Gospel Doctrine: Paul’s Non-Biblical Sources

Paul’s Non-Biblical Sources
By John Tvedtnes

[Supplement to Gospel Doctrine New Testament lesson 31]

Paul, also known by his Hebrew name Saul, was a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5-6; Galatians 1:13-14). Though born in the city of Tarsus in Cilicia (southern Turkey), he studied in Jerusalem under the famous rabbi Gamaliel I [1] and was in the employ of the high priest when the risen Christ intervened to chastise him for persecuting Christians (Acts 8:3-4; 9:1-5; 22:3-8).

The Pharisees were noted for the various teachings of what they termed “the oral law,” said to have been given to Moses atop the mount at the same time as the written law (Pirqe Abot 1:1), so some of Paul’s quotes may derive from those traditions. [2]

Having been raised in the diaspora, in a Greek-speaking city, Paul also became acquainted with some of the writings of various Hellenistic (Greek) philosophers and historians, and quoted some of their sayings. Thus, St. Jerome (ca. A.D. 340-420), in his Letter 70 to Magnus, 2, wrote”

The Apostle Paul also, in writing to Titus [Titus 1:12], has used a line of the poet Epimenides: [3] “The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.” Half of which line was afterwards adopted by Callimachus ... In another epistle Paul quotes a line of Menander of Athens [4] in his Thais, Frg. 218: “Evil communications corrupt good manners” [1 Corinthians 15:33]. And when he is arguing with the Athenians upon the Areopagus he calls Aratus as a witness citing from him the words “For we are also his offspring” [Acts 17:28]. [5]

Hesiod [6] may have authored those words, which were borrowed by Epimenides and Callinachus, but were also used by Aratus [7] and Cleanthus. [8]

In Acts 26:14, Paul places a quotation from Euripides (ca. 480-406 B.C.), Bacchae 794-5, in the mouth of Christ, “it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” In Romans 1:32, he quotes a passage from the Pseudepigraphic Testament of Asher 6:2, while in Romans 12:21, he draws from Testament of Benjamin 4:3 and in 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, he quotes Testament of Gad 5:6-7. [9] Romans 8:38 and 9:5 contain quotes from 1 Enoch (61:10 and 77:1, respectively). [10]

Romans 11:15-24 has parallels in the olive tree parable of Zenos, preserved in the Book of Mormon (Jacob 4:14-5:77). [11]

Paul claimed to have received “the gospel” (meaning “good news”) directly from Christ, and not from mortals (Galatians 1:11-12), so while most of the sayings he attributes to Jesus are found in the gospel accounts, he may have received some of them directly from the risen Lord or, as some scholars believe, from a written collection of Jesus’ sayings that were written down even before the composition of the four “gospels” (cf. John 20:30; 21:25). [12] Several such collections were found during the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Some of Paul’s statements, while similar to material found in the Old Testament of and other works known in his day, may have been totally independent of written sources. The reader will have to decide if Paul is deliberately quoting another source or unconsciously reflecting that source or just saying the same thing without having any earlier source in mind. [13]

This has a direct bearing on critics’ argument that the Book of Mormon borrows passages from the Bible, especially from the New Testament. [14] Like other New Testament writers, Paul tends to quote Old Testament passages from the ancient Greek translation know as the Septuagint. Consequently, he sometimes quoted passages found in the Apocrypha that were included in that Bible Version. [15]

Further examples could be given, but this will suffice to demonstrate that Paul used a variety of sources only some of which are found in the Bible.

[1] Gamaliel was more tolerant than Paul, recommending leniency for Jesus’ apostles when they appeared before the Sanhedrin of which he was president (Acts 5:33-41). Gamaliel’s grandfather, Rabbi Hillel, is the one who formulated the “golden rule” cited by Christ (Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31), “Whatever is hateful to thee, do not unto thy fellow man: this is the whole Law; the rest is mere commentary.”

[2] In Galatians 1:14, Paul mentions the “traditions of my fathers” that he was taught. For the “traditions of the elders/fathers,” see Matthew 15:1-6; Mark 7:1-13; 1 Peter 1:18.

[3] Epimenedes lived ca. 600 B.C.

[4] Menander lived 342-291 B.C.

[5] Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series (reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 6:149. The first part of Acts 17:28 (up to the word “being”) draws on Epimenides (ca. 600 B. C.), writing about the Greek god Zeus in his poem De oraculis/peri Chresmon: ““They fashioned a tomb for thee, O high and holy one, the Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies! But thou art not dead; thou livest and abidest forever; for in thee we live and move and have our being.” Paul quoted the part about the Cretans in Titus 1:12.

[6] Hesiod lived about a century before Epimenides.

[7] Bible scholars generally attribute the quote to Aratus, who lived in Cilicia (where Paul’s home town Tarsus was located) during the late 4^th and early 3^rd centuries B.C., from his Phaenomena 5. Lines 1-5 of Phaenomena read: “Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken. For every street, every market-place is full of Zeus. Even the sea and the harbour are full of this deity. Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus. For we are indeed his offspring.”

[8] Hymn to Jupiter, this being the Latin equivalent of Greek Zeus.

[9] These are two of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, attributed to the twelve sons of Jacob. Portions of the Testaments were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, but Greek and Old Church Slavonic versions were known prior to the discovery of the scrolls in 1947. The concept of overcoming evil with good, found in Romans 12:21, is also found in a passage from Zenos’s parable of the olive tree, Jacob 5:59. Paul’s admonition to “flee fornication” (1 Corinthians 6:18) is paralleled in Testament of Reuben 5:5 and Testament of Benjamin 7:1.

[10] This is another book known for some time and later attested among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[11] For evidence of the parable’s antiquity and a discussion of other ancient prophets who used it in their own teachings, see John A. Tvedtnes, “Borrowings from the Parable of Zenos,” in Stephen D. Ricks and John W. Welch (eds.), The Allegory of the Olive Tree: The Olive, the Bible, and Jacob 5 (Salt Lake City: Deseret and FARMS, 1994).

[12] The statement attributed to Jesus in Acts 20:35 is not found in any of the gospel accounts, though its closest parallel is found in Matthew 10:8. In Romans 14:14, Paul alludes to something he learned from Christ that is also not found in the gospel accounts.

[13] See, for example, the quote in 1 Corinthians 9:10, which has no parallel in other biblical books.

[14] In Part II of their book Covering Up the Black Hole in the Book of Mormon, Jerald and Sandra Tanner list various New Testament passages that they claimed were borrowed by Joseph Smith for use in the Book of Mormon. In my review of their work (Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 3 [1991]), I demonstrated that at least some (and perhaps all) of these passages originally came from the Old Testament and would have been available to the Nephite writers who used them. The Tanners subsequently maintained that Joseph Smith used passages from the Apocrypha when he produced the Book of Mormon. Matt Roper and I responded to this argument in our article “’Joseph Smith’s Use of the Apocrypha’: Shadow or Reality?” in Review of Books on The Book of Mormon 8/2 (1996). See also my response to Wesley P. Walters’s The Use of the Old Testament in the Book of Mormon, in Review of Books on The Book of Mormon 4 (1992).

[15] For example, Paul quoted Ecclesiasticus (Ben-Sirach) 28:7 in Acts 17:30, while in Romans 12:15, he quoted 7:34 from that same work. In Romans 13:1, he quoted another book from the Apocrypha, Wisdom of Solomon 6:1-2.