2007-09-08

Dating the Book of Acts: 4, the late date reconsidered (1-3)

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by Neil Godfrey

Tyson has presented the selective summary of views on the date of Acts (outlined in previous 3 posts) to bring to readers’ attention the fact that the current majority view for the intermediate date for Acts (80-100 c.e.) has not always held the floor. He believes recent scholarship in a number of fields invites us to re-open the question of the second-century date for Acts, even though it has not been widely entertained now for 100 years. Tyson sees five issues as significant for this reconsideration of a late date for Acts:

  1. External references to Acts
  2. Significance of the events of 70 c.e.
  3. Bearing of the end of Acts
  4. Possible influence of Josephus on Acts
  5. Use of Paul’s letters by the author of Acts

Again, the notes here are from Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle (2006) pp. 10-23 . . . . . Continue reading “Dating the Book of Acts: 4, the late date reconsidered (1-3)”


2007-09-07

Dating the Book of Acts: 3, Evidence for the late date (Baur)

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by Neil Godfrey

Baur argued that Acts was written in the mid second century, around 140-150 C.E.

Baur saw Acts as an attempt to heal a rift in Christianity between two factions originally led by Peter and Paul. Christianity in Baur’s view had been divided between Jewish Christians who saw Jesus as the hope of their historical expectations, who held to the Torah and allowed gentiles into their ranks if they adhered to the Torah too, on the one hand, and gentile Christians on the other, who taught salvation by faith in Jesus only, and dismissed the Torah as ineffective for salvation.

Baur was influenced by the work of his student, Schneckenburger, who demonstrated extensive parallels between Peter and Paul in Acts. They both: Continue reading “Dating the Book of Acts: 3, Evidence for the late date (Baur)”


Dating the Book of Acts: 2, Evidence for an intermediate date (80-100 c.e.)

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by Neil Godfrey

In 1897 Harnack’s Chronologie was published. This raised, with respect to the date of Acts, the issues still addressed today:

The evidence of the conclusion of Acts (Chronologie) Continue reading “Dating the Book of Acts: 2, Evidence for an intermediate date (80-100 c.e.)”


2007-09-06

Dating the Book of Acts: 1, Evidence for the early date (before 70 c.e.)

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by Neil Godfrey

This is a short list points I have distilled from Tyson’s Marcion and Luke-Acts . This section will summarize the evidence adduced for an early date for the composition of Acts (pre-70 C.E. — before or around the trial and execution of Paul and the fall of Jerusalem) and the arguments against the interpretation of this evidence.

Future posts will look at evidence for:


2007-08-25

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 18g

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by Neil Godfrey

Completion of this series of section by section review and comment: Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 18g”


2007-08-24

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 18f

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by Neil Godfrey

Dehumanizing the Holocaust

Bauckham attempts to set the Holocaust in an historical niche designed to make it appear as some sort of historical syzygy of New Testament miracle stories. The conclusion readers are meant to draw is that to believe in the testimony of one leaves no excuse for disbelieving in “the testimony” of the other. This is buttressed by the claim that the uniqueness of the holocaust makes it incomprehensible — just as the miracles are incomprehensible.

Before continuing with my chapter by chapter comments of his book (how many books I have read since B’s!), I thought it worthwhile to ply a bit of historical perspective and rationality to B’s premise (which is really a wholesale deployment of Elie Wiesel‘s propaganda) by outlining some points as discussed by Norman G. Finkelstein in The Holocaust Industry. The whole notion of the “uniqueness” of the Holocaust has broader ramifications than B’s argument. Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 18f”


2007-08-22

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 18e

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by Neil Godfrey

Holocaust Testimonies (pp. 493-499)

Bauckham proceeds to wax lyrical over a paragraph of recorded oral testimony from Auschwitz survivor, Edith P. He concludes:

“The most accomplished Holocaust novel could not equal the effectiveness of that story in conveying the horrifying otherness . . . . [Her testimony] discloses to us her world, the Nazi’s kingdom of the night, in a way that no novelist could surpass and no regular historian even approach. This is truth that only testimony can give us.”

Bauckham elaborates in reverential tones speaking of how “deep” and “authentic” is the “unique” experience. Some instances:

“the deep memory reaches us and we are stunned by its otherness”

“in its visual and emotional clarity we hear an authentic moment . . . ”

“This too is ‘deep memory’ that he relives by remembering it . . .”

So how ironic to read the same reverential tones with the same “deep” and “authentic” in the following words written by a former inmate of Auschwitz (Israel Gutman): Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 18e”


Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 18d

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by Neil Godfrey

By now it ought to be obvious I can only handle Bauckham in very small doses. Maybe it’s age. I used to love downing a whole bottle of whisky straight in very short shrift but have learned to cut it back to occasional nips if I want my brain and body to survive a bit longer. Maybe that’s a metaphor for my misspent youth in the coffin of religion, leaving me nowadays only ever able to spend occasional minutes at best engaging in silly (ir)rationalizations that pass as scholarly arguments for belief in miracles and semi-human miracle performers. Anyway, if sticking at something one has promised oneself to do is a virtue then my ongoing sticking with this review bit by bit proves I am at least not totally bereft of virtue whatever my other faults. And addressing these final parts of B’s argument calls for every ounce of virtue I can muster. Must reward myself with another whisky when finished.

Testimony and its reception contd. (pp 492-493) Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 18d”


2007-08-13

Paul’s torment and notes from Hitchen’s “God is Not Great”

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by Neil Godfrey

“The essential principle of totalitarianism is to make laws that are impossible to obey. The resulting tyranny is even more impressive if it can be enforced by a privileged caste or party which is highly zealous in the detection of error. Most of humanity, throughout its history, has dwelt under a form of this stupefying dictatorship, and a large portion of it still does. Allow me to give a few examples of the rules that must, yet cannot, be followed.” (God is Not Great, p.212)

Hitchens then cites the biblical command forbidding people to even think about coveting goods. I’m not sure there is a command not to even think about it, but the principle is certainly there. The New Testament certainly echoes this with its injunction which says that to even look on a woman in the wrong way is to actually already have committed adultery.

There can only be two possible responses to such commands: Continue reading “Paul’s torment and notes from Hitchen’s “God is Not Great””


2007-08-09

Victimhood and the Sermon on the Mount

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by Neil Godfrey

There is another more subtle way that the Sermon on the Mount has the potential to cripple true believers psychologically. (I have already addressed the self-absorbed, fear-driven, irresponsible submissiveness that its supposedly noble teachings actually promote.) Some of its most exalted sayings are really guidelines for anyone taking them seriously to go through life playing the victim game. (But firstly, I am well aware that there are two types of victims: there truly are those who have been cruelly victimized, but there are also many who find the victim game an alternative to getting on with more positive and productive mentality. Unfortunately few among one of those types can tell the difference.)

Blessed are the poor, the mourners, the meek, the merciful, the pure . . . . Continue reading “Victimhood and the Sermon on the Mount”


2007-08-06

The questionable ethical standard of the Sermon on the Mount

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by Neil Godfrey

Why is the Sermon on the Mount so often upheld as the ultimate in ethics? Surely we have progressed ethically in 2000 years. Continue reading “The questionable ethical standard of the Sermon on the Mount”


2007-08-05

Novelistic plot and motifs in the Gospel of John

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by Neil Godfrey

“The narrative of the Fourth Gospel is a synthesis of two distinct stories — the cosmological tale and the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth — into one coherent narrative.” (Jo-Ann A. Brant, Divine Birth and Apparent Parents: The Plot of the Fourth Gospel, in Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative.)

The following notes, based principally on Jo-Ann Brant’s articles (the one above and Husband Hunting: Characterization and Narrative Art in the Gospel of John, in Biblical Interpretation, 1996, 205-223), looks at some ways the Gospel of John appears to draw on novelistic motifs and plots to construct it theological narrative. How the author mixes honey with his medicine. Continue reading “Novelistic plot and motifs in the Gospel of John”


2007-08-02

The subtext of Jesus’ family relationships — (2)

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by Neil Godfrey

When I wrote The subtext of Jesus’ family relationships — (1) I was looking at the Jesus who emerges from the gospels after they had achieved the status of being the definitive life of Jesus. The intention is to examine the psychology of the family relationships of Jesus. The idea was sparked by a much more accomplished psychological study in relation to Achilles and Socrates by Richard Holway. In that article I was intrigued by the what the subtext of the personal relationships implied for the values and/or experiences of those who saw these men as models of certain virtues. Achilles is semi-divine in the mythology, but whether mythological or literary, the characters are viewed as creations of the human mind and as such their actions are the products human psychological processes. Ditto for Jesus. For what it’s worth, I’m adding another scratch to the surface of this exploratory thoughts here, though by no means in the depth that Holway delved. Continue reading “The subtext of Jesus’ family relationships — (2)”


2007-07-30

From Cephas to Peter?

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by Neil Godfrey

Thanks to Josh asking if I thought Cephas and Peter were not the same, this is a fanciful think-aloud session, tossing Paul’s references and the Gospel of Mark around, to speculate how and why Cephas (Aramaic) may have been changed to Peter (Greek) . . . . Continue reading “From Cephas to Peter?”