An Unbelievable Yarn
Paul escapes murderous Jews in Jerusalem – three times?
Episode 1 – The whole city fails to kill Paul?
After several days in the city of Jerusalem, and participation in a four-man Nazerite vow intended to prove his kosher credentials (Acts 21.23-26), Paul is denounced by "Jews from Asia". They seem to know a lot about him. Perhaps they are the same Jews who have already "stoned Paul to death" at Lystra? (Acts 14.19).
Paul is accused of bad-mouthing the law "everywhere" and polluting the temple with Greeks. Evidently, not James, nor the elders, nor the "thousands" of Jesus converts, say a word in Paul's defence.
Christian fellowship in action, eh?
Bizarrely, "all the city" is animated against Paul, dragging him from the temple, the doors of which are shut in some curious symbolic gesture. After all, what exactly has been proved rather than alleged? But the mob is unstoppable. Oddly, if we for a moment entertain the notion that this is anything other than Christian histrionics, the murderous rabble fail even to seriously damage the apostle.
Time itself is warped: "While they were trying to kill him" (Acts 21.31) news of the riot reaches the guard commander; he assembles officers and troopers; the squad rush to wherever Paul is being "almost murdered." Yet how long would it take a sicarius – a dagger man – to cut someone's throat?
Rescued by (good) Romans from the clutches of the (bad) Jews, Paul is taken into detention where he reveals that he is not an Egyptian revolutionary (Acts 21:38; copied from Antiquities 20.169) but a "free born Roman citizen" (as if).
How on earth was Paul's claim of Roman citizenship verified, for verification was surely necessary or anyone might have made that claim?!
In transit (from the "stairs of the castle"), Paul is given leave to "address the people", reduced to a "great silence" with a gesture from his hand. A highly polished speech of self-justification follows. The Jewish chorus predictably respond with "Away with him", echoing the words used previously at the trial of Jesus before Pilate (Luke 23.18). Religious theatre was never better than this.
 Saved from the blood-thirsty Jews. As if.
Episode 2 – The Sanhedrin fails to kill Paul?
Bizarrely, the one vital snippet of information that Paul withholds at his first encounter with the "chief captain" of the Romans ("I am a citizen of Tarsus, a city of Cilicia") is his Roman citizenship. Only the later threat of a thrashing elicits this tidbit. Though the commander is now "afraid," Paul remains in custody.
The next day our hero is stood before the Jewish council, the Sanhedrin, though the charges against him remain opaque. Could a junior officer really order the Sanhedrin to meet? Once again, an echo of that irregular meeting of the council that tried Jesus.
No trial actually occurs. Apparently, by insulting the High Priest and claiming to be a Pharisee, Paul causes uproar in the Jewish council. Paul is struck on the mouth (as Jesus was struck in the mouth, John 18.22). "You whitewashed wall," says Paul (Acts 23.3), regurgitating the "You whitewashed tombs," put into the mouth of Jesus (Matthew 23.27)
The Pharisaic scribes, like Pilate at the trial of Jesus, "find no evil in this man." The meeting dissolves in disorder and, oddly, the Roman commander fears that council members will "pull the apostle into pieces." Paul is again taken into "protective custody."
This sets the scene for the next incredible installment.
 Inciting the Jewish Council to lynch law. As if.
Episode 3 – Sworn fanatics fail to kill Paul?
It seems that even within the mighty fortress, defended by a cohort of Roman soldiers, our hero is still not safe from the scheming of dastardly Jews. Hiss. Above forty raging fanatics "bind themselves
under a great curse" not to eat or drink until they have killed the
apostle.
How do we know this? Well, “it just so happens” that at this juncture Paul has a nephew in the city! What, all this has been happening and his sister has not once come to see him?!
It also just so happens that this young fellow "overhears" of the plot to kill his uncle – an incredible lapse of security on the part of the would-be assassins!
Incredibly, this nephew gains immediate access to “uncle Paul” in his fortress cell and reveals the plot to him. Incredibly, a centurion complies with Paul's instruction to escort the youth to the commander. Incredibly, the commander believes implicitly all that he hears from the boy and calls out the greater part of the garrison to provide an imperial guard for his Jewish trouble-maker (or has he already metamorphosed into a Christian grandee?). Incredibly, they are despatched that very night on a forced march halfway across the province. Dream on.
As a final touch in this other-worldly fantasy, "Luke" even reproduces the letter purportedly written by the commander in Jerusalem and delivered to Felix the governor in Caesarea!
"Claudius Lysias, to his Excellency the governor Felix, greetings. This man was seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them when I came upon them with the soldiers and rescued him, having learned that he was a Roman citizen. And desiring to know the charge for which they were accusing him, I brought him down to their council. I found that he was being accused about questions of their law, but charged with nothing deserving death or imprisonment. And when it was disclosed to me that there would be a plot against the man, I sent him to you at once, ordering his accusers also to state before you what they have against him." – Acts 23.26-30.
Perhaps the commander's secretary was a secret Christian and had taken a file copy?
In fact, the words of "Claudius Lysias" are merely an echo of words used previously by Luke, placed in the mouth of Pontius Pilate at the trial of Jesus:
"Then Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people [i.e. the Jews], and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. When I examined him before you [the council], I did not find this man guilty of anything you accused him of doing. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, he has done nothing deserving death. I will therefore have him flogged and release him.”
– Luke 23:13-16.
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Copyright © 2010
by Kenneth Humphreys.
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