3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Ok research, poor conclusions, April 9, 2008
This review is from: St. Paul's Corinth: Texts and Archaeology (Good News Studies, Vol. 6) (Paperback)
The book is divided in 3 parts. The most of this review is spent analyzing the 2nd part.
In Part 1, Murphy-O'Connor examines all ancient texts that are related to Corinth. These are presented in chronological order with the exception of Pausanias. His account appears first because he wrote a fairly detailed account of Corinth. Although Part 1 is a handy reference of primary sources, it is lengthy and repetitious. In the brief commentaries Murphy-O'Connor does tie some of the accounts in with related issues in Paul's letters to the Corinthians. The most interesting of these will be developed below.
In Part 2, Murphy O'Connor analyzes the texts to determine when Paul was in Corinth. He looks at Acts 18:2 and 18:12, which reference the Edict of Claudius and the term of office of the proconsul Gallio, respectively. He concludes that unless we are to throw out all Pauline Chronology, we must recognize Luke's extreme vagueness in Acts 18:2 or simply acknowledge his carelessness and ignorance to the circumstance of the couple that Paul met when he first arrived in Corinth (Murphy-O'Connor : 148). However, he seems to have haphazardly arrived to this conclusion by coming upon different options, deeming them all unlikely, and then with full confidence bursting through one of them with his preconceived conclusion ready in hand. But, to his credit, I wish to show that Murphy O'Connor does present the evidence very well for a resolution of the issue; however, it is the opposite of what he has determined.
Although Murphy- O'Connor's argument for the date of Gallio's encounter with Paul (Acts 18:27-17) is "admittedly tenuous", it is also quite logical and well thought-out. He dates this interaction to have taken place between July and October A.D. 51 (Murphy-O'Connor : 158). So I will set this date, as he did, and move on to the more troublesome section. In Acts 18:2, Luke describes that when Paul arrived to Corinth he met a couple, Aquila and Priscilla, who had just "recently", came from Italy due to the Edict of Claudius. Murphy- O'Connor develops later that this "recently", must actually be some period of about eight years, thus challenging Luke's reliability (Murphy-O'Connor : 148).
There are three ancient sources that mention the Edict of Claudius: Suetonius, Dio Cassius, and Orosius. Orosius explicitly refers to the "expulsion of Jews by Claudius in his ninth year". This would mean that the edict of Claudius would have to have occurred from 25 January A.D. 49 to 24 January A.D. 50. Murphy- O'Connor than examines why he believes that this information is dubious. His first point is that Orosius depended on other sources, and since we do not have all of these sources, we can no longer have confidence in his writings. This reasoning is hypocritical because Murphy O'Connor glorified the work of Athenaeus in Part 1 because "Many of the works cited no longer exist, and without the data that he supplies our knowledge of ancient literature would be immeasurably poorer." (Murphy-O'Connor : 132) For the lack of the original referenced sources he praises one author and then condemns the other. Orosius does reference Suetonius and "he does highlight a valid doubt as to who precisely were expelled." (Murphy-O'Connor : 139) As a pupil of Augustine, it seems normal that to Orosius anyone who is fighting and arousing trouble against Christianity is effectively "agitating against Christ". This would be similar to someone now saying, "They ignored Christ" or "They fought against Mohammed". But Murphy-O'Connor does not attack this as much; instead, he charges him with anachronism because he called Christians "men of a related faith." Theologically, Judaism and Christianity can be considered different faiths; although, as Murphy O'Connor accurately points out, they were not at that point publicly recognized as such. Murphy-O'Connor then comes to the culmination of his criticism of the account of Orosius by proudly reminding us that there is no account of the Edict of Claudius in the Annals of Tacitus. It is not surprising to learn that this section is void of any references.
Murphy-O'Connor presents as a big surprise that in the Annals of Tacitus "there is not a single allusion to any action, taken or contemplated, against the Jews of Rome in that year". This is true, but not astounding. In fact, it would be surprising if it were in his Annals. The first problem is the content. We have only a little over half of the original work and when compared to Tacitus's Histories, then the length of time that is covered is twice as long in half the number of books. There clearly will be less detail (Benario: 57). There is extant material of events that took place under the reign of Claudius from 45-54 A.D; however, one historian adds that "the greatest detail has been given in the earlier years of Tiberius and the later years of Nero." (Walker: 14). In addition to the lack of material, there are the problems of "Discrepancies in Tacitus's statements" and "the introduction of non-factual material (Walker: 2,32). The second issue, is the style and theme of his writing. His method of relating history is a cause and effect analysis (Walker: 32) of what he considers to be the important events. "In enumerating the events of each year, Tacitus frequently selects a single incident for thoroughly detailed description extending over several chapters." (Walker: 16) Books XI-XVI, where Claudius's reign would appear, the author continues to develop "the view of the principate as progressively evil." (Walker: 32) The important events that would fit into his cause and effect analysis would likely not include the Edict of Claudius. Not only is there little written about the reign of Claudius, but his decision to expel Christians that weren't Roman citizens would not be an event that would help Tacitus's argument. Even on a large scale, the expelling of Jews on the account of Christ would hardly be seen as "progressing evil". The lack of mention of the Edict of Claudius in Tacitus's Annals should be expected.
Others have tried to "rehabilitate Orosius by arguing that indirect evidence corroborates his dating of trouble in Rome..." Murphy-O'Connor does well to point out the fault in these arguments. They are not well founded, but really they are also unneeded. They make the underlying assumption that as soon as Christianity arrived, the Edict of Claudius would occur. But logic says that this does not have to be the case. Murphy-O'Connor proves them wrong; however, it makes no difference. If Christianity arrived towards the end of the 30s in Rome (Murphy-O'Connor: 141), it still may not have been until the late 40s that the disturbance was big enough to catch the eye of the emperor.
Basically the only criticism of Orosius, is that he called people Christians who at the time would still be referred to as Jews (that follow Christ). But what about the other two references? Although another date is not specifically given, Dio Cassius mentions the Edict of Claudius in the midst of other events that occurred around 41 B.C. (Although Murphy-O'Connor did not address this issue, we will ignore the idea that since there was no specified date, perhaps the reference was to another time period.) Unfortunately, Murphy-O'Connor states that "neither Suetonius nor Dio Cassius can be taken at face value." Moreover, of Dio Cassius he says, "Thus, there is the distinct possibility that Dio Cassius had to rely on inaccurate information, and of course, he may have misunderstood what he read." Later Murphy-O'Connor adds, "He was not aware of any such punishment, and so substituted what he considered a lesser penalty." (Murphy-O'Connor: 143) Basically, Dio Cassius did not believe his sources and so he simply rewrote history. Consequently, Murphy-O'Connor strings together a reconciliation of Suetonius and Dio Cassius and once again admits that it is "admittedly tenuous". His theory of the true Edict of Claudius does seem plausible, but has no effect on the outcome that we are examining.
Murphy-O'Connor has already attempted to discredit all accounts of the Edict of Claudius. He is then forced to choose between the explicit account which has base in other sources and an account that he presents as dubious and containing material that the author has made up himself. Unfortunately, Murphy-O'Connor chose the latter. By choosing the account of Dio Cassius along with the assumption that the Edict of Claudius must have happened in AD 41, Murphy-O'Connor has now enabled himself to attack the credibility of Luke.
"Luke is much less precise than appears at first sight... Moreover, the edict involved only banishment from the city, not exile from the country. We cannot assume that the expelled Jews immediately took to the boats. It is more reasonable to assume that they took up residence somewhere outside the city in order to see how the situation would develop."
Fortunately, Murphy-O'Connor has unknowingly already proven his own arguments to be unfounded.
Although, it does seem unlikely that all the expelled Jews would immediately leave, it would be smart to look back at what Murphy-O'Connor says concerning Paul and the Isthmian games in respect to a passage written by Pausanias. "Finally, it must be kept in mind that the vast numbers of non-Corinthians who came for the games were accommodated in tents, and that Paul's trade was that of a tentmaker (Acts 18:3 - cf. p. 176 below)." (Murphy-O'Connor: 17) It is remarkable then that Murphy-O'Connor never mentions that Priscilla and Aquila are also tentmakers like Paul. It makes sense for this couple, after the edict of Claudius, to travel immediately to Rome. Luke does not reference many Jews, just these two, who must have been great friends of Paul's. Paul "stayed and worked with...
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