TedM

I disagree. First, he was called directly by God through Jesus, same as in the Epistles. Your mother's womb just deflects from the circumstances that were the same: Paul was busy persecuting Christians when Jesus was revealed to him. Paul indicates his learning was advanced in Galatians, and implies same in Acts as a pharisee. Why are you diminishing the similarities by pointing to other issues?


First, what does it mean to be stoned? If it means they throw rocks at you until you die, then I guess you've made a great point. I don't think it has to mean that though.

If I've misstated things by calling his rivals 'Jewish Christians', though I don't think I have, then just drop the Christians part. What you end up is again the same between Acts and Paul's Epistles: Jewish rivals who didn't like what he was teaching. RESEMBLANCE.



This is IMO a very weak argument. I've heard it here from half a dozen people and am not going to address it again other than to say that Paul got a message directly from God in both places. Seems a no-brainer to me, but I guess not for everybody.


No contradiction there. What's the issue? Obviously there were Jewish Christians in Acts, and Paul had Jewish converts. Paul traveled with Jewish believers too.


What's the main argument in favor of that?

TedM

Do you mean wiki can't be cited? Why is that a rule? Are the references cited in wiki considered to be of no value?

And, your last statement is bizarre. How do you know it proves any such thing?

andrewcriddle

On the traditional dating of Marcion, I find this unlikely. (I am aware some scholars would date Marcion earlier.)

The author of Acts seems to know too much about the world of the 1st century to be plausibly writing in the mid 2nd century.

Andrew Criddle

TedM

Then I guess I misinterpreted this exclamation by none other than Vorkosigan himself:

http://www.freeratio.org/thearchives...t=44253&page=3


My impression may be wrong. By 'fringe viewpoint' I mean a small minority hold the view, whether scholars or not.


How does creating unnecessary 'contradictions' help with the propaganda? That's what doesn't add up to me. I don't see how it is helpful, but rather it is hurtful to the cause of consistency in the message. The against the grain would seem to have meaningful implications, but all so often it seems the skeptics never want to go down that kind of road. I would think those seeking knowledge would find this kind of thing to be helpful in the same way a Sherlock Holmes would, but too often skeptics have requirements that are so strict they would be abysmal failures as detectives.



I've done no such thing. I didn't get into the adequate explanation for Aretas because my point was to simply say that your example was not helpful to your case.

TedM

Since you asked - HERE iS CORROBORATION - AND A LOT OF IT - BETWEEN ACTS AND THE EPISTLES:

http://www.freeratio.org/thearchives...ad.php?t=44253

TedM

I know people here don't care much for JPHolding's argumentation, but his comments here seem to me to be reasonable against the claim often made that Paul would not have had the power to arrest christians in Damascus. Here's his reply:

http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/actspaul.html

TedM

I have a couple of related questions:
Some have claimed the author used Josephus to get his material. Is there a strong argument against that? Are ALL of the historical references in Acts also found in Josephus' writings, or are there some that don't appear to rely on Josephus at all? Why does wiki say that MOST scholars reject the direct reliance between Acts and Josephus?

The 2nd century side--does the author make any 'slips' that would have revealed events that could only have been known in the second century?

What I find fairly convincing is the combination of historically verified titles and places along with the large amount of corroboration with the Pauline epistles, ALONG WITH the differences with same, which suggest both a knowledge of the culture AND of Paul and early christian locations/people. It seems more likely that such a combination would be based on actual knowledge rather than a later attempt to create a history out of Josephus, Paul's writings, and other sources.

I think we can perhaps dismiss the idea that Acts was a complete work of fiction by using common sense: What would the early Christian history have been like, if written in mid to late 2nd century, by the same author who wrote GLuke? Well, it seems most likely that someone trying to create early Christian origins out of nothing could have done a MUCH MUCH better job by telling us where each of the 11 disciples preached as they spread out to the ends of the earth. Yet Acts doesn't do that--only touches on a few of them, but primarily focuses on Paul once he is converted. Acts was about the spread of the gospel starting with the believers receiving the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem -- why doesn't the author of Luke tell us more about where Phillip, Thomas, Matthew, John, Peter, and the others went? Why focus mainly on Paul if it is all made up?


If the reality was that Paul DID exist and was the primary reason for the spread of Christianity to the Gentiles, then we would expect Acts to talk a lot about Paul. But, if that same person writing Acts had access to the epistles - we would NOT expect him to show the peculiar differences that we find along with the many points of agreement. NOR would we expect the WAY in which things agreed. For ex: the name Saul is mentioned in Acts, but not the Epistles. Yet, Paul does say he was from the tribe of Benjamin in Phillipians. It just so happens that the first great king of Israel - King Saul -- was of the tribe of Benjamin. Neither Acts nor the Epistles make this point--but it provides a certain amount of corroboration that neither claim was made up or used the other one.. One item like this can be dismissed, but it happens OVER AND OVER. Was the writer of Acts just cleverly disguising his use of the epistles? If so, why include the OBVIOUS points of contention? Makes little sense. Simplest explanation is that the author was familiar with the same people & places & traditions he was writing about.

Toto

I think so. {splutter} is usually a term of sarcasm.

That thread goes back to 2003. This is the second time you have tried to revive it.

I continue to find Layman's take unpersuasive, and I don't see the point of recycling old arguments. Do you really have anything new to say?

TedM

I think you misunderstood Vork's honest appraisal as sarcasm. Laymen got your wheels to turning too. He made a convincing case that either the writer of Acts had the epistles and intentionally changed things, as you seem to prefer to believe, or he had knowledge of Paul's activities either from other sources or from personally having known him, but not directly from the Epistles. No longer would people here say with any authority that Acts and the epistles were so different that there was no corroboration between them, and they might as well both have made them up independently.


I just made a general statement about the idea of independent corroboration, and then asked:

"Is there a good counter-argument to the independence of Acts and Paul's epistles? "

You then brought up Layman:

I still don't see it that way. It requires what looks like both cleverness and stupidity. This is the same problem I have with the 'whole cloth' invention theory for the Testimonium. I always seem to run into a brick wall with you and others when I go down that road though. It seems like everyone wants to just dismiss the whole thing without producing a plausible explanation. They prefer to say someone 'intentionally rewrote parts' but without providing a good motivation for doing so when pressed for details. WHY would 'Luke' mess up the Damascus timeline and the missionary timelines -- obvious 'blunders' to the critics like yourself? Was he cleverly intertwining people and places and events from Paul's letters in ways that were easily overlooked by the casual reader while simultaneously messing up main events that were so obvious and visible? How does that make any sense at all such that you see it as the 'most likely conclusion'?

I tend to believe that if the internet doesn't have a short summary of the problems of historicity of Acts other than what I'm seeing on Wikipedia, then there really is VERY LITTLE BASIS for concluding that Acts was 1. made up 2. written in the 2nd century and 3. not based on historical events, esp as they pertain to Paul. Is the internet behind the times? You've mentioned a few books and others(maybe you) have said that Acts is 'pure fiction'. That is an OUTRAGEOUS claim if there is no support for it. Is the support really only to be found in a book? Isn't the argument for that GOOD ENOUGH to be summarized on the internet? I believe it would have to be. IF there's nothing in the internet in support, I suspect there really is not much to the argument.

TedM

This expresses my feelings/reactions to the we passages perfectly:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/acts.html