Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Old note: Belongs as a tag. There is already the same name among the tags.
A Defense of Richard Bauckham’s Philosophy of Testimony, Part 2
In this series of posts I am addressing the criticisms levelled by Neil Godfrey at Richard Bauckham’s philosophy of testimony, as outlined in ch.18 of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Here I am responding to the observations found in this post: Continue reading “Bauckham: reply 2 to JD Walters”
Weeden has presented reasons for thinking the story of Jesus, the son of Ananus, that has come to us through Josephus, played a significant part in customizing details of Mark’s gospel of Jesus. Indeed, this entire section of Josephus‘s Wars that cites 8 warning signs of the imminent fall of Jerusalem has several intriguing overlaps with not only Mark’s gospel, but also with distinctive passages in Matthew, Luke and Acts also.
What follows is only for those already willing to be persuaded that Luke-Acts is in part dependent upon the writings of Josephus. I’m not arguing the case in this post, but jotting down first-thoughts on the signs, two in particular, in Josephus and what seems like it might be their resonance in Acts. Notes for casual discussion or later consideration, nothing more yet. The Josephan passages are copied from Chapter 6 of Wars on the ccel site. Continue reading “Signs in Josephus, Signs in Gospels and Acts”
The following hyperlinked notes (continued from Tyson) outline evidence from Knox, O’Neill, Enslin, Walker, Leppa, Aejmelaeus, Goulder and Pervo for collectively “mounting a serious counterargument” that the author of Acts knew and used Paul’s letters. Continue reading “Dating the Book of Acts: 6, the late date reconsidered (5. Paul’s letters)”
Continuing notes from Tyson’s Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle (2006) pp. 14ff . . . . .
Pervo writes that Luke would have used Josephus as a source quite differently from his other sources such as Mark, Q, Paul and the LXX. He did not quote Josephus or imitate his style. But there are good economic arguments for believing Luke used Josephus as a source and if so, that would mean that he must have written after 93-94 c.e.
Evidence for Luke’s use of Josephus (Pervo): Continue reading “Dating the Book of Acts: 5, the late date reconsidered (4. Josephus)”
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:
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)”
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)”
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.)”
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:
There are two different stories, their differences well known, of the circumstances surrounding Paul’s conversion and the later Jerusalem Conference in the New Testament.
The Two Conversions
In the Book of Acts (9:1-30) we read that
In the Epistle to the Galatians (1:13-24) we read a different story.
One can conclude that the author of Acts did not know of the Galatians letter. But I think it more likely that the author of Acts composed a narrative polemic against the letter. Each of the differences can be accounted for as a polemical response to some point in the Galatians account. . . . Continue reading “How Acts subverts Galatians”
I’ve just begun to catch up with “Parallel Lives: The Relation of Paul to the Apostles in the Lucan Perspective” by Andrew C. Clark and, well, I’m biased since I love almost any book helping me explore how texts work. The work is mainly about how and why the author has set up Peter and Paul as parallel lives, but the discussion begins with comparisons of Jesus and John the Baptist in the first few chapters of Luke, and also has a closer look at Plutarch’s Parallel Lives.
But one set of details I was not expecting to see discussed here was the function performed by the characters of Stephen, Philip and Barnabas. I had seen at least the first two as something of transition figures to advance the plot of Acts, but Clark has helpfully filled in the mass of detail needed to explain exactly how they work as such. Continue reading “Stephen, Philip and Barnabas (link fixed)”
Some of my recent posts on the shipwreck scenes in Acts have been referred to another site where they have been critiqued without link to this site thus making it impossible for my original pieces and their contexts to be crosschecked against that review. (Why do some sites do that? Seems the essence of unethical netiquette to me!) Continue reading “Ancient historians’ accounts of shipwrecks”
Paul leaves for Rome initially in a ship from Adramyttium — a port city in the Troad, at the base Mount Ida, the gods’ grandstand from where they viewed the action of the Trojan war. This means that every “we” passage in Acts begins with a sea voyage associated with Troy. Continue reading “A Ship of Adramyttium”
Let’s get some Jewish and historical balance to my notes on Paul’s shipwreck. Paul was not the only Jew sailing to Rome who suffered shipwreck. Compare historian Josephus’s description of his own voyage, from his Vita (Life): Continue reading “The shipwrecks of Josephus and Paul (Part 3)”
Why does the Christian author of Acts bother to tell readers (in 28.11) that Paul’s ship had the figurehead of two pagan gods?
Why does the author of Acts use words that are only elsewhere found in fictional shipwreck stories in Homer?
Is there anything truly distinctive about Paul’s shipwreck to set it apart from fiction? Is Paul’s adventure at sea anything other than stereotypical? Continue reading “Acts 27-28 an eyewitness account? (Part 2)”