Toto

Not everyone thinks of them as "discredited". Check out the Journal of Higher Criticism, which carries on the tradition.

Meta=>That is not an asnwer to the argument, and the belief in Jesus as real was only one of two examples. The point is when it suits his case than he thinks it logical assume that something existed prior to the first enstances we have of it, but when it sutis him that is then illogical to assume. It is logical to assume that the text of Luke/Acts was around prior to the first enstances we have of them.


Meta =>Now by "many sources" I had assumed you meant general historical sources that Luke could have used? There is a lot of evidence of such sources. Just because we don't have the documents intact doesn't mean there is no evidence of their existence. Almost all scholars agree that the fragments of other gospels represent older tradtions that existed before the enstance we have of them. And that shows up in many many sources. KOster shows this in the Diastesseron. There is good evidence for the Passion narrative in AD 50. Good evidence for Q, L, and M. So that's four right there. Than The Unknown Gospel of Papirus Egatron 2 is obviously an older version of Mark so that in itself is evidence for pre-Marcan narrative. That's 5. Than the Epistle of the Apostles, Gospel of Peter, Nichademus, all have precursors which probably date to first century. Koester shows good reasons why we don't have the actual texts. The main one being that as they are incorporated into latter works, such as Q becoming part of Matt, there is no longer any reason to keep copying them.


Meta =>the absnese of the Ignatian structure in ACTS is proof in itself that it was compossed some time prior to AD 100. The Theology of ACTS is not second century either, it is basic Pauline theology.


Meta =>that's a fallacious argument, becasue the very virst extra-biblical Christian writing we have is 1 Clement. 95 AD. So there aren't any other chances for Luke/Acts to be mentioned in the first century. By the second, the earliest is Ignatious about 110 and he was probably less influenced by the Pauline circle and moreso by the Johonine. Although he knows and likes Paul. I would have to look it up but you are probaly missing quoations form Luke/acts. And the emergence of acts of Paul and all the other Acts incdicates that the book was influential.

No mention = argument form silence.

Meta =>Somehow that paragraph didn't make sense. I dont' unerstand what you were saying. I know who Layman is!


MEta =>That is not irrelivant. It's an example of how trivial these so called "contradictions" are and how much difference they make to anything.

Meta =>No, it's a trivial argument. It is no more important than saying "Paul didn't say what kind of food they ate and Luke does." That is a good analogy because that's the nature of the "contradiction." ONe is filling gaps and the other doesn't bother to fill in the materail. Paul in writitng to the Galations doesn't bother to fill in any more than he needs to to make his point. Luke, doing history, tries to be more complete. But since Paul was there he mentions some things that Luke doesn't fully understand and so the way he fills it in may be due to an inaccurate understanding of what Paul had told him at some point. that is no big deal.

Meta =>WEll you haven't made the problems explicit enough to deal with beyond a general approach and I think mine explines the difficulties (what I just said.)

One of my profs who has become my good friend over the years orignially told me that he went to school in Ireland, than Oxford, than taught in Canada and than at Perkins where I met him. I find out years latter than in between all that he also got an extra Ph.D. in the Southern U.S. So he also lived somewhere else between Canada and Dallas. That doesn't mean he lied it just means that he trucked that time line becasue he didn't want to give me a blow by blow of his life's story.

Luke truncates the time. he doesnt' say I't was the next day that he went to Jerusalem, he just tells about it. He may have misunderstood the time line himself anyway, he wasn't there you know. So that's not a big deal.

It wasn't. It just depends upon what camp you are in. some of their assumptions were real ideological and they had a bad habit of relying upon Hegelian assumptions as much as real evidence and dismissing other possibilities becasue they were Hegelian. But they are still important and they still have a basic influence. Bautlmann was greatly influenced by them and his work is still impotant.

Hi Toto-

It only took a cursory glance for me to find these words from then interesting intro to the Journal... I believe this is what I was referring to:

This appeared in a sort of mission statement for the journal.

I should clarify that I'm certainly not against using critical means to understand the Bible. I am curious how exactly the shift that is portrayed here came about; whether or not it is a fair portrayal of the philosophical debate over higher criticism (I have only implicatory references in certain books I've read to suggest that there may in fact be problems with the methodology of the higher critics); and in evaluating the theory on its merits.

I read some articles from the site and found an even-handed portrayal of the resurrection accounts, and a more radical account of 1 Corinthians 15, among other things. Still interested- I just want to make the assumptions of the higher critics explicit before I can agree or disagree with them.

Later-
Dan

Toto

I have not forgotten this thread. I originally started looking at this question because Doherty stated that proving that Acts could be dated to 62 C.E. would tend to disprove the mythicist case. But I have decided that Doherty probably said this because he knew that Acts could not be definitely dated at 62 C.E.

First of all, if you think that Jesus never existed, or that there is a person behind the historical Jesus but he may have been born in 100 B.C.E., then the date of 30 C.E. has no particular meaning. Gospels written in 50 C.E. would have no more chance of being historically accurate than Gospels written in 35 C.E. or 150 C.E. The dating of Paul’s letters usually assumes Paul was converted shortly after Jesus died. But if there was no crucifixion, is there any basis for dating Paul’s letters to around 50 C.E.? There seems to be no secular mention of Paul, or any evidence in the text that would point to any particular date. The date of 50 C.E. sounds like a Missouri compromise – half way between the presumed crucifixion in 30, and 70, when the Romans destroyed the Temple and Mark’s Gospel was written.

So I have not reached a conclusion, but I will respond to a few points.

Layman lists a number of early Christian letters that he says use language “unique” to Acts. But there is no proof and no indication that these letters were quoting Acts – the author of Acts might have copied the language from them, or they might all be quoting earlier sources or oral traditions. Richard Carrier refers to these letters in his Formation]http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/NTcanon.html]Formation of the New Testament Canon[/url], but his conclusions emphasize the “state of ignorance we are in whenever scholars try to debate the dates of these writings”:

The Catholic New Advent Site seems to agree on the problems in Ignatius:

Since Acts by all accounts would have been written after the Gospels, certainly after Luke, this is fairly weak evidence (but hardly proof) that Acts might have existed late in the first century or early in the second.

Against this, there is the internal evidence of Acts. Layman states:

This is not internal evidence of the truth of the document. It is evidence that the document is trying to sound as if an associate of Paul’s wrote it, which is no evidence at all. You my read Acts and say that it reads like history, butRandall Helms sees it as fictional, with a clear literary structure meant to promote a particular agenda.

In his Who Wrote the Gospels, Helms lays out internal evidence that shows Luke-Acts to be a response to Marcion. Acts attempts to reclaim Paul from the heretics and promote a particular agenda – that the Gospel is meant for “all flesh” – male and female, Gentile and Jewish. For example, Acts has numerous parallels between Peter and Paul. Peter is the first to bring the Gospel to a Gentile, and Paul parallels this by converting a Jewish woman. Peter resurrects a Jewish Christian woman, and Paul resurrects a gentile male. Many other passages appear to be derived from the Septuagint.

And if Acts is a response to Marcion, the date would be close to 150.

Robert Price inDeconstructing Jesus, p. 80-1 also lists an argument which would date Luke-Acts to after 125 C.E. He cites Schmitals as showing that the idea of 12 Apostles only arose after 125 C.E. in orthodox Christian thought:

And I have not dealt with the idea that Luke shows evidence of deriving some of his history from Josephus. Why else would Luke drop the census from Matthew and substitute the census from Josephus?

[This message has been edited by Toto (edited June 10, 2001).]

If Acts contains any material derived from earlier Christian sources, especially the church in Jerusalem, Doherty's theory would fall like the house of cards it is. He is vulnerable on many, many points. I actually spent some time with his website over the weekend and was even less impressed with his case than I originally thought.

Yes, if you assume that Jesus never existed you could come up with all sorts of interesting theories Toto. Are you now arguing that we should date Paul's letters to the second-century as well? Oh my.

Well, since we are debating these issues, please let me know when you have reached some sort of conclusion. It might help focus the debate. As it is I can't help but think you are desparately searching the internet for articles and book summaries for anything that might help you argue for a late date. So far you have come up with very little.

This is one of my complaints with debating you. It's that I don't really debate you. I debate whatever links or cut and pasties you can come up with. You really don't know what you believe, but you'll throw up anything you've read that is contra to my position. The problem is you don't really understand all of these issues or the theories you are referring to, such as when you didn't understand Knox's theory on the Galatians/Marcion editing.

Those thoughts aside, I just see an appeal to authority from a SecWeb icon (and nonPhD) with minimal explanation of how this supports your point. Rather than address my specific references, you broadly allege that since something about these letters is uncertaion, my point must not be very strong.

Your appeal to the Catholic site (a rare choice for you) fares no better. What are these interpolations in Ignatius that they think are so obvious? Do they include the reference to Acts from Ignatius? Did you even find the reference to Acts in Ignatius? Have you ever read Ignatius' letter?

After all this time, and all this supposed research, this is what you have come up with? Your whole approach seems to be that although you don't know about any of the specifics, some people think Ignatius has some obvious interpolations, so you guess its possible that whatever indicates references to Acts might be one of those.

Not very persuasive.

There you go again. It is certainly not by "all" accounts that Acts was written after the "Gospels." Most scholars date Acts before the Gospel of John and shortly after Luke.

I'm not going to hunt down your links Toto. After our exchange re: Knox and his Marcion theories, I'm not even sure you are reading them for yourself and I'm sure you don't fully understand them.

Afterall, I could match you link for link, but that is not the purpose of a discussion board. A link here or there might be appropriate, but that's about all you do in this post is provide links to people who disagree with me. Well, Toto, I know that some people disagree with me. I want to know why you disagree with me.

You earlier said that you believed that the "internal evidence" was the best way to date Acts. But then you turnaround and simply ignore the "we" sections of Acts and say they are "no evidence at all."

Yes, I agree with you that the author of Acts wanted his reader to know he was a companion of Paul, but that is because he was a companion of Paul. He shows great familiarity of the locations he writes about, as well as the people who Paul interacted with. These details are at their most accurate in those "we" sections.

The only reason you have given for ignoring this internal evidence is that it doesn't fit your theory. In fact, after I demonstrated that Luke's prolouge clearly indicated a second generation Christian (rather than a third or fourth gen) I'm curious what internal evidence you are relying on for your late date? Afterall, according to you its the best way to judge the date of Acts.

Great. Now I'm given links to books. Must I order those books, wait for them to arrive, and then read them before I can respond to you Toto? I explained to you why this theory has no basis in fact and has been rejected by most historians. Rather than try and refute any of my points, you give me some links so I can order books that allegedly support your views. Have you even read those books Toto?

As for Price's reference to Schmital, it seems completely unpersuasive from the small reference you have provided. Paul refers to "the Twelve" as an authoritarian and important body in early Christianity. So do Mattew, Mark, Luke and John. I'm not sure what this great distinction is that you are referring to.

And you still haven't dealt with it.

Please provide me with the references to Matthew's census that you allege Luke "drops."

Furthermore, your use of the term "drops" suggests that Luke was aware of Matthew and used his gospel as a source. Since most scholars reject this, adopting instead the Q hypothesis, I would appreciate you defending this assertion.

Toto

Acts could contain material from earlier Christian legends without invalidating Doherty’s theory. I tried to trace the “unique” language you mentioned, but there were only phrases here and there. You should actually read Doherty's book if you want to be able to rebut his argument. You can buy it from Bede’s site.

Oh my indeed. It seems pretty clear that many scholars think Paul’s letters were tampered with in the second century. There were forgeries of Paul’s letters in the 2nd century. There is a school of thought that holds all of Paul’s letters were forged. It’s pretty hard to be certain about any of this, given the state of the evidence.

Layman – you are the one who keeps appealing to the “consensus of scholars” that finds the existence of the historical Jesus so obvious it’s not worth talking about.

And I don’t believe anything. This question is not central to my religion or lack thereof. I am exploring this as a piece of historical detective work.

I listed the quotes from Carrier to show that your alleged references to Acts in Ignatius were not that persuasive to at least one expert who has studied the matter, and that Ignatius is not a very reliable source in any case. I did read a lot of Ignatius – fascinating discussion of the early church.

Is this your point?

Acts 10:41 He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen--by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

Ignatius 3: . Again, after the Resurrection, He ate and drank with them like a being of flesh and blood, though spiritually one with the Father.

How does this prove that Ignatius read Acts? If there is more to this, you could detail it. This is pretty flimsy as “proof”. And there is no reference to the parts of Acts that tend to push the date into the mid-2nd century – taking Paul and turning him into a partner of Peter’s, emphasizing that the gospel is for both gentiles and Jews.


Picky picky picky. Okay, almost all scholars date Acts after Luke. Most scholars date Mark to around 70, Matthew about 10 years later, and Luke after that. John seems to have an earlier version and a later redaction. But it’s all informed guess work.

No, I haven’t read Knox. I haven’t located a copy of his book, and this is a part time project for me. Your version of Marcion sounds suspiciously like official church history, especially the denial that the official church came up with any new documentary support for its position. I may come back to it later. I have read Helms, who I recommend highly.

And I repeat – writing a narrative in the first person is not evidence that the narrative is true, even where there is a lot of local color and attention to detail.

I could not retype the entire argument. I am trying to demonstrate that there is no scholarly consensus that supports your theories. You are the one who continually asserts that your views are supported by a scholarly consensus, without explaining the basis for that consensus.

Price is making a distinction between The Twelve or the twelve disciples, and apostles. “Apostle” is a concept derived from gnosticism. So this would be more evidence that Acts is a reaction to gnosticism.

Either Luke knew about Matthew and substituted one census for another, or he relied on Q or some other source and inserted the census from Josephus. I thought we had enough of the census question on that other thread.

Steve Mason’s theories on Luke, as summarized by Carrier:

What census in Matthew are you referring to? Please provide me a scripture reference?

I didn't follow the other thread very closely so I'm not sure what you are talking about. But it seemed that the focus of that debate was whether Luke made a mistake by referring to the Census. That's not at issue here. He very well could have made a mistake and still written before the middle of the second-century.



[This message has been edited by Layman (edited June 11, 2001).]

If his website isn't enough to demonstrate that his arguments are even plausible, why would I waste money on his book?

You have shifted the debate and are again alleging nothing but generalities to support your position. I never said that there wasn't any editing of Paul's letters nor did I deny that there were various spurious letters written in the second century. But how in the world does this help your case? It doesn't. Have I used any forged letters of Paul in this debate to make a point? I don't think I have. Have I used anything that you are not asserting is an interpolation? Not that I am aware of.

Your debating style has devolved into, "well, we're not sure, because we know some editing took place, so anything that supports your theory must be editing and everything that supports my theory isn't."

Perhaps you are not equipped to argue at the level of specificity are are currently engaged at. Fine, but just say so and move on.

You are really being misleading here Toto, I've spelled out at length in this thread why your ideas on the dating of Acts are without merit. And at no point did I simply say that a "consensus of scholars" agreed with me on this one. I've explained my position and supporting evidence at length. You have not.

Ha ha. A historical detective? Toto, you have so obviously grasped at every straw you can find on the internet to throw at me for no other reason than you think it might prove me wrong on this issue. You even throw scholars at me, like Knox, without even understanding their theories.

If you are truly being unbiased and acting as a "historical detective" then why haven't you address the majority of my points I raised in my two-post response to your opening post? I discussed Luke's prolouge, the unity of Luke/Acts authorship, Luke's view of the church as too primitive for the second-century, Matthew's birth narrative, Papias' alleged "silence," Luke's dependence on Q, Luke's dependence Mark, Luke's nondependence on Matthew, Valentinus and the Gospel of Truth, and Luke's silence re: Paul's letters.

Neither Carrier nor the Catholic website discussed Ignatius' reference to Acts. Moreover, they don't mention the references in 1 and 2 Clement or Polycarp's letter.

But of course this is only one of many references to many authors that I offered. You've ignored the majority of my post and offered general statements about Ignatius. No mention of 1 Clement, 2 Clement, or Polycarp, as well as the other allusions.

But yes, given that these early church authors often alluded to the gospels, Pauline epistles, Catholic epistles, and Acts often without explicitly naming their sources, literary similarities and distinctiveness is a good indicator of dependence. Paul and other early Christian epistle writers did the same thing with the Old Testament. Are you now going to argue that the Old Testament should be dated to the middle of the second century?

In this specific case, I think there is a good case for literary dependence. Ignatius has placed the event in the same context as Acts, a meal shared after the resurrection. Neither Mark nor Matthew include such a meal. Luke and John both imply that Jesus did eat with his disciples. In those cases, however, the language used is very different, especially in the Greek. Luke/John only mention eating, but Acts mentions eating and drinking. Furthermore, in both cases the claim of eating and drinking with Jesus after the resurrection is linked primarly to Peter.

Hopefully I can get to 1 Clement later this week and provide even stronger examples of literary dependence on Acts.

Gee, when I allegedly appeal to a consensus of scholars -- which I haven't done re: this issue -- it's somehow inapprorpiate. But when you invent nonexistent appeals to supposedly unanimous authority -- this is at least the second time in this thread -- and I point it out, I'm just being picky.

I explained why my -- and most historians -- view Marcion in the way I described. All you have done is refer us to some books. You have failed to respond to a single one of my proffered objections to your version of the Marcion controversy. Instead, you keep on asserting and referring us to books because you know those authors disagree with my position.

You can repeat it all you want, but you haven't demonstrated that your assertion makes any sense. But to say simply assert that it's "not evidence" that the author was a part of the events described demonstrates a closed, rather than an open mind. Certainly not that of a "historical detective."

You are doing more than just trying to show that my version does not have unanimous support -- something I admitted upfront. You are obviously claiming that their objections have merit and are offered to further your point that Acts must be dated to the middle of the Second Century. Remember who started this thread? YOU DID. But whenever you start losing the argument you fall back into, "well, we can't really know you see, its all really a mystery."

Prove it.

Paul refers to himself as an Apostle on many occassions. He reacted to early stages of gnosticism in at least one of his epistles. Are you now admitting that gnosticism is uniquely a second-century development and did not exist in the first-century?

Interesting.

[This message has been edited by Layman (edited June 11, 2001).]

Toto

Layman - you answered so fast I didn't realize you had responded.

May I point out that your arguments against the idea that Acts was a mid-2nd century invention are generalities - mere assertions that "[t]he Tubingen approach to the book of Acts did not survive the criticisms of scholars such as J.B. Lightfoot and Albrecht Ritschl. The assumption that the late-first-century and early-second-century church was torn by factions was shown to be unfounded" with a cite to a book that I will have to track down.

But when I cite a book by another scholar, you whine about not having access to it, having to order it and read it before you respond.

You have never "spelled out" what is wrong with the theory, just that your authorities reject it.

So we have a battle of authorities, and a major research project to try to sort it out.

I did try to trace other examples of "literary dependence", and I find phrases like "from darkness to light", which hardly seem to prove anything. If you think there are literary dependences that prove your case, you will have to spell them out. I also note that Clement II and Valentinus are dated to close to the mid 2nd century, and cannot prove a much earlier date for Luke-Acts.

You argued extensively that the prologue to Acts indicated a 2nd generation Christian, not that far removed from the apostolic age. But this was after Rodahi had listed a cite from Alfred Loisy arguing that the prologues to Luke and Acts showed that both were written in two stages. You have not explained why you reject a two-stage theory of Luke or Acts.

Your arguments seem to assume that there is some evidence that Luke-Acts was written by a companion of Paul. I find that improbable, and the scholars I read reject it. I suspect that your case is based on your faith, and not the evidence.

I am sorry you can't get someone with more time and expertise to debate with you. I suspect those people don't hang out on this board.

I have to get some work done.