look.

The Paulines are the earliest of the various books of the NT but were included very late in the unofficial canon of Christian writings, having been collected in the first quarter of the second century. There is no evidence of this late date to speak of. As noted above, it is more likely that Paul did this himself, or else Luke or Timothy shortly after his death. It is also clear that Marcion, an incorrigible copycat, took over an established collection in the first quarter of the second century. I think it inevitable that many issues raised by the late assessment of the Pauline letters vis-à-vis the (by then) accepted gospel stories, would have led to 'adjustments' by the first editors, and Walker deals convincingly with some major examples. Not that we'll see any presented here, of course, so I'll just sound-bite in reply that Walker's examples were ridiculous.

I am convinced that the answer to the New Testament riddle lies in history, and that Paul and his writings, and the people he mentions, are all essentially historical. Neither Paul nor any other early writer however knows of any 'Jesus of Nazareth,' nor even of any 'Nazareth.' At the same time, no references to the 'Nazoraioi' - the sect of the 'Nazoraeans' are to be found in Paul or other early NT books. Not that there needed to be, or would be. In this time when what "side of the tracks" you were from was of vast importance, associating Christianity with the podunk burg of Nazareth -- a 1) Jewish 2) minor village in 3) Galilee, three strikes total -- calling the movement by some sort of derived name would have been foolishly stupid. We'd also like to know where Nazareth ought to be mentioned that it isn't. Paul's readers had been Christians for 5-20 years and hardly needed any reminder, especially in a high-context setting. While the much later Acts of the Apostles gives the definition of 'Nazoraioi' at 24:5, and shares with the gospels the prolific use of the term, it shares too, excepting this single occurrence, the desire to represent it as meaning 'from Nazareth.' [04] If Paul was indeed a leader of the 'Nazoraioi,' as Acts proposes, then it is extraordinary that there is no suggestion of any such a word in anything written by Paul or any of his near contemporaries. Why? It's just thrown out as though the problem were obvious. He mentions neither being associated with the villagers of Nazareth, nor with any religious sect of troublemakers. In other words, he doesn't blatter on about contextually-irrelevant details like Green, a modern, low-context American, would do. This reminds us that at the time of collection Christianity was highly organised and at war with the Gnostics, with a unique opportunity now presenting itself for removal of any references that might call into question the bulk of the material introduced for the first time in the gospels. And so there must be a conspiracy, so good it left no evidence -- and opportunity to do it is enough, thank you! What a laughable attempt at scholarship -- Green should get in touch with Adventures Unlimited to co-publish with Acharya S.

Paul believed that 'the Lord' had been resurrected, and that many had seen him in his resurrected form, but nowhere does he suggest that any of these people knew or had seen the Lord while he was living. And Green simply invents an artificial dichotomy between the two. This is essentially Doherty's thesis rehashed. Paul's 'gospel,' or 'good news,' was quite simply that this resurrected person was the Messiah, or 'Christ,' whose resurrection held out the hope of bodily resurrection for all men at the 'end of the Age.' The arrival of the Christ was of course the sign that the end was imminent. Great. Now tell us why "and he lived in Nazareth" is somehow "good news" that needs to be reported. Who cares, in soteriological terms, where the guy did his business?

Along with a small number of other critics Small? Count 'em on one hand. Versus a legion's legion of Biblical scholars that think the idea is idiotic. I strongly suspect that Paul considered the 'Teacher of Righteousness' - revealed to us in modern times by the Damascus Document and by the Dead Sea Scrolls - to have been the long-since-dead but recently-resurrected 'Lord.' This is not to say that the Teacher was Jesus, since the evangelist set his Jesus story in the era of Pontius Pilate, whereas the Teacher lived more than a century earlier. The conspicuous silences by Paul, and by all other early writers, of any detail of the Lord's life story have been much debated. The matter is best explained as being simply because the Teacher was historically too far in the past for biographical details to be generally known, while the Jesus of Nazareth of the gospels was still in the future. It's best explained by the NT being a high-context document in which such details were a waste to mention in context. Again, see the Doherty series, especially part 3. Doherty won't defend his thesis, so maybe Green will. But don't count on it.

Nazoraeanism, as followed by Paul, originated in Palestine, among sectarians who expected the resurrection of the Teacher and came to believe that it had happened. Emerging Christianity was based on the gospel stories, written later in the Diaspora, so the editors of the letters would have been alert to possible conflicts. Needless to say Green immediately simply assumes late dates for the Gospels. There would be some who knew the letters before collection, so changes could not be made too freely. What an incredible convenience for Green's thesis: People just stupid enough but also just perceptive enough to only let changes of a certain level pass, and conveniently, the forgers managed to get all their efforts just right. Silences in Paul's genuine writings, although today seen by many as extraordinary, were for the most part left unrectified since a silence cannot in itself cause a conflict. Letters to deceased individuals however could not be disavowed by their alleged recipients, and the Gnostics, along with most modern scholars, denounced the Pastorals, which were a wholesale condemnation of Gnosticism, as sheer forgery. And if Green thinks that wagon can be ridden, see here. What is in the Pastorals is actually a sort of proto-Gnosticism -- not full-blown.

The editors of the collected letters had to identify Paul's 'Lord' with the gospel Jesus, as the gospels never refer objectively to Jesus in this way, reserving for God Almighty the term 'the Lord'. Accordingly, for clarification, the editor appended 'Jesus' and sometimes 'Christ' to numerous examples, the resulting permutations becoming well-known Christian liturgy, even when alien to gospel usage. [05] Needless to say, not one shred of textual-critical evidence exists for this claim, which requires "Jesus" to be inserted a whopping 221 times into Paul's letters, and "Christ" an even whoppinger 391 times, and no one said blip. The note [05] says "'the Lord Jesus Christ' for example is a form found in no gospel," which is remarkably silly, given that Jesus is said to be appointed Lord only after his resurrection, in Acts.

If changes were made, and Walker shows that they were, No, he doesn't. He shows no specific change and admits that a huge burden has to be satisfied before any such change can be argued for. Green's wholesale changes, requiring the insertion of no less than 612 words in Paul's tiny corpus, would put Walker into the hospital with a split side. the incompatibilities we see today between gospels and the writings of Paul are the residue of a range of confusing issues that the collector of the epistles attempted to deal with. The "confusion" is vastly overstated by Green after his usual "let's get the suckers" fashion, and is a result of low-context readings of a high-context text. It was a unique opportunity, because by the end of the first quarter of the second century Christianity was widespread and there would be no second chance. Changes made at the time of collection would persist in every subsequent copy as the material proliferated throughout the Christian world. Once released therefore it is probable that no further wholesale amendments were attempted and it suffered only from the usual activities of scribal 'correctors.' This would account for the high degree of uniformity among the various manuscripts of Paul's letters. As noted, by this absurd and unfalsifiable thesis, it becomes so that all evidence points to the conspiracy, and none can be admitted against it.

Most scholars and laymen with knowledge of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Damascus Document, (CD,) will know that a community of sectarians exiled themselves from the temple cult in its Hasmonaean form, and sojourned in the 'the land of Damascus.' We can be certain that this place was not Damascus the Syrian city, because the CD explains by means of a commentary - or 'pesher' - on a passage taken from the book of Amos, that the words of Amos are to be seen as an allegory.

"I will exile the tabernacle of your king and bases of your statues from my tent to Damascus" CD 7:15, (The CD is here quoting Amos 5:26-27,) translation Geza Vermes.

The 'pesher' - shows that the Amos text is to be seen as relating to the circumstances of the sectarians themselves. "The 'books of the law' are the 'tabernacle of your king', 'the congregation' is the 'king', and the 'books of the prophets' are 'the bases of your statues.' [06]" It is extremely unlikely therefore that the 'Damascus' of the sectarians was the Syrian city. Taking this text as predictive of their own condition, the name of Damascus became, symbolically, the name of their place of exile. This can only mean that we have to consider two separate locations for 'Damascus' when we encounter it in anything written in that era. This is not necessarily the case; Pate in Communities of the Last Days notes that scholars differ on whether "Damascus" means the literal city or is a metaphor for a place of exile. However, given that the literal Damascus was known as a city of refuge for Jews of the day, it makes no difference in context. Now watch as Green greases the skids for the conspiracy:

So, where was the Damascus of the CD? Many scholars opt for Qumran, but there is a strong counter argument that suggests a great deal of wishful thinking by the earlier Scroll scholars. "Wishful thinking" how? This is not explained in the least. Some would propose a more general area near the Dead Sea, the home of the Essenes according to Pliny, but there is scarcely a scholar to be found who would suggest that 'Damascus' is here intended to mean the Syrian city. False, per Pate. Green has not done sufficient homework, as usual. Michael Wise however believes that it may have been the land lying between that city and the border of Judaea. He notes incidentally that from 95-64BCE Damascus was the capital city of Coele Syria, a short-lived and rather small kingdom, dominated for part of that time by Aretas III of the Nabataeans. [07] The 'Land of Damascus' therefore might mean the country of which Damascus was then the capital. Wise's opinion, whether right or wrong, introduces a historical matter that may be seen as significant as we investigate further. We still haven't been told how Qumran is "wishful thinking". Now Green will tie this in to his previous clumsy efforts.

From sources available since the 1950s, we can say that the group of Essenic sectarians who venerated the Teacher had been led by him to this other 'Damascus' where he was captured by 'the Wicked Priest' and executed. [08] These sectarians were the 'Guardians' or 'keepers' ('of the Law') - 'Shomerim' in Hebrew - which is the origin of the name of the Samarians who shared the conviction that their role in protecting the Hebrew scriptural heritage was unique. The term is used persistently throughout the sectarian writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in Aramaic, the spoken language of that time and place, the word was 'Natsarraya' which transliterates perfectly into the Greek as 'Nazoraioi' meaning 'Nazoreans.' The Nazoraioi are unambiguously identified in Acts 24:5 as the group persecuted by Paul until he became one of them. We already answered this silliness in the previous essay. "Of the law" is something Green adds gratuitously to the meaning; this is just copy and paste from the last one, as he even has the same typo ("Samarians"). As we noted there, then: Green just gave himself an idea for the etymology of the city of Nazareth's name, you think? "Of the Law" is apparently not part of the meaning -- which leaves it open, even if Green is right, in terms of what the people would be "keepers" or "custodians" of. How about the kerygma of the Gospel in this case? Green never states whether he thinks Nazareth existed in Jesus' time, but as it is now known from a list of towns former priests were sent to, he's stuck with an etymology of unknown origin either way and his thesis has sum spalinin' to do. In the meantime a reader has sent us this note. He took a class at the University of Maryland on the history of the rabbinic movement: My professor's speciality is the history of the rabbinic movement. We did extensive study on one particular case text, Baba Metsi'a' 3 of the Mishnah, and that very passage deals extensively with the "shomerim." He translates the word "shomerim" as "bailees," "watchers," or "depositaries." It's largely based on a passage in Exodus 22. In any case, the word here is understood as strictly considered to refer to people who watch over animals or goods. It's a very financial, physical enterprise rather than a spiritual one in this particular case.

Acts of the Apostles is one of the last NT works to be written, Note that as before, Green never justifies this position. See link above on dates. while the Paulines are the very earliest, yet Acts must have been written only shortly before the Pauline letters were collected. We can be reasonably sure of this because we see that the author has an incomplete knowledge of Paul's life story as revealed by the letters. "Incomplete knowledge"? What this means is, "he didn't repeat trivial details of no relevance." Green argues from a non-matter. Naturally, the possibility therefore exists that where differences occur the letters are the more accurate of the two records. This would likely be true if we could be sure that no one had tampered with either record, but no such certainty exists. Once again: "It's all a conspiracy!" And it always conveniently is able to work out in Green's favor, since evidence is never part of the package.

Everyone knows that Paul was on his way to Damascus to apprehend members of 'the Way' when he was converted to the belief of the 'Nazoraioi.' Nowhere does Acts specify any detail that would oblige us to accept that Paul's 'Damascus' was the Syrian city, but 2 Corinthians 11:31-33 emphatically does so. Acts doesn't? Uh -- how about the street called "Straight" (9:11), the Via Recta, which is still known today? Ooops.

Acts 9 says that Paul was armed with writs from the High Priest as he started his journey, but on the basis that the High Priest had no authority whatsoever outside the boundaries of Judaea the Damascus in Syria is not credible as Paul's destination. False, as previously noted. I've been through the commentaries of Johnson, Polhill, Dunn, Witherington, etc. The fact is that we have no certain information as to whether the Sanhedrin had this kind of power [Johnson, 162], and there is also a question as to whether Rome was in control of the city at this time or the Nabeteans were. We do not know whether there was any sort of extradition agreement available. We do know that Damascus was known in Jewish history and thought as a place of refuge and exile, so that it is conceivable that Jewish Christians would flee there. We also know that the Sanhedrin had jurisdiction as a legislative body over Jews throughout the Diaspora [Kistemaker, 329], collecting the Temple tax abroad [Dunn, 121], and that Jews had the right of internal discipline in their synagogues [Polhill, 233; cf. 2 Cor. 11:24]. Therefore, we could readily conceive of some sort of right of extradition, especially since we know that the Romans granted this right to Judaea as a sovereign state under the Hasmoneans, and that privilege was renewed in 47 BC [Bruce, 233]. But the question is really not relevant, and much ink has been wasted on this topic, because we don't know whether Saul/Paul would have been successful in his intentions, whatever they were - he was stopped cold by his encounter with the Risen Christ! It may be that he had in his possession a letter of recommendation (cf. 2 Cor. 3:1) to present to Damascus authorities, in an attempt to get permission to arrest or perhaps only extradite Jewish Christians, and for all we know, he may have had them handed over; he may have been politely declined; he may have been kicked out of Damascus on his behind! We just don't know whether he was pursuing a legitimate course, or shooting the moon, because he never got far enough to tell. (Beside all of this, at the time, Caiaphas would still be high priest - and we know from the Gospels and from secular testimony that he and his family were not exactly law-abiding citizens!) Bear in mind that Green was aware of this response when he wrote the present article, and is merely pretending it doesn't exist. But if 'Damascus' were in Judaea we would expect its inhabitants to be Jews, and not Nabataeans. On this point Acts has something to say:

After many days had gone by, the Jews conspired to kill him, but Saul learned of their plan. Day and night they kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him. But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket. Acts 9:1-30, NIV.

Acts, knowing nothing of any Nabataeans under King Aretas, is aimed at a gentile readership, and so describing the inhabitants of a Jewish location as 'Jews' is not especially controversial. At least we get that much of an admission. I also noted before: Hardly an issue. Both parties would have their motives; the Jews for obvious reasons, Aretas because of his suspicion of Jewish preachers, helped along by his stormy relationship with the Herods [Witherington, 324]. Cooperation, intentional or otherwise, would not be impossible, and Luke's omission of Aretas may be related to Paul's lack of success in the Arabian mission (see above) - for to mention Aretas might require Luke to explain WHY Aretas was after Paul. Indeed if Luke is writing a trial brief for Paul, it would be best NOT to mention this sort of thing.

Upon publication, the Damascus Document, and later the Scrolls, suggested to modern scholarship an obviously close affinity between the sectarian community that wrote and used them and the group that Josephus calls 'Essenes.' Although it is fashionable these days to be wary of the word 'Essene' used too freely in these connections, the majority of scholars understand the sectarians of the Scrolls to have been Essenes. From the writings of Josephus it is known that any convert to the belief of those 'Essenes,' would undergo a process of induction lasting for three years, and this is in substantial agreement with the Scrolls. [09] If we are on the right track therefore, we might expect to learn that having sought out the Nazorean enemy at their 'Damascus,' and having then been converted, Paul would need to stay at 'Damascus' for three years before being accepted as a full-fledged member. The first chapter of Galatians has this to say on the matter:

"…nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days." Galatians 1:17,18, NIV. And I have again already answered this bombast, other than that Green now makes the wild attempt to equate "Damascus" with an Essene place. if Green thinks Paul's three years match the Essene three years, why did he not flunk out at once for allegedly preaching against the law? Green cites Josephus on this (War 2.8.7) and there's a lot he leaves out. Josephus tells of many practices of the Essenes which find no NT parallel. In particular, that one-year of observation included giving the initiate a hatchet and a special girdle to wear, plus a white garment. After that year the convert undergoes ritual washing (not at once, as in Christianity) and then after two years more he has "tremendous oaths" to take. The "capital punishment" is also a self-imposed starvation, and Josephus adds that the Essenes often showed mercy to those that did this to themselves. Now watch even more excuses fly out of Green's hat as he tries to explain significant incongruities in his thesis:

Why would it be desirable, early in the second century when the Pauline epistles were being collected and circulated for Christian appreciation, to attempt to deceive people about the nature or whereabouts of Paul's 'Damascus?' Acts of the Apostles, written only a few years earlier, declares quite openly that the Nazoreans are the religious sect to which Paul became converted, so any decision to deny such an association was decided quite shortly after Acts was written. So get this nonsense. Interpolators managed to insert "Jesus" and "Christ" successfully over 600 times in Paul's letters, but they somehow were unable to manage deleting one teensy reference to "nazoreans" in Acts. Now isn't that special. And it becomes even more convenient: No NT writer could have known that the 'other' Damascus would be forgotten, remaining unknown until its rediscovery in 1896, but suppression of any mention of it, or of the 'Nazoraioi' themselves, suggests that it was desirable to lose the connection. Christians of almost all denominations conspire to translate the frequent references to 'Nazoraios' as 'of Nazareth' so that Jesus the Nazorean becomes 'Jesus of Nazareth.' Oddly it is a fundamentalist bible translator, Darby, who refuses to fall in with this. [10] Acts 24:5 escaped because Paul could not have been the leader of the villagers of Nazareth; the switch in meaning simply doesn't work in this instance and the reference had to be either ignored or removed. Fortunately for posterity, the former option was chosen. "Fortunately for Green's thesis, this was the convenient thing that happened, so that his rampant genius had something to work on." What unmitigated arrogance!

Acts was written therefore somewhat before implementation of a policy to exclude the Nazorean connection from Christian history. However, the author aims to portray Paul as a senior Nazorean leader, equal to, or perhaps even greater than Peter, "Equal to" is all that works. Peter and Paul are presented in Acts as doing parallel work. and information that would go against his purpose he certainly does exclude. His objective would be impossible to sustain if Paul were seen to be at the bottom of the ladder, a novice under training at Damascus, while Peter was obviously at the summit of the sectarian hierarchy. Accordingly the author of Acts brings Paul straight back to Jerusalem after his conversion, to chat with Peter on equal terms, and he manages to lose the three years by inventing an episode where Paul is bundled off to Tarsus for his safety. This is strong reason to suppose that the author of Acts was unaware of much of the Pauline material, or that the letters were not yet generally known and he did not expect them to be circulated. It's no reason for any such thing. Luke has to explain those three years if he makes light of them; if Acts is a defense brief for Paul, leaving it out is a wise legal tactic: Don't tell more than you have to. And silence never has and never will indicate lack of knowledge, especially in a high-context setting.

The interval between the writing of Acts and the Paulines being collected for circulation was the time when the Nazorean heresy was about to be written out of Christian history. The fact that Acts was almost unknown for more than a century after its appearance seems to have helped it to escape the attentions of the Christian censors. [11] Note again that Green merely assumes that "not used" is the same as "unknown" and also hypothesizes whatever convenience is needed to keep his theory afloat. Just conveniently was it out of the reach of censors, who were so darned good they left behind no evidence -- which of course just proves how good they were! See the cow eating grass?

However, although the Nazoreans are identified in Acts as being the sect that later came to be called 'Christians,' in the Christian era their belief is identified as heretical. Jerome, for example, writes of them: "these Minaeans are commonly called Nazoraeans, and they believe in Christ, the Son of God. . . But while they will be both Jews and Christians, they are neither Jews nor Christians." [12] By that time of course it is likely that few Christians would be conscious of the history of the origin of their own beliefs, now entirely re-oriented to conform to the stories from the Diaspora that we call 'gospels.' By the time of Jerome it is far more "likely" that this wayward group had adopted the name "Nazareans" based on Acts 24:5 as a way of "in your facing" the mainstream church. But no, Green would rather have us buy the bill of goods that this narrow and tiny group was the surviving remnant of the real movement. But Green is badly misusing Jerome to begin with. The full context of this comment: "Until now a heresy is to be found in all of the synagogues of the East among the Jews; it is called 'of the Minaeans' and is cursed by the Pharisees until now. Usually they are called Nazarenes." "Until today they blaspheme the Christian people in their synagogues under the name of Nazarenes" "Three times each day they anathematize the Christian name in every synagogue under the name of Nazarenes." This is JEWS of Jerome's day cursing Christians, whom they consider heretics and call "Nazareans" as a type of derision! While the heresies deplored by the second and third century Church were essentially Gnostic in some form, the sectarian writings of the Scrolls display a dualism that is also characteristic of that tendency. As noted before, "dualism" as Green defines it is so broad as to be worthless. The Scrolls are not "Gnostic" in any uniquely defining sense of the word. This points to Nazoreanism as the source of Christian Gnosticism, and so, as it seems to be the source of Christianity itself, it gives a good indication that the 'Orthodox' Christian tendency arose from a Gnostic milieu, and not the other way around. That sort of derivation would be a patent absurdity, to travel from Gnosticism's despising the body to Christianity's desire for a glorified one. In any event Green's attempt to over-define "dualism" and his use of a very late reference by Jerome is a mighty tiny foundation upon which to build an enormous edifice that disagrees with the monumental amount of scholarship that avers to the contrary.

Given these circumstances, to be descended from Nazoreanism was not something in which Christians would take any pride, since to admit it would be to concede that Christianity had evolved from a belief that was officially seen as a heresy. Although this is certainly exactly what happened, it is also clearly something that the leaders of the Church would be loath to admit, since the official line was, and still is, that Christian belief has been unerringly consistent since the beginning. This paragraph is of course based on Green's mangling of the data in the last one and no further comment is required.

If we now suspect that the purpose of the 2 Corinthians passage was to remove evidence of Paul's association with the 'Damascus' where Nazoreans were known to flourish, then we must next look at historical evidence to confirm it. And if that "suspicion" is a load of hokum, what of looking at it? We will anyway.

The quotation from 2 Corinthians above is due much respect, because it seems to be the only source of the historical 'fact' that in Paul's lifetime the city of Damascus was a possession of the kingdom of Nabataea. Historians, as well as critics of both the believing and unbelieving varieties, have simply accepted this supposed fact, even though the author of Acts was apparently ignorant of it. "Apparently ignorant" nothing -- if Luke mentions Aretas, he also needs to mention why Paul was in trouble with Aretas. In fact Aretas IV is known from Nabateans coins (see here) from times that were obviously in Paul's lifetime. If Green is trying to raise doubt about this, he's way out of line, and he is. Watch this: Yet the matter has caused some head-scratching, with much effort to explain away the many problems that such an idea raises. A footnote in the New Oxford Annotated Bible (NRSV,) for example, gives a note for 2 Corinthians 11:32 as follows:

"Aretas IV was king of Nabataea, southeast of Palestine. Apparently Damascus was under his jurisdiction at the time of Paul's escape."

The 'apparently' betrays the somewhat timid tone "Timid tone"! Like heck it is! Green is simply arbitrarily and obnoxiously name-calling and pretending to read minds, just as he did last tiume. "Apparently" means it is apparent and there is not one bit of "timidity" about it. of a claim that I believe to be unsustainable. The author(s) of those footnotes also comment upon the mystery of Acts 9:2, where Paul proceeds to Damascus to arrest members of 'the Way', armed with the writ of the High Priest, who had no authority outside Judaea as already stated. To explain away this inconsistency the footnote writer(s) offer us this I'll skip what is offered, and Green's retort to it, since it is nothing like what we offer above. Note again that Green is well aware of our response and has chosen to ignore it. Having presumed this problem insurmoutable after only consulting a pittance of scholarship on it, Green proceeds to his even more ridiculous thesis:

If it were the 'Damascus' of the sectarians who believed in the resurrected Teacher however, then the whole story makes perfect sense. Yet Christians, whether scholars or not, are virtually unanimous in pouring scorn on the idea that Paul was concerned with 'the other' Damascus, and insist that he was in Syria, pointing to 2 Corinthians 11:32 as a circular 'proof.' Gee. Isn't that a wonder. Even scholars are unanimous in not recognizing Green's genius. What's that all about, huh? Here we read that Damascus was ruled by the Nabataeans under King Aretas, yet Paul's religious ideas, while offensive to religious Jews, offered no threat to the Nabataeans and no plausible motive has ever emerged for a Nabataean attempt on Paul's life. Not that Green has ever bothered to look into. Witherington notes Aretas' suspicion of Jewish preachers (converting persons from the local religion would raise the ire of any leader), helped along by his stormy relationship with the Herods, as sufficient motive. Note that Witherington picked this up from O'Connor, whom Green knows about, and that therefore Green is obnoxiously failing to address O'Connor's claims.

Syrian Damascus was a cosmopolitan city, but the dominant social and political tendency among the population was Hellenistic, not Nabataean. Any one group of any persuasion however, finding itself dominant in such a milieu, would need tact and diplomacy, rather than religious intolerance, in order to preserve social order and the flourishing commerce that was the city's raison d'être. Green here shows remarkable ignorance of the social world of the NT. "Tolerance" of the sort he describes was unknown, unless a "one group" evangelizing agreed not to pretend to be superior to any other. Hint: Christianity didn't do this. If the Nabataeans were such a dominant group, to demonstrate overt, lethal intention towards a minority belief that neither threatened them nor gave offence to their own religious ideas, seems to be a most ill-advised course of action. It wouldn't be. And Green is decidedly out of touch with how Christianity upset the ancient social order. See here. Now for the heart of the conspiracy:

I believe the forger's intention was to relocates 'Damascus' into Syria, by the simple addition of four words or so to the Greek written by Paul. Having relocated 'Damascus' at what is, chronologically, the earliest opportunity in the NT, further mentions - in whatever Christian writing - would require no further indicators for readers to know that this was the Syrian Damascus and not some place that may have been the cradle of Nazoreanism. Four words, huh? Not one of them missing from any manuscript. Thus non-evident in terms of textual criticism.

Still the most important question must be: Were the Nabataeans in control of Damascus anyway? Because if they were not, then interpolation becomes more certain, and more sinister. If Damascus could not possibly have been under Nabataean rule, then it is inconceivable that Paul, who lived there for three years, believed otherwise. The interpolation is then certain, and the purpose can only be to deceive us. BOO! Yes, it was all a conspiracy to fool you. Now watch Green get clumsy again:

Murphy O'Connor somehow "Somehow" -- what a head-in-sand dismissal! Why not address that "somehow"? calculates that the Nabataeans gained control of Damascus in 37CE, following the death of the Emperor Tiberius, [14] but admits that there is no record of it. On the other hand Josephus tells a different story. He records the total defeat in battle of the Roman-appointed tetrarch, Herod Antipas, by none other than Aretas IV of Nabataea in 36CE, following which affront to Roman authority, Vitellius, the governor of Syria, received orders from the Emperor Tiberius to take Aretas, dead or alive. The order was not carried out however, but only because Tiberius died in 37CE. It seems extraordinary that in that same year the pariah Aretas, saved by the bell - or by the serendipitous demise of the Emperor and the insouciance of Vitellius, should immediately become so well regarded as to have a key city in a Roman province ceded to him. Why is this "extraordinary"? As usual with Green, not a word of this is explained. Let's put it simply: Rome had no need for a battle along its Eastern borders; "well regard" need not have a thing to do with it. Green is remarkably naive in terms of politics, to wit:

It is true that Vitellius probably disliked Antipas, [15] and was therefore possibly relieved to be able to ignore the command of his deceased emperor, but that would not in the least motivate him to reward Aretas with sovereignty over Roman territory. The death of Tiberius caused no reversal of policy towards Antipas and Aretas, or we would have some historical record of it. We would? Where and why? Green merely tosses out this "argument by incredulity" with no basis to speak of. And again, why need it be "reward" as opposed to, "it wasn't worth stopping in light of the long term"? Give and take. Has Green never heard of the appeasement of Hitler? Here is what other sources have to say: Under Tiberius the official policy for the eastern frontier was to encourage regularly organized provinces such as Syria, as opposed to client kingdoms such [as] Nabataea. In 36 Tiberius favored Herod Antipas over Aretas in a border conflict. The Syrian governor Vitellius and two legions were sent against Aretas in about May of 37. They went by ship to Ptolemais and crossed through lower Galilee on the way to Petra. If Aretas had controlled Damascus at that time the Romans would likely have proceeded against it first. However, seizing the Nabataean capitol might have produced a better advantage, ending in the eventual surrender of Damascus. Whatever the Roman strategy, the attack was called off with the news of the death of Tiberius on March 16, 37. With the new emperor, Gaius (37-41 CE), the colonial policy was reversed, with a favoring of client kingdoms. Recorded are the granting of independence to Commagene in 37 and the area of Iturea in 38; in 37 and 39 Agrippa II received increases in his territory in Transjordan. Unrecorded is the granting of control of Damascus to Aretas IV, or anyone else. However, this position presumes that in about mid 37 Gaius gave control of Damascus to the former enemy of Rome, Aretas IV. It has been suggested that Gaius owed Aretas a favor. This position attempts to limit the possible departure of Paul from Damascus in mid 37 to 39, but this is only speculation with no supporting evidence. There is yet no evidence of Nabataean coins or pottery from that period. In other words, as usual, Green merely takes advantage of silences, ignoring positive evidence and the intricacies of the political situation, all on favor of a ridiculously complex theory of interpolations with no textual evidence to speak of! Even if the positions of the antagonists were reversed by the death of the emperor, the reward to Aretas would be subtracted from the territory of Antipas, rather than from that of Imperial Rome. Why, if Aretas himself stepped in and took it? Other territories were certainly gifted by the Romans to tribal leaders who had been loyal or useful, and the gift recorded, but it was always land or cities from vassal states and territories. If the empire would ever cede any of its own territory it would surely be by means of a boundary change, not a problematical award of a key city in the interior of an important province. How about "c-o-n-q-u-e-s-t"? Why does this not occur to Green at all? It doesn't. He cotntinues with the "Rome would never cede it" excuse:

We should also note that the city in question was strongly Hellenised and a prominent member of the group of cities that had formed an alliance, uniting a swathe of territory know as the Decapolis. The purpose of this alliance was specifically to form a union against predatory Arabian raiders, which is exactly how the Nabataeans were perceived by their neighbours. To cede Damascus to the Nabataeans therefore would be to introduce certain strife into the Roman province. In summary, to cede an important strategic city in the heartland of a Roman province to a manifestly undeserving barbarian king, would have been a gross misjudgement of a kind that the Romans were not inclined to make. Yep, the Romans never made mistakes, or conceded for the sake of long-term benefit, or were otherwise occupied. Let's bear in mind that Aretas IV was considered the greatest of the Nabetean kings, and that not only war, but the path to the lucrative spice and perfume trade was at issue. Rome, ever patient, would not annex the Nabatean kingdom until Trajan's time, after the death of the king at that time, Rabel II, and prior to that slowly strangled their enemies by diverting trade. Also note that Aretas IV had motivational precedent for such a conquest: His namesake predecessor, Aretas III, took Damascus in 84 BC but was later beaten out by Rome.

In some difficulty here, Murphy O'Connor notes (without endorsing them) a trio of scholars who suspect that any Nabataean presence in Damascus was restricted to a trading mission, possibly organised as a colony. [16] Supposedly, this colony would have had a Nabataean governor whose authority did not go beyond the management of his own people. Again, one wonders how Paul's views could have turned such a theoretical trading mission into a death squad, risking everything to bring about the demise of a zealous believer in something that posed no threat to themselves. No need to wonder. A full-fledged takeover does the job.

Further useful evidence has been available for a century and a half from Emil Schürer. He noted the wealth of numismatic material marking the reign of Aretas IV and comments in a footnote that the "coins of Damascus, with images of Augustus, Tiberias and Nero do not favour the assumption that it was part of the Nabataean kingdom." [17] Of course, since as the link shows there were plenty of coins with Aretas IV's mug on them already, why in the world would it be necessary for the city of Damascus to make more? It's interesting that coins featuring Caligula and Claudius (37-54) are missing from Schurer's list. It makes perfect sense that the control of Damascus that Aretas gained was lost by his successor as Rome started zeroing in on their control of the spice and perfume trade. Now let's close with a coup de grace. Even IF Green is right about Aretas not ruling Damascus at this time, he's still in the soup. Why? Read 1 Cor. 11:32 carefully -- not one word of it indicates that Aretas ruled Damascus at the time of the incident. Nothing. Just because he went after Paul into Damascus does not have to mean he ruled there -- as Green even allows, the Nabateans were raiders by trade; so what was to stop Aretas sending one or three elite troopers to get after Paul inside Damascus?

What then did the alleged interpolator think the situation in Damascus might have been? He would certainly have working his mischief in the Diaspora, and probably during the process of collecting the Pauline epistles for circulation. [18] He would have been looking back on the time of Paul as history, but this interpolator was no historian. In fairness to him, a disciplined approach to historical recording and research is a remarkably modern concept. Completely bigoted nonsense. See here. Our supposed interpolator, almost certainly looked on times past indiscriminately, as a child today looks upon 'olden days.' He knew for certain that King Aretas had been the ruler of Damascus, but unfortunately he chose the wrong King Aretas and the wrong era of history. Yet Green will now admit this "interpolator" got many details completely right, which makes Green's excuses all the thinner:

Because the interpolator assumed Nabataean control of the city, acceptance by uncritical Christians of the historical accuracy of the assertion has simply followed. In short, Green has no answer for the scholars or historians who think it is true other than insulting them and the "interpolator". It certainly is a fact that at the time of Paul's Damascus experience, in the late 30s CE, the king of Nabataea was Aretas, this being Aretas IV. It is also a fact that during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus, about 150 years earlier, Damascus had been under the control of the Nabataeans, and at that time, when Syria was not yet under Roman rule, the king of the Nabataeans was Aretas III. [19] In my view it is a safe bet that our interpolator mistook one Aretas for another and thus exposed himself to possible ridicule, escaping this ignominy only because Christians, unwilling for two millennia to doubt a word of what they read, have obligingly re-written history for him. Against all reason and in the absence of a shred of evidence his faux pas interpolated into Paul's epistle has been accepted and promoted as genuine history, so that otherwise reliable historians now tell us uncritically that Aretas IV controlled Damascus. In doing so they may possibly be quite unaware that apart from 2 Corinthians 11:33 itself there is simply no evidence for such a belief. Of course, it never occurs to Green that Aretas 3 provided an impetus for 4 to take control of Damascus. Rather, he relies on the principle that ancient people are stupid and modern scholars are even stupider while Green himself is a genius. Green next notes that Josephus made a similar error:

Some may find it incredible that a Christian forger could make such a crass error. In fact, in the absence of any form of historical method, this type of error was not uncommon. Of the many errors made by Josephus for example, some are of exactly this kind. Book 14, chapter 8 of 'Antiquities,' deals with the era of Hyrcanus II, the weakling Hasmonaean ruler whose rivalry with his much tougher brother, Aristobulus, led to the ignominious annexation of Judaea by the Romans. Josephus describes the issuing of a decree by the Roman Senate heaping all kinds of benefit, gifts and praise upon Hyrcanus II, in a treaty of mutual assistance. As Josephus's translator, William Whiston, painfully observes in footnotes, the entire tale belongs in the reign of Hyrcanus I, who was John Hyrcanus, the son of Simon Maccabaeus a century or so earlier. "Painfully" indeed. There is no pain in Whiston's footnote, but the likely source of the problem is not clumsy history by Josephus, but clumsy assembly of Josephus' notes by one of his scribes. The note says as much: "One may easily believe that Josephus gave order for one thing, and his amanuensis performed another, by transposing decrees that concerned the Hyrcani, and as deluded by the sameness of their names; for that belongs to the first high priest of this name, [John Hyrcanus,] which Josephus here ascribes to one that lived later [Hyrcanus, the son of Alexander Janneus]." Sorry, no parallel here and no proof of carelessness in historical reportage.

It looks remarkably likely that someone with faulty historical knowledge carried out this suspected interpolation, using his mistaken understanding in the service of the church. Nonetheless his success in introducing an historical misunderstanding that has endured for almost two millennia is remarkable, and it will likely continue to be accepted as truth by those who prefer the story the way the interpolator tells it, regardless of any historical considerations. Note how Green puts "spin" on the matter so as to make out as stupid or biased everyone who continues to argue for historicity. That's the sort of arrogance required to prop up a ludicrous thesis of the sorts Green proposes.

We must remember also that the interpolation that I am alleging has served its purpose, leading Christian believers away from suspicions of sectarian Jewish origins for their beliefs. Gee -- last I read in the scholars, Christianity is regarded, contextually speaking, as originating out of Judaism. Who turned out Green's lights? The residue of that Christian success remains however, uncomfortable but inescapable: there is simply no justification for alleging Nabataean sovereignty over Damascus. Nor is there an even slightly plausible rationale for Rome to cede this city to a king who was condemned less than a year earlier by the Emperor himself as an enemy of Rome. If we seek contemporary evidence for the Nabataean possession of Damascus in Paul's era we shall come up empty; we shall find nothing but the 2 Corinthians passage itself. Which is more than enough; historical plausibility adds the rest, and it does not need to be a "ceding" the way Green paints it in his black and white fashion. In fact, it does not even need to have Aretas running Damascus.

I believe the contextual evidence strongly supports a claim of interpolation. It will obviously help to have a copy of the entire text to hand, 2 Cor 11, verses 16 through 33, in order to see how the interpolation has been made. Firstly we must note the incongruous positioning of the suspect text within the passage as a whole. For this we need to begin at v.16 of chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians to see the way that Paul builds up his presentation. He starts, vv16-18, by saying that he intends to do some boasting, since others feel able to boast, then so will he. All this will be is the standard "it's a change of subject" routine, the same one used to declare all of the Testimonium of Josephus a fabrication. Even Earl Doherty dropped this sort of ridiculous reasoning years ago; it's simple to call any side comment a "change in subject" and to render half a letter "interpolated" with such marginal criteria.

His Corinthian readers, he says in vv 19-21, tolerate the boasting of others and so might as well listen to some of his, and he can match their boastings with his own. In vv 22-23 he compares himself rather favourably with these other boasters, showing that he can outmatch their claims. From v 24 until v 27 he relates a list of his hardships, his adventures and his sufferings; floggings, shipwrecks, imprisonment - all suffered for his faith in his belief. It is an impressive list, underlined by an oath that he is not lying at v 31. This is not unknown in other epistles - Paul does swear that he is not a liar on two other occasions - so we can accept that he is saying here that the list of his travails may sound far-fetched, but he is not shooting a line. As we noted before, oaths like this one were typical rhetorical devices [Witherington Corinthians commentary, 458n] and do not signify forgery, but rather an authentic student of Greco-Roman rhetoric using standard presentation techniques. No one needed to be doubting Paul here for him to use this oath. This seems to be one place where Green has backed off an earlier claim.

At this point he is about to embark on a new boastings theme - the visions of the Lord that he has been privileged to experience, but before this he throws in the 'Damascus' experience, relating his risky but successful departure from Damascus. Chronologically this was his first adventure, and while not trivial, it was less dramatic than those where he failed to escape and was actually caught and stoned, or given a severe flogging. It is more than a little odd therefore that he tells the story of his 'moonlight flight' from Damascus not as the first but the last example in the list, and on the wrong side of the underlining oath of truthfulness. What's "odd" about it? Not a darned thing. It is not at all "less dramatic"; if anything it is more so. But here again Green merely displays his contextual ignorance. As Witherington notes [458-9] Paul is alluding to a Roman military honor called the corona muralis, or "wall crown," given to the first soldier to scale a wall into an enemy city. In a moment of irony, Paul "awards" himself valor for being the first not up the wall, but down it! He thus restarts, if only briefly, the theme that he had just completed and underlined. The implication of the oath can now be seen somewhat differently. It may seem as if it applies not to the list of adventures just related, but to the single adventure coming up next. The implication of this would be that he offers the Damascus escape as the most severe of his many trials, and the least believable, when it was obviously neither of these things. As noted, completely wrong.

Having noted the illogical position of the suspected interpolation we must look at the words themselves, to see what more they can tell us. Having savaged Green's "logic" little more needs be said. He proceeds to a detailed line of conspiracy, of an interpolator who was not too careless but just careless enough for his genius (but not that of trained historians and Biblical scholars) to spot it; he proposes that referring to the "city of the Damascenes" is superfluous, though why this is not something Paul rather than an interpolator could have done is not explained. We need not specifically address Green's patently absurd thesis beyond this, that "Damascus" was meant to be somehow associated with the Essenes. We only get to where he attacks problematic issues brought up by Murphy-O'Connor, one of which we choose not to defend:

Finally he claims that relevant passages, 2 Corinthians 11:33 and Acts 9:24-5 make it clear that Damascus is surrounded by a wall pierced by several gates, thus supposedly precluding the possibility of Qumran being the location in question, on the basis of archaeological evidence. The passage from 2 Corinthians is our suspected interpolation of course, and Acts adds nothing except for the information that there was more than one gate in the wall, of which Murphy O'Connor makes much. Uh, it also adds that there is a street called "Straight" there, as we have noted and as Green conspicuously misses.

Of course the walls of Qumran no longer stand, and so cannot be observed, but it is not to be overlooked that it was destroyed before Acts of the Apostles was written, the gentile author of which almost certainly never saw it, either before or after its destruction. That of course assumes a late date for Acts, which we refute in a link above. It is interesting however that a significant scholarly minority denies altogether any connection between Qumran and the Scrolls discovered in nearby caves. Norman Golb, a principal spokesman for this minority, also uses archaeological evidence to show that the building at Qumran was a fortress of the Hasmonaean defence system, rather than a seminary for quasi-monastic sectarians. This blend of opinion and archaeological interpretation seems to be totally at odds with the assertion made by Murphy O'Connor. Whether Golb is right or wrong, the archaeological evidence clearly allows enough latitude in interpretation to permit one to see the site as the ruins of a fortress. It should not be a surprise therefore to find more than one gate set in high walls. That the walls were pierced by windows here and there, set high enough to deny access to an enemy, and thus to necessitate being lowered by a rope, would also be unsurprising. Note however that I am not here proposing that the Qumran building was necessarily the site of Paul's adventure, but only demonstrating how poverty-stricken is the case made against it by those desperate to protect a traditional belief at any price. What Green is doing is making patent excuses for the lack of evidence for his thesis. He is forced to resort to promoting an extreme minority thesis about Qumran and stretching archaeological evidence to the breaking point, and appeal to silence as an argument. He has no positive evidence, and that's all there is to it. Green closes expressing confidence that "bogus" explanations will be triumphed over by his genius. We close rather with our own look at the criteria for interpolation we used re Price:

9) Explanation for the interpolation. Green provides one, but it is rooted in his absurd Essene hypothesis. Record, and final score: 0-9.