what if paul had travelled east rather than west? 171 WHAT IF PAUL HAD TRAVELLED EAST RATHER THAN WEST? RICHARD BAUCKHAM University of St. Andrews The Jewish East For first-century Jews, Jerusalem was not at the eastern edge of a world defined by the Roman Empire, the Mediterranean world depicted in maps of Paul’s missionary travels in Bibles and refer- ence works. For first-century Jews, Jerusalem was the centre of a world which stretched as far east as it did west, and, equally im- portantly, the centre of the Jewish diaspora, which also stretched as far east as it did west. New Testament scholars rarely remem- ber the eastern diaspora. Of course, the New Testament texts give them very little occasion to call it to mind. The Acts of the Apostles, which probably more than any other New Testament document has fashioned the general impression we have of the geographical scope of the early Christian world, focuses, once the narrative leaves Palestine, exclusively on Paul’s missionary travels to the north-west and west of Palestine. But Acts in fact contains its own warning against taking this focus as more than a pars pro toto story of the spread of the Christian gospel in the early years. Its precise and accurate sketch of the geography of the Jewish diaspora (2:9-11), from Parthia in the east to Rome in the west, from Pontus in the north to Arabia in the south, with Jerusalem at the centre, is programmatic. It defines not the world that the gospel must finally reach (1:8), since in none of these directions does it reach one of the ends of the earth, as conceived at the time,1 but the Jewish world which would be reached by Jews trav- elling from Jerusalem to all parts of the diaspora.2 Just such a crowd of pilgrims as Acts 2 depicts would be present at every major 1 One of these, Ethiopia, does appear implicitly in Acts 8:39, as the destina- tion to which the Ethiopian eunuch will take the Gospel when, beyond the nar- rative, he reaches home. 2 See R. Bauckham, ‘James and the Jerusalem Church’, in R. Bauckham (ed.), The Book of Acts in its Palestinian Setting (Carlisle: Paternoster Press; Grand Rap- ids: Eerdmans, 1995), pp. 419-22. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2000 Biblical Interpretation 8, 1/2 Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved. 232.p65 171 10/1/99, 12:07 AM 172 richard bauckham festival in Jerusalem and so, surely Acts implies, the gospel would be taken home to all parts of the diaspora not just after this ini- tial preaching by the apostles at Pentecost, but continually as the leaders of the Jerusalem church continued to preach their mes- sage to the crowds in the temple court. For first-century Palestinian Jews, links with the eastern diaspora were as frequent and important as those with the western diaspora. Beyond the Euphrates in the east lived descendants of the exiles both of the northern Israelite tribes, deported by the Assyrians in the eighth century bce, and of the southern tribes, Judah and Ben- jamin, deported by the Babylonians in the sixth century bce. The largest concentrations of Jewish communities were still in the ar- eas to which their ancestors had originally been deported. The exiles of the northern tribes, not yet regarded as ‘lost’, lived mainly in north Mesopotamia (Nisibis and Adiabene) and Media,3 while the exiles of the southern tribes lived mainly in southern Meso- potamia. In a somewhat confusing passage, Josephus seems to think that the eastern diaspora, comprising the northern as well as the southern tribes, was far more numerous than the western, comprising members only of the southern tribes (Ant. 11.131-33). His depiction of the former as innumerable myriads probably reveals his desire to see in them the fulfilment of the promises to the patriarchs, that their descendants would be innumerable (Gen. 13:16; 15:5; 32:12), but, however exaggerated, it suggests the im- portance of the eastern diaspora in first-century Jewish eyes. Jose- phus also recounts (Ant. 18.311-13, cf. 379) how the two cities of Nehardea (in south Mesopotamia) and Nisibis (in north Mesopo- tamia) served as the collecting points for the temple tax contri- butions from the eastern diaspora, where the resulting huge sums of money could be kept safe until they were conveyed to Jerusa- lem along with the caravans of pilgrims, whom Josephus numbers at tens of thousands.4 For first-century Jews, the eastern diaspora was the original, bib- lical and paradigmatic diaspora. It comprised members of all twelve tribes, all twelve of whom were expected, on the basis of the prophecies, to return from exile to form the regathered and reunited Israel of the future. Whereas much of the western 3 On the Median diaspora in this period, see R. Bauckham, ‘Anna of the Tribe of Asher (Luke 2:36-38)’, RB 104 (1997), pp. 166-69, 173-77. 4 On this passage, see Bauckham, ‘Anna’, p. 174. Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved. 232.p65 172 10/1/99, 12:07 AM what if paul had travelled east rather than west? 173 diaspora resulted from voluntary migration, though deportation and enslavement played a part in its origins, the eastern diaspora was paradigmatic in that it clearly resulted, in the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, from involuntary deportation embodying God’s judgment on his people. It was therefore from the circumstances of the eastern diaspora that the Jewish theological conception of the diaspora—as divine punishment which would be rescinded in the future—derived. For these reasons the eastern diaspora had a theological and symbolic priority over the western. Communication between Jerusalem and the eastern diaspora was frequent, especially, as already mentioned, through pilgrim- age to Jerusalem and the conveyance of temple tax. There were also official letters circulated from the Jerusalem religious authori- ties, on such matters as the religious calendar, to the eastern as to the western diaspora.5 Jewish merchants travelled with ease along the major trade routes from Palestine as far as the Gulf and beyond (Josephus, Ant. 18.34), which were also the routes trav- elled by Jewish pilgrims. Natives of the eastern diaspora migrated to live permanently in Jerusalem, just as natives of the western diaspora did. (As native Aramaic-speakers, any Christian converts among the former would have been among the ‘Hebrews’ of Acts 6:1, whereas Christian converts from the latter were the ‘Helle- nists’.) It should also be remembered that, whereas Palestine’s incor- poration in the Roman Empire was a very recent development, Palestine’s participation in a cultural world which stretched east to Mesopotamia and Persia was very old and influential in count- less ways. This participation had two cultural layers: the Aramaic- speaking civilization of the Persian Empire, in which local cultures, while by no means replaced, were to some degree assimilated to an international Aramaic culture, and the Hellenization of the Middle East that followed in the wake of Alexander’s conquests, was concentrated in the Greek cities established throughout the area, and was absorbed to varying degrees by the local aramaicized cultures.6 The Romanization of the western part of this cultural world was, by comparison with Aramaicization and Hellenization, 5 Bauckham, ‘Anna’, pp. 174-76. 6 On the importance of both layers in our period, and against a one-sided emphasis on Hellenization, see A. Wasserstein, ‘Non-Hellenized Jews in the Semi- Hellenized East’, Scripta Classica Israelica 14 (1995), pp. 111-37. Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved. 232.p65 173 10/1/99, 12:07 AM 174 richard bauckham only the thinnest of veneers. Hence the demise of the Hellenistic empires, succeeded by the Parthian empire in the east and the Roman in the west, while it divided politically the world that Aramaicization and Hellenization had united culturally, by no means severed the cultural links. The Greek cities of Mesopotamia, for example, maintained close cultural relationships with those of the eastern Mediterranean. An example that nicely makes the point for our present purposes is that of the Stoic philosopher Archedemus of Tarsus who left Athens to establish a Stoic school in Babylonia.7 Thus, whether we consider Paul, native of Tarsus, as a Jew of the western diaspora or Paul, trained as a Pharisaic teacher in Jerusalem, as at home in the primarily Semitic-speak- ing religious culture of Jewish Palestine, he would have felt part of a cultural world that stretched east of Tarsus and Jerusalem to the Hellenistic cities of Mesopotamia and to those parts of the Jewish diaspora that had every claim to be considered the diaspora. Why should Paul not have thought of travelling east? Why Should Paul Have Travelled East? Paul became a Christian in Damascus, following his encounter with the risen Christ on the way there. It seems that from the be- ginning he understood this experience as a call to proclaim Jesus the Messiah to the nations (Gal. 1:16; cf. Acts 22:14-15; 26:17-18). The impression his own account gives is that, so strong was this sense of a special vocation from God and so urgent his under- standing of the task, he did not wait until he could consult those who were already apostles, but immediately set about fulfilling his call (Gal. 1:17-18). But how could he decide where to begin? It would not be surprising if he were guided by two factors: provi- dence and scriptural exegesis. He must have reflected on the fact that it was in Damascus—just outside the land of Israel—that he received his call to take the gospel to the nations.